440 Expedition to the 



part of the vast basin of the Mississippi, will find its way to 

 the ocean, through that river; consequently, that the centre 

 of civilization and wealth for this great fertile valley, will 

 be placed somewhere on the banks of the Mississippi. At 

 the present time, for a considerable part of the year, merchant 

 vessels of three, four, and five hundred tons burthen, propel- 

 led by steam, are arriving almost daily at the falls of Ohio 

 and at St. Louis, in eighteen or twenty days from New Or- 

 leans. The extensive forests, and the inexhaustible mines of 

 coal distributed along all the ramifications of this great river, 

 ensure the continuance of the means for steam navigation, 

 by which the productions of other countries will be circu- 

 lated through every part of this extensive system of inland 

 communication. 



The great chain of the Alleghanies, spreading and becom- 

 ing more elevated in the southwest, must always present an 

 obstacle to easy and direct communication between the mar 

 itime parts of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and 

 Georgia, and the valley of the Mississippi; unless a free inter- ' 

 course is established, by means of roads and canals, which 

 may probably be effected. 



In the middle states the Hudson, the Delaware, and the 

 Susquehanna have their sources in the great secondary for- 

 mation, and traversing the whole primitive and transition of 

 the Alleghanies, discharge their waters into the Atlantic, 

 Vessels of several hundred tons, ascend the Hudson to Albany, 

 on the northwestern side of the Alleghany mountains; thence, 

 an easy communication will hereafter be established along 

 the Great Canal and the Lakes, with an extensive portion of 

 the Mississippi basin, north of the fortieth degree of north 

 latitude. The facilities for transportation by this route, and 

 the easy communication by means of the national road, and 

 the turnpike from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, will ensure a 

 constant intercourse and some community of interest between 

 the Atlantic states and the countries west of the Alleghanies. 



The vallies, every where interspersed with this group of 

 mountains, are fertile, and many of the ridges have soils, 

 capable of supporting a scattered population. Unlike the 

 Rocky Mountains, which must always constitute an almost 

 impassable natural boundary, this range has no wide and 

 desolate wastes along its base, where the permanent habita- 

 tions of men can never be fixed; rising in no point to the 

 limits of perpetual frost; its sides are always accessible, clo- 

 thed usually with forests, and even its broad and level sum- 



