CANAL. 



159 



an accurate description of the form of tlie animal, 

 with some account of its mores and properties — 

 and I shall keep out of view as much as possible 

 a technology which frequently bewilders, and a 

 minuteness which always disgusts 



LETTER XXXVIII. 



Utica, August, 1 820. 

 My Dear Sir, 



Mr. Robert Fulton, the inventor of steam 

 boats, and the greatest mechanician of the age, 

 estimated, from the licences granted at the cus- 

 tom house, that 400,000 tons of commodities are 

 annually transported on the waters of the Hudson ; 

 and from a comparison between the country 

 trading on that river, with the territory embraced 

 by the western canal, he supposed that one million 

 ot tons would be conveyed every year on the lat- 

 ter. A toll of 50 cents a barrel, or 25 cents a 

 hundred, on commodities, would amount on a 

 ton from Buffalo to Albany to five dollars, and 

 would thus produce the enormous income of five 

 millions of dollars annually. 



The only doors of escape from this conclusion^ 

 must be one or the other of these positions i-**- 



