272 



LAKE ERIE. 



man ever possessed. The next day we reached 

 Utica, and coming to Lockport, we saw a 

 masterpiece of human industry, in the canal 

 having been cut through a solid rock of fifteen 

 feet deep, and three miles long. The water 

 is here raised sixty-five feet, by means of a 

 chain of locks, which may be considered a 

 work of the first magnitude, and one of the 

 greatest of the kind in the world. The canal 

 terminates at Buffalo, and has given to the 

 town a commercial importance, bustle, and 

 activity, from its becoming the great thorough- 

 fare between the lower country and Lake Erie, 

 the state of Ohio, and the rest of the western 

 territory. Of the ultimate effects of this canal, 

 and the spirit for such undertakings which it 

 has diffused throughout the whole country, it 

 is impossible to form an adequate conception. 

 " The imagination is startled," says a writer, in 

 the North American Review, (the first literary 

 periodical publication of the United States,) by 

 its own reveries, as it surveys the coasts of 

 Erie, Huron, and Michigan, and traverses the 

 rich prairies of Indiana, or the gloomy forests 

 of Ohio. But we firmly believe that every 

 bright anticipation will be converted into facts, 

 and that our country will hereafter exhibit an 

 inland trade, unrivalled for its activity, its 



