What is called the Pennsylvania canal is a long line of 400 miles,
starting from Philadelphia, and ending at Pittsburg on the Ohio. It
was begun simultaneously with several other works, at the expense of
the state of Pennsylvania, in 1826. It is not entirely a canal; from
Philadelphia a railroad 81 miles in length, extends to the Susquehanna
at Columbia. To the Columbia railroad, succeeds a canal, 172 miles
in length, which ascends the Susquehanna and the Juniata to the foot
of the mountains at Holidaysburg. Thence the Portage railroad passes
over the mountain to Johnstown, a distance of 37 miles, by means
of several inclined planes constructed on a grand scale, with an
inclination sometimes exceeding one tenth, which does not, however,
deter travellers from going over them.[BQ] From Johnstown a second
canal goes to Pittsburg, 104 miles. This route is subject to the
inconvenience of three transhipments, one at Columbia at the end of
the railroad from Philadelphia, and the others at the ends of the
Portage railroad, one of these may be avoided by means of two canals
constructed by incorporated companies, namely, the Schuylkill canal,
which extends up the river of that name, and the Union canal, which
forms a junction between the upper Schuylkill and the Susquehanna. The
distance from Philadelphia to Pittsburg by this route is 435 miles, or
35 miles more than by the other route.
The Pennsylvania canal, begun in 1826, was finished in 1834. The State
has connected with this work a general system of canalization, which
embraces all the principal rivers, and especially the Susquehanna, with
its two great branches (the North Branch and the West Branch), and also
works preparatory to a canal connecting Pittsburg with Lake Erie, at
Erie, a town founded by our Canadian countrymen, and by them called
Presqu'île. Pennsylvania has executed, then, in all about 820 miles of
canals and railroads, of which 118 are railroads, at a cost of about
25,000,000 dollars, exclusive of sums paid for interest. Average cost
per mile, 35,000 dollars; average cost per mile, of canals, 32,500;
average cost per mile of railroads, 48,000.
This is much more than the cost of the New York works, although the
dimensions of the works are the same, and the natural difficulties
were not greater in one case than in the other; it is owing to bad
management in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvanians had no Clinton to
guide them. An unwise economy, forced upon the Canal Commissioners by
the legislature, prevented them from securing the services of able
engineers, and for the sake of saving some thousands of dollars in
salaries, they have been obliged to spend millions in repairing what
was badly done, or in doing badly what more able hands would have
executed well at less cost.