172 A. L. Bishop — The State Works of Pennsylvania. 



sylvania; and of tlie urgent necessity of keeping pace with the 

 states to the north and to the south to prevent commercial extinc- 

 tion.* As a preliminary step to the system of transportation 

 improvements which they felt to be impending, the committee 

 urged the legislature to consider favorably the bill providing for 

 the appointment of a board of commissioners. After numerous 

 discussions, it passed both housesf and received the approval of 

 Governor Shultze on March 27th, 1824.$ 



This act authorized the governor to appoint three commissioners 

 to explore routes for a canal from the East to Pittsburg. Three 

 possible routes were to be examined,^ — one via the waters of the 

 Juniata and Conemaugh rivers ; a second through the west branch of 

 the Susquehanna, the Sinnemahoning and the Allegheny; the third, 

 via the upper waters of the Schuylkill, Mahony creek, the Susque- 

 hanna, the Moshannon or Clearfield and Black Lick creeks, the 

 Conemaugh and Allegheny rivers, xilso the country between Phila- 

 delphia and the Susquehanna was to be explored. 



* "They are sensible that the period has arrived when Pennsylvania is 

 called upon by every consideration of interest, duty, and honor, to bring into 

 active exertion those financial and geographical means with which she is 

 endowed by a bountiful Creator. 



On the north side of Pennsylvania, before the lapse of many months, New 

 York will have united by a canal of more than 400 miles in length the 

 Hudson River with Lakes Champlain and Erie. On the south side of the 

 state, Maryland and Virginia have projected a noble scheme of uniting the 

 Potowmac with the Ohio. These improvements, so honorable to the enter- 

 prise of the respective states, and so useful to our common coimtry, as per- 

 manent sources of national riches and aggrandisement, should excite a spirit 

 of emulation, and induce Pennsylvania to create improvements of a similar 

 character, and endeavor to fix within her own limits, and direct to her own 

 seaport, at least a portion of that trade and wealth which awaits the enter- 

 prise of those states who establish easy and cheap communications with the 

 vast populations rising in the West. . . . Noiseless and modest she may 

 continue to move, but unless she awakes to a true sense of her situation, 

 and ascends to times and circumstances, she will be deprived of the sources 

 of piddic prosperity, her career of wealth will be less progressive than that 

 of other states, and instead of regaining the high commercial rank she once 

 held, she will be driven even from her present station in the system of the 

 Confederacy."— From Report of Committee, in J. H. Rep., 1823-24, p. 164. 



f At the third reading in the legislature the vote stood 53 yeas, 34 nays. — 

 J. H. Rep., 1823-24, p. 915. 



XJ. H. Rep., 1823-24, p. 1101. 



