INTRODUCTION. 123 



shown, and the pecuniary results to be realized from their further and necessary 

 increase, were also predicted. The comparative advantages of the enlarged 

 Erie canal, as an outlet for the trade of those interior communities, to the Atlan- 

 tic, over its present course down the Mississippi to the gulf of Mexico, were also 

 dwelt upon ; and the importance of completing that work with all practicable 

 despatch, was earnestly urged upon the legislature. The important commercial 

 effects to be produced by completing the different lines and systems of artificial 

 communication then in jirogress through those inland states, were also adverted 

 to, together with the fiscal and political advantages to be derived by this state in 

 procuring the transit through its territory for all time to come, of the immense 

 trade of this vast interior region. 



In accordance with the conclusions of this report, a law was passed in 1838, 

 appropriating four millions of dollars for the prosecution of the enlargement of 

 the Erie canal. Laws were also passed at the same session, loaning the credit 

 of the state to the Catskill and Canajoharie, the Auburn and Syracuse, and the 

 Ithaca and Owego railroad companies, to the extent of eight hundred thousand 

 dollars, and modifying the loan to the New- York and Erie Railroad Company. 



An obvious propriety requires, that the writer of these notes should pass with- 

 out comment, over the period that remains to be filled up with the progress of inter- 

 nal improvement. Samuel B. Ruggles was appointed canal commissioner in 1839, 

 to fill the place rendered vacant by the widely lamented death of the venerated 

 Stephen Van Rensselaer. In 1840, Asa Whitney, Simon Newton Dexter, David 

 Hudson, George H. Boughton and Henry Hamilton, became canal commission- 

 ers. The present board consists of Jonas Earll junior, James Hooker, George 

 W. Little, Benjamin Enos, Stephen Clark and Daniel P. Bissell. In 1840, the 

 conditions of the loan to the New- York and Erie Railroad Company were fur- 

 ther modified, and appropriations were made to carry on the construction of the 

 canals ; and during the three years, from 1839 to 1842, all those works were 

 vigorously prosecuted. 



