8 Inland Navigation of the 



exist in the general government, or it should be construed into 

 a necessary preparation for future defence. In this last light, 

 in truth, it may be considered as especially important. 



The communication between the Delaware and Chesapeake 

 Bays, has been under more fortunate auspices. It has been 

 intrusted by the States of Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsyl- 

 vania, to a chartered company, which has undertaken, in good 

 faith and with much spirit, the objects of its incorporation. 

 This canal will, in consequence, be finished and navigable by the 

 close of the year 1828. It is calculated for vessels drawing seven 

 feet of water, and the locks are twenty-two feet in breadth, and 

 one hundred feet in length between the gates. It lies eight 

 feet above the high tides of the contiguous bays, and has, there- 

 fore, but one lock at each extremity, besides the tide locks. 

 To effect this plan, there is necessarily a deep cut nearly four 

 miles in length, and seventy-six feet in depth at the highest 

 part of the ridge. The whole canal is less than eighteen miles 

 in length. 



The navigation of the Chesapeake is safe and uninterrupted 

 as far as the Capes of Virginia : within these is situated the 

 town of Norfolk, a commercial mart of some importance. The 

 harbour of this city has been connected with the sounds that 

 extend along a great part of the coast of North Carolina, by a 

 canal passing through a vast morass called the *' Dismal Swamp,'* 

 whence the name of the communication is derived. 



Albemarle, Pamlico, and Core Sounds afford an uninter- 

 rupted land-locked communication as far as Beaufort, in North 

 Carolina. But to render the passage more safe and certain, it 

 has been proposed to cut a canal from Plymouth, through 

 Washington and Newbern to Beaufort. From this last town, a 

 range of islands extends, enclosing sounds, to within a few 

 miles of the mouth of Cape Fear River, with which a commu- 

 nication may be opened at a small expense. Near the mouth 

 of Cape Fear River, stands the town of Wilmington, from 

 which a canal is projected to Georgetown, situated on the river 

 Pedee, in South Carolina. A canal has also been surveyed 

 from this last-named place to Charleston, parallel to the coast. 

 From the harbour of Charleston, a passage exists behind Edisto 



