A. L. Bishop — The State Worls of Pennsylvania. 161 



entire expense of effecting the improvements as submitted by the 

 committee was 60,870 pounds. 



In accordance with this report and in harmony with the popular 

 sentiment, an Act* was passed on the 13th of April, 1791, appro- 

 priating 23,320 pounds for local improvements. The work author- 

 ized to be done consisted principally in removing obstacles from 

 the rivers and otherwise making them more navigable, and in 

 building roads to connect the links along the natural lines of water 

 communication. The money appropriated for these purposes was 

 required to be expended by the Governor contracting "with individ- 

 uals or with companies." 



Another important transportation enterprise originating early 

 in the history of Pennsylvania was the Union canal between the 

 Schuylkill and the Susquehanna. The advantages to be derived 

 from opening such a communication had attracted the attention of 

 enlightened men by the middle of the eighteenth century. In 

 1762, David Rittenhouse and Dr. William Smith surveyed and 

 levelled a route for a canalf between these rivers via the Swatara 

 and Tulpehocken creeks, and the practicability of building it was 

 satisfactorily demonstrated. This was probably the first scheme 

 of its kind to be seriously discussed in the colonies,:|: and it was 

 to a similar route that William Penn had referred in 1690. In 

 1769 and 1770, a committee of the American Philosophical Society 

 re-examined the original surveys and three years later the legisla- 

 ture appointed a committee to do like wise. § All agreed upon the 

 one' route for the canal. The formidable nature of the proposed 

 works under colonial economic conditions, their novelty in this 

 country, and still more the outbreak of the Kevolutionary war, pre- 

 vented their immediate construction. 



At length by Act of September 29th, 1791,|| a company was 

 incorporated to open a canal and lock navigation between the 

 Schuylkill and the Susquehanna by the route already determined. 

 The intention of later extending the work to the western and 



*La.ws (Ms.), No. 4, p. 188. 



f Haz. Reg., I, pp. 409-10. Tanner, Canals and Railroads of the United 

 States, p. 95. 



X Haz. Reg., I, p. 409. Hiilbert, Historic Highways, xiii, p. 22. 



§ Breck, Sketch of Internal Improvements already made by Pennsylvania, 

 p. 57. Carey, Brief View of Internal Improvements, p. 2. 



||LaA\'^ (Ms.), No. 4, p. 234. 



