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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



necessary to guard with scrupulous care, and, not unfrequently, 

 at enormous expense, against those floods, which, pouring a tor- 

 rent into a canal, and tearing down its banks, might at once 

 destroy the navigation and inundate the country. 



Moreover, it is found that canals depending on rivers, fre- 

 quently, like the rivers themselves, want water in the season when 

 it is necessary. Indeed, to suppose the water in a river, when 

 turned into a canal, will remain the same, would lead to serious 

 disappointment. 



Much must be allowed for evaporation, and, notwithstanding 

 the utmost care, more will filter through the sides and bottom of 

 a canal than those of a river, which are generally saturated. 



Thus, then, two prominent evils present themselves in feeding 

 from rivers, viz., in spring, they pour in too much water, and can 

 afford none in autumn, when it is most needed. There is still 

 another evil, which though not so imminent, becomes eventually 

 of serious moment. 



When the country shall be cultivated, streams swollen by 

 showers will bring down mixed with their waters a proportion of 

 mud, and that, in the stillness of a level canal, will subside, and 

 choke it up. It is also to be noted by those who shall construct 

 canals in this country, that the true character of a river cannot 

 now be known. Large tracts (for instance, west of the Genesee), 

 which appear as swamps, and through which causeways of logs 

 are laid for roads, will become dry fields, when no longer shaded 

 (as at present) by forests impervious to the sun. 



In the progress of industry, swamps (the present reservoirs of 

 permanent springs that burst out on a lower surface) will be 

 drained, whereby many of those springs will be dried. Of such 

 as remain, a part will be used to irrigate inclined planes. 



Moreover in every place tolerably convenient ponds will be 

 collected for mills and other machinery, from whose surface, as 

 well as from that of the soil, the sun will exhale an ample tribute 

 of vapor. 



Thus the summer supply of rivers will be in part destroyed, 

 and in part consumed, whereby their present autumnal penury 

 must be further enhanced. But in the spring, the careful hus- 

 bandman and miller will open every ditch and sluice to get rid of 

 that water, which though at other times a kind friend and faith- 

 ful servant, is then a dangerous enemy and imperious master. 



Of course, much of what is now withheld for many days, will 

 then be suddenly poured out. The torrents must therefore rage 

 with greater fury hereafter than they do in the present day. 



Considerations like these, while they cast a shade over many 

 contemplated enterprises, give by contrast a glowing hue to that 



