WESTERN CANAL. <J 



may either descend by water into Lake Ontario 

 by the way of Oswego, or you may proceed by 

 the way of Three River Point to the Oneida Lake, 

 and, pursuing the waters of Wood Creek, re-enter 

 the Great Canal a few miles west of Rome — thus 

 performing, in the latter case, a voyage of circum- 

 navigation round an immense island — or^'Oii may 

 ascend the Junction river, formed by the Canan- 

 daigua outlet and Mud Creek, as far as Lyons — 

 or you may proceed up the Seneca river to the 

 Cayuga lake as far as this place, which is distant 

 about tv/enty-eight miles from the head waters of 

 the Susquehannah — or you may continue your 

 course up the Seneca river through the locks and 

 canals of the Seneca Lock Navigation Company, 

 as far as Geneva, and from thence 40 miles to the 

 southern extremity of the Seneca Lake. Who 

 would have thought of such various and vast fa- 

 cilities of communication created by the Western 

 Canal ? From Schenectady to the south end of 

 Cayuga or Seneca Lakes, you may proceed by 

 an uninterrupted navigation to the extent of near 

 250 miles^ — which will be enlarged when the canal 

 reaches the Genesee river, forty miles through the 

 interior of the most fertile country in tlic world. 

 Imagination, in this case, lags behind reality, 

 and the utmost stretch of poetic vision becomes 

 embodied into oxistrnce. I passed from Monte- 



