380 
during that period, becomes in fact an 
injurious addition to the real expense of 
the undertaking. 
2. The present population of the 
United States, compared with the extent 
of territory over which it is spread, does 
not, except in the vicinity of the sca- 
ports, admit that extensive commercial 
intercourse within short distances, which, 
in England and some other countries, 
forms the principal support of artificial 
roads and canals. With a few excep- 
tions, canals particularly cannot in Ame- 
ce he undertaken with a view solely to 
+o intercourse between the two extremes 
of and along the intermediate ground 
nich they occupy. It is necessary, in 
order to be productive, that the canal 
Should open a communication with a 
natural extensive navigation which will 
flow through that new channel. It fol- 
Jows that whenever that navigation re- 
. Guires to be improved, or when it might 
at some distance be connected by an- 
other canal to another navigation, the 
first canal will remain comparatively un- 
productive, until the other improvements 
are effected, and till the other’canal is 
also completed, Thus the intended canal 
between the Chesapeake aiid Delaware, 
will be deprived of the additional benefit 
arising from the intercourse between New 
York and the Chesapeake, until an in- 
Jand navigation, shall have been opened 
_ between the Delaware ana New York. 
Thus the expensive canals completed 
around the falls of Potomac, will become 
more and more productive in proportion 
to the improvement, first of the naviga- 
tion of the upper branches of the river, 
and then of ‘its communication with the 
Western Waters. Some works already 
executed are unprofitable, many more 
remain unattempted, because their ulti- 
mate productiveness depends on other 
improvements, too extensive or too dis- 
tant to be embraced by the same indivi- 
duals. 
The general government can alone re- 
move these obstacles. 
With resources amply sufficient for the 
completion of every practicable improve- 
ment, it will always supply the capital 
wanted for any work which it may un- 
dertake, as fast as the work itself can 
proceed, avoiding thereby the ruinous 
loss of interest on a dormant capital, and 
reducing the real expense to its lowest 
rate. 
With these resources, and embracing 
the whole Union, it will complete on any 
given line all the improvements, however 
Public Roads and Canals in the United States. | [Nov. yp 
ed 
distant, which may be necessary to rene 
der the whole productive, and eminently 
beneficial. . 
The early and efficient aid of the fede- 
ral government is recommended by still 
more important considerations. The in- 
conveniences, complaints, and perhaps 
dangers, which may result from a vast 
extent of territory, can no otherwise be 
radically removed, or prevented, than by 
opening speedy and easy communications 
through all its parts. Good roads and 
canals will shorten. distances, facilitate 
commercial and personal intercourse, and 
unite. by a still more intimate community 
of interests the most remote quarters of. 
the United States. No other single ope- 
ration, within the power of government, 
can more effectually tend to strengthen 
and perpetuate that union, which secures 
external independence, domestic peace, 
and internal liberty. 
With that view of the subject, the facts 
respecting canals, which have been col- 
lected in pursuance of the resolution of 
the senate, have been arranged under the 
following heads: 
1. Great canals, from north to south, 
along the Atluntic sea-coast. 
2. Communications between the At- 
Jantic and Western Waters. 
3. Communications between the Atlan- 
tic waters, and those of the great lakes, 
and river St. Lawrence. 
4. Interior canals. ; 
Great Cantls, along the Ailaniic Sea 
Coust. 
The map of the United States will shew 
that they possess a tide-water inland pa- 
Vigation, secure from storms and ene- 
mies, and which, from Massachusetts to 
the southern extremity of Georgia, is 
principally, if not solely, interrupted by 
four necks of land. ‘These are the isth- 
mus of Barnstable; that part of New 
Jersey, which extends from the Rariton 
to the Delaware ; the peninsula between 
the Delaware and the Chesapeake; and 
that low and marshy tract which divides 
the Chesapeake from Albemarle Sound, 
It is ascertained that a navigation for sea 
vessels, drawing eight feet of water, may 
be effected across the three last; and a 
canal is also believed to be practicable, 
not perhaps across the isthmus of Barn- 
stable, but from the harbour of Boston to 
that of Rhode Island, The Massachu- 
setts canal would be about twenty-six, 
the New Jersey about twenty-eight, and 
‘each of the two southern about twenty- 
two miles in length, making altogether 
less than one hundred miles. 
Should 
.* Oe 
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