82 INTRODUCTION. 



Mississippi, which were the most obvious channels, were held by foreign powers, 

 and neither their enterprise nor the condition of their colonies favored the spirit 

 of competition which had been awakened in the new republic. 



New- York furnished a navigation through the Hudson, one hundred and 

 eighty miles from tide water, and facilities for constructing a continuous channel 

 for inland navigation across an almost level isthmus, which separated the great 

 eastern lakes from the valley through which that river poured its deep and 

 ample volume into the ocean ; an isthmus, which in its various width no where 

 exceeded three hundred and sixty miles. 



The proximity of the great lakes to the valley of the Hudson, was understood 

 at a very early period. Governor Burnet, in 1720, found the Six Nations receiv- 

 ing from French traders by the way of Montreal, merchandise which had been 

 carried there from Albany. The friendship of the Indians naturally followed 

 this commerce. Burnet, with a view-to detach the Iroquois from the French 

 interest, caused a fort to be erected at Oswego, and trading houses to be built at 

 the mouth of the Oswego river, " on account of its water communications, and 

 for the facility of transportation between the lakes and Schenectady, there being 

 but three portages in the whole route, and two of them very short."* Dr. Cadwal- 

 lader Colden, then surveyor-general of the province, addressed to governor Bur- 

 net a memoir on the fur trade, which contained an account of the western rivers, 

 portages and lakes, and in which we find this very bold suggestion : " If one con- 

 siders the great length of the river (the Mississippi), and its numerous branches, 

 he must say, that by means of the river and the lakes, there is opened to his view 

 such a scene of inland navigation as cannot be paralleled in any part of the 

 world."f Kalm and Carver, early European travellers, were struck with the 

 same peculiar features of our territory. Sir Henry Moore, governor in 1768, in 

 a speech to the provincial assembly, noticed the difficulties of trade with the Iro- 

 quois, in consequence of the obstructions in the navigation between Schenectady 



♦ Dunlap. t C. D. Colden's Memoir of N. Y. Canals. 



