Census, 1880,

IV, Rept. on
Canals,

I-3.

urged, but this plan would have diverted traffic to the St. Lawrence and Montreal. The project of a canal around Niagara Falls failed to secure support for the same reason. The Erie Canal was three hundred and sixty-two miles in length and the cost of building averaged $20,000 per mile. The tolls of the first nine years' use amounted to $8,500,000, and more than covered the initial expenditure. The enterprise paid dividends from the start, and the stockholders were abundantly recompensed for their venture. The secondary advantages to the state were far greater. Branch canals connected the main trunk with Ontario, Champlain, and Seneca lakes. The freightage on a ton of goods by wagon road was thirty-two dollars for a hundred miles; by canal the same distance cost one dollar per ton. The produce of the lake region Wages and poured down this channel to the sea. Wealth and popula- Prices, tion grew by leaps and bounds. The villages of Syracuse, 376-378. Rochester, and Buffalo waxed thriving towns, and New York City became the leading port of the United States. From Chicago to the sea via the Mississippi and New Orleans was sixteen hundred miles, from Chicago to Montreal by way of the lakes and the St. Lawrence was the same distance, while the route to New York by the Erie Canal was but twelve hundred miles. The problem proposed by Washington was solved. The industrial and political allegiance of the upper Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic seaboard was determined by the opening of this commercial highway between the two sections.

Great Am.

Canals,
I, Ch. IV.

The Erie Canal threatened to deprive Philadelphia of Hurlbert, the major part of her western trade. To keep her hold on Pittsburg and the Ohio Valley, Pennsylvania undertook (1826) to construct a system of canals and portages from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, following the Susquehanna, Juanita, Conemaugh, Kiskiminetis, and Allegheny rivers. Connection between the Delaware and the Susquehanna U.S. Census, was made by a horse railroad. The summit of the moun1880, IV. Rept. on tain range between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown was Canals, crossed by the Allegheny Portage Railway, a series of 6-8.

Roberts,
Anthracite
Coal In-
dustry,
Ch. IV.

inclined planes over which the boats, placed on wheeled cars, were drawn by stationary engines. This transportation system was complete by 1834. In October of that year the keel boat, Hit and Miss, made the trip from the Lackawanna down the Susquehanna to Columbia, and up the canal to Hollidaysburg. There the owner expected to sell his boat and transport his goods by wagon road. But boat and cargo were transferred to the incline railway and successfully freighted to the western division of the canal, Thence the astonished navigator pursued the water route to Pittsburg and St. Louis. A rush of business poured along the new highway to the West, and the Portage Railway was overwhelmed with traffic so that the wagon road was in constant requisition. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, the Pennsylvania Canal was a successful rival of the Erie, and Philadelphia was able to hold a considerable portion of commerce with the interior. The total cost of this transportation system, $10,038,133, was met by the state of Pennsylvania.

A promising venture for private transportation companies was offered in eastern Pennsylvania. The anthracite coal district lay in the mountain valleys where rise the Susquehanna and Lackawanna, the Schuylkill, the Lehigh, and the Lackawaxen. Coal is so bulky a commodity that it can be transported only by water. None of the rivers, not even the Susquehanna, furnished sufficient current, except during spring floods, to float coal barges to tide water. Within five years of the day when "stone coal" was successfully used in the Philadelphia. iron works, a canal was built (1828) connecting the Wyoming district with the Delaware by way of the Lackawaxen. Canals along the Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna were built about the same time. New Jersey built the Delaware and Raritan Canal (1834-1838) at a cost of $4,735,353. The ship canal between Chesapeake and Delaware bays was a more difficult enterprise, because it must be cut through solid rock, and neither Delaware nor Maryland would assume the task. It was begun