Virginia, formerly the first State in the confederacy, but now fallen
to the fourth in rank, and already outstripped by Ohio, which was not
in being during the war of Independence, is at length roused to action,
and has determined to profit by the lessons, which have come to her
from the North. A company, whose means consist of little more than the
subscriptions of the State and of the capital, Richmond, is about to
open a canal from the East to the West. James River, which flows into
Chesapeake Bay, is navigable for vessels of 200 tons to the foot of the
table-land, on which Richmond stands in so charming a situation. On the
east of the mountains, the canal, starting from Richmond, will follow
the course of James River, and on the West it will descend the Kanawha,
one of the tributaries of the Ohio, to Charleston, at the head of
steamboat navigation. The Alleghany crest will be passed by a railroad,
150 miles in length; the canal itself will be about 250 miles long.
* * * * *
South Carolina, stirred up by the example of Virginia, is engaged in
a great railroad from Charleston to Cincinnati on the Ohio; and the
surveys are at present actively going on. The people of Cincinnati
are enthusiastically interested in this scheme.[BS] Georgia is also
dreaming of a great railroad from the Savannah to the Mississippi, at
Memphis; but this project has not assumed a substantial shape. North
Carolina does nothing, and projects nothing. If she ever becomes rich,
it will not be because she has seized fortune by the forelock, but
because fortune has come to her bedside.[BT]