canal, with all its immense embankments, noble aqueducts, and massive locks.

The line of the great western canal begins at Buffalo; then coasting the Niagara river till it meets the Tonawanta creek, pursues its bed for eleven miles, whence it takes a north-easterly direction to the township of Cambria, passing through the county of Niagara, and thence east through Genessee, Monroe, Ontario, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Madison, and Oneida. At Rome it approaches the Mohawk river, and thence, traversing Utica, follows the south side of the river till it joins the Hudson, at a position in the vicinity of Albany. The whole distance is three hundred and sixty three miles, and it has been divided into three sections. The first extends from the embouchure on the Hudson to Utica, one hundred and nine miles; the second, thence to Montezuma, ninety six; the third, thence to Buffalo, one hundred and fifty eight. On the first and second sections a very imperfect navigation has existed for some time. In the year 1792 the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company' was incorporated for the purpose of improving the navigation of the Mohawk and Seneca rivers, and opening a communication between both, by Wood creek and the Oneida lake. The company called Mr Weston, an English engineer, to their assistance; but the low state of their funds caused them to limit their operations to the Mohawk and Wood creek, which approaches within a very short distance of the former; and accordingly the locks at the Little Falls were built. The navigation remained in this situation for many years, obstructed by the rapidity of the river, and the periodical lowness of the water in the creek, which made it necessary to lighten the boats, and produced various other difficulties.

The first legislative proceeding on the subject was a resolution of the 4th February 1808, to explore and survey the country between lake Erie and the Hudson, for the purpose of ascertaining the most eligible and direct route for a canal between the tide-waters of the Hudson and lake Erie.' The motion was made by Joshua Forman, the member from Onondaga, in the state legislature. In a note communicated to Mr. Haines, and added to the Introduction, it is stated, that this motion was not carried into effect. It appears, however, that six hundred dollars were appropriated, and that Mr James Geddes, an engineer, made a running level of the whole route, and discov

ered various important facts connected with the general subject of his inquiries. The project appears to have slept in the profoundest repose, till the patriotic suggestions of Thomas Eddy, Dewitt Clinton, and Jonas Platt once more called it from its slumbers. In March 1810, judge Platt, then a senator, offered a resolution that Gouverneur Morris, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Dewitt Clinton, Simeon Dewitt, William North, Thomas Eddy, and Peter B. Porter be appointed commissioners to explore the whole route, take surveys, &c. The motion was seconded by Mr Clinton, and passed unanimously. The report of the commissioners, in pursuance of it, contained a full and convincing statement of the advantages of the proposed canal, and of its ultimate practicability. To this report we may probably ascribe much of that interest, manifested by a large portion of the people in favor of the measure, at a subsequent period. The commissioners discouraged the plan of a sloop navigation, and recommended that of barges, of from twenty to sixty tons. Indeed, by that plan, in order to save the expense of lading and unlading at either end. of the canal, the cost would have been doubled. The peculiar adaptation of the Ridge (an elevation which crosses the whole of the western part of the state of New York, and descends gradually by successive plains to lake Ontario) to canal. operations, was remarked. But the commissioners, considering that lake Erie was several hundred feet above the Hudson, suggested the application of the principles of an inclined plane. The saving of lockage, and the difference in the weight of the articles sent from, and brought into the interior, together with the advantage of the pure waters of the lake, gave some plausibility to an idea, which has been since abandoned. The commissioners, with great frankness, stated some difficulties in the route of the canal, the passage of the Seneca lake by an aqueduct eighty three feet high, and that at the mouth of the Cayuga, where the elevation is one hundred and eighty three feet. The valley is a mile broad, and a mound of sufficient heigth and breadth' to cross it was a work of enormous dimension. The expense of the Erie canal was estimated at $5,000,000, and that of the Champlain canal at $1,000,000. An enterprise of this description, to be undertaken by a state, whose permanent annual revenue was $274,359 77, whose whole revenue was only $619,299 29, and its expenditure

* See Watson's History of the Western Canals, p. 70.

nearly equalling its receipts, whose population only amounted to 959,220 souls, was certainly one of no trifling character. It was therefore determined, not only on these grounds, but on others connected with more general views of public benefit and the national policy, to seek assistance from congress, as well as from those individual states, which were to be immediately benefitted. Among these the legislatures of Massachusetts and Ohio came forward with the most prompt and honorable expression of their opinion. Various negotiations and attempts proved fruitless to get from the United States, even a grant of land, to become absolute only upon the completion of the canals; till the commissioners, wearied by their assiduity, boldly submitted the question, whether the state of New York will continue a supplicant for the favor, and a dependent on the generosity of the union, instead of making a manly and dignified appeal to her own power.' That state decided for the latter, and it is now useless to inquire what the general government by that act may have lost, or New York acquired of wealth and honor.

6

Though the attention of many eminent men was still steadily fixed on that great object, which they conceived would be of material utility to the present generation, and confer infinite blessings on their posterity, the years of 1813-14-15 passed by, without witnessing the progress of the enterprise. The calamities of war, of which New York was then the theatre, the doubts of many good men as to the feasibility of the plan, and the sufficiency of the resources of the state, and the dissensions of party, in which unfortunately the canals became involved, almost entirely retarded their progress during the period we have mentioned. Among the enlightened friends of the canal policy of the state was the late Robert Fulton, a man, whose name is identified with that of his country, whose inventions, valuable as they are, were only the earnest of what he contemplated, whose benefactions to his country will be celebrated by every American, as long as the Mississippi shall bear her floating palaces upon her bosom, or roll her rich tribute to the ocean. In his letter of Dec. 8, 1807, to Mr Gallatin,* he demonstrated the superior advantage of canals over roads; and, taking the Lancaster road as an example, he showed that a ton, which cost ten dollars per one hundred miles for wagoning, might on a canal be carried for one dol

*See American Register, vol iii p. 532.

lar; and that for thirty five dollars a ton, which must be paid for three hundred miles on the best of roads, the same could be boated three thousand five hundred miles, and thus 'resources be drawn from the centre of this vast continent.' He al so entered into a very nice calculation to prove, that if canals were made with the surplus revenue of the government, the interior would be supplied cheaper with foreign articles, than if the duties were taken off, and transportation by roads continued. In the letter which he wrote to Mr Gouverneur Morris, at that time president of the board of canal commissioners, he applies the former calculations to the New York canal, and points out the great revenue to be derived from it, in a manner equally novel and striking.*

Mr Haines supposes that there are two thousand sloops on the Hudson, of forty five tons on an average. The customhouse, we understand, affords no accurate information on this subject; and, as it is possible that this amount is something too large, we will take Mr Fulton's calculation, made seven years since, of four hundred vessels of sixty tons burthen. The result will not affect the integrity of Mr Haines' calculation, which finally rests on a transportation of 450,000 tons per year. The truth, in our opinion, is a medium between both.

'If Hudson's river,' says Mr Fulton, collecting freight from its surrounding country, and an interior not more distant than Cayuga or Ontario, now bears on its waters near 400,000 tons per annum, where shall the mind be arrested? On what number of tons shall it dwell, when coming from the population of the next twenty years, and the countries which surround lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, and a canal of three hundred miles through a fertile country? Compared with the trade now on Hudson's river, it cannot be less than 1,000,000 tons each year; and for the following reasons: where the canal unites to the Hudson's river the man who lives ten miles from the river, and ten from the canal, will, when he has his produce in a wagon, go direct to the river; but he who lives thirty miles from the river, and five from the canal, will carry it to the canal; and he, who lives fifty miles from the river, will go thirty to the canal ; he, who lives three hundred miles from the river, will wagon his produce one hundred miles to the canal. Thus the canal would draw in the trade of a country forming a triangle with a base line two hundred miles long, and from thence to the apex three hundred miles ; equal to a range of country

See the Life of Robert Fulton, by Cadwallader D. Colden, p. 275.

three hundred miles long and one hundred miles wide: or thirty thousand square miles: equal to acres 19,200,000

Lake Erie will draw in the trade for one hundred miles round its margin; Huron and Michigan from a like distance; lake Superior from one hundred and fifty miles; all of which may be estimated at

30,000,000

Total 49,200,000

a quantity, if I recollect right, not far short of the whole of England.' Colden's Life of Fulton, p. 281.

We may then fairly presume, that, in the lapse of a few years, the canal would produce five millions of dollars; thus quickly reimbursing the capital expended, and giving the state a noble revenue to be employed in other and greater improve

ments.

Mr Haines, from the amount of goods transported to Pittsburg and westward, from the number of tons already carried on the river, and from various other facts, which he has collected and exhibited in a very forcible manner, concludes that in a short period the amount of tonnage on the canal will be about a million; and when we contemplate the rapid increase of our population, the immense extent of country tributary to this canal, startling as is the proposition, we are not prepared to doubt it.

Such were the views entertained by some on the subject of internal improvement. At length, in February 1816, an appeal was made to the people; a meeting was held in the city of New York; it was large and respectable, and an able memorial, drawn up by the present chief magistrate of that state, was adopted and received numerous signatures. Though many of the best men then opposed the canals, its friends were not disheartened; and the final success of the project is doubtless to be attributed in a very considerable degree to the zeal and perseverance of that gentleman. From this moment the business proceeded with a rapid, but cautious step, till we now almost witness its completion, and the successful issue of a costly, but grand experiment. It is with such a prospect in view, and after having given a calculation as to the amount of tonnage on the canal, that the commissioners break forth in the following animated conclusion :

Standing on such facts, is it extravagant to believe, that New York may look forward to the receipt, at no distant period, of one million dollars, net revenue, from this canal? The life of an indi