HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



727 



constructing wooden locks proved a severe loss to the company, 

 as all the original locks at Little Falls, German Flats, and Kome 

 rotted away in about six years. The facilities afforded by these 

 companies were undoubtedly inadequate to the demands of the 

 rapidly growing western section, and accordingly an active agi- 

 tation finally began for some more extended means of com- 

 munication. 



The early work was, as we have seen, entirely in the direction 

 of the improvement of natural channels, the extent of artificial 

 channels for the whole route from the Hudson river to Seneca lake 



Fig. 46 Enlarged lock used on Erie canal. 



being only 15 miles. About 1803, however, the project for an 

 artificial canal connecting Lake Erie with tidewater in the Hud- 

 son was broached by Gouverneur Morris, whose name should not 

 be overlooked in an account of early canal history. In 1803 

 Morris and Simeon DeWitt passed an evening in Schenectady 

 and in the course of the conversation, as detailed by DeWitt, 

 Morris mentioned the project of " tapping Lake Erie " and lead- 

 ing its waters in an artificial river directly across the country 

 to the Hudson river. 



DeWitt considered that the intermediate hills and valleys 

 would be insurmountable objects, but Morris's answer was that 

 the object would justify labor and expense. 



DeWitt had then long been Surveyor-General of the State and 

 was well acquainted with its topography to the west bounds of 

 the military tract, but had no special knowledge of the country 

 west of the military lands, and he naturally supposed that the 

 rivers ran in deep valleys to Lake Ontario and between them 

 were ranges of hills. In a paper on The Origin and History 

 of the Measures that Led to the Construction of the Erie Canal, 



