United states of America, IS 



Susquehannah, the Allegany, and the St. Lawrence, and their 

 auxiliary and connecting waters, and by a great avenue or state 

 road from the Hudson to Lake Erie." 



The lateral canals mentioned in the above extract, belong to 

 another branch of our subject. This, together with the ac- 

 count of the remaining plans of communication between the 

 Atlantic and Western States, we shall reserve for another paper. 



The great canal of the state of New York terminates ia 

 Lake Erie, from which it opens a passage for barges of an 

 hundred tons in burden. From the eastern extremity of this 

 lake, an uninterrupted line of internal seas extends to the 

 furthest limit of Lake Superior. The shores of these vast 

 bodies of fresh water embrace a circuit of many thousand miles, 

 every part of which is accessible for vessels of size fitted to 

 bear the tempestuous weathers of these lakes. But one shore 

 of the most of these lakes is occupied by another nation, whom 

 proper considerations of policy will urge to divert the trade 

 into the channel of the St. Lawrence. Much of the shores of 

 these lakes, too, is unfitted in soil or climate to support a dense 

 and wealthy population. The most important extrinsic source 

 of the trade of the New York Canal is therefore to be sought 

 in the states that lie between the great lakes and the Ohio, and 

 even in the extension of artificial navigation to the new coun- 

 tries west of Mississippi. Of these states, Ohio is alone in a 

 position that can enable it to do much at the present period. 

 Of all the states of the Union, it is as yet the only one that 

 has imitated, on a broad scale, the policy of the state of New 

 York, in pledging its resources, in property and revenue, to pay 

 the interest upon, and redeem loans to be applied to, internal 

 improvement. With funds thus raised, a canal has been com- 

 menced, and is rapidly making from Cleaveland on Lake Erie 

 to the junction of the Scioto River with the Ohio; another is 

 projected and actually commenced, from the navigable waters 

 of the Maumee, which fall into Lake Erie, to those of the 

 Miami, a branch of the Ohio. What has been executed of 

 the first of these, has already produced a revolution of the 

 trade of the state ; as the tobacco that formerly descended the 

 Mississippi to New Orleans, has been forwarded on cheaper 



