INTRODUCTION. 123 
shown, and the pecuniary results to be realized from their further and necessary 
increase, were also predicted. 'The comparative advantages of the enlarged 
Erie canal, as an outlet for the trade of those interior communities, to the Atlan- 
tic, over its present course down the Mississippi to the gulf of Mexico, were alsc 
dwelt upon; and the importance of completing that work with all practicable 
despatch, was earnestly urged upon the legislature. The important commercial 
effects to be produced by completing the different lines and systems of artificial 
communication then in progress through those inland states, were also adverted 
to, together with the fiscal and political advantages to be derived by this state in 
procuring the transit through its territory for all time to come, of the immense 
trade of this vast interior region. 
In accordance with the conclusions of this report, a law was passed in 1838, 
appropriating four millions of dollars for the prosecution of the enlargement of 
the Erie canal. Laws were also passed at the same session, loaning the credit 
of the state to the Catskill and Canajoharie, the Auburn and Syracuse, and the 
Ithaca and Owego railroad companies, to the extent of eight hundred thousand 
dollars, and modifying the loan to the New-York and Erie Railroad Company. 
An obvious propriety requires, that the writer of these notes should pass with- 
out comment, over the period that remains to be filled up with the progress of inter- 
nalimprovement. Samuel B. Ruggles was appointed canal commissioner in 1839, 
to fill the place rendered vacant by the widely lamented death of the venerated 
Stephen Van Rensselaer. In 1840, Asa Whitney, Simon Newton Dexter, David 
Hudson, George H. Boughton and Henry Hamilton, became canal commission- 
ers. The present board consists of Jonas Earll junior, James Hooker, George 
W. Little, Benjamin Enos, Stephen Clark and Daniel P. Bissell. ‘In 1840, the 
conditions of the loan to the New-York and Erie Railroad Company were fur- 
ther modified, and appropriations were made to carry on the construction of the 
canals ; and during the three years, from 1839 to 1842, all those works were 
vigorously prosecuted. 
