The Canadians are constructing a canal which will form another
communication between the East and the West, that is, between the
Hudson and the St. Lawrence, between New York and Quebec. The great
fissure, which forms so fine a bed for the Hudson between New York and
Troy, does not end here, but stretches on towards the north to the St.
Lawrence, constituting the basin of Lake Champlain, which is a long
and narrow cavity in the midst of the mountains, and the bed of the
River Richelieu. Between Lake Champlain and the Hudson, there is only
a ridge 54 feet above the level of the former, and 134 above that of
the latter. The River Richelieu, which issues from the northern end
of the lake and flows into the St. Lawrence, is broken by rapids, and
a lateral canal, 12 miles in length, and of sufficient dimensions to
receive the lake-craft, will be opened here in the course of a year;
the cost will be 350,000 dollars; the distance from New York to Quebec
by the canals, rivers, and lakes, is 540 miles. The railroad from St.
John, where the rapids of the Richelieu begin, to Laprairie, on the St.
Lawrence, opposite to Montreal, a distance of 16 miles, effects for
Montreal what the canal does for Quebec; it cost about 160,000 dollars,
or 10,500 dollars per mile. The distance from Montreal to New York is
360 miles.
SECTION II. LINES OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY AND
THAT OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.
There is no mountain chain between these two valleys; the basin of the
great lakes, whose united waters form the St. Lawrence, is separated
from the valley of the Mississippi only by a spur of the Alleghany
system, not exceeding 450 feet in height, and sinking rapidly down
toward the west, so as to be elevated but a few feet above the surface
of Lake Michigan. During the rainy season, when the streams are swollen
and the marshes of the water-shed are flooded, our Canadian countrymen
were wont to pass in boats from Lake Michigan into the Illinois, by the
Des Plains. The breadth of this dividing spur is more considerable than
its height. It is not a ridge or crest, but rather a table-land, which
imperceptibly merges by gentle slopes into the plains that surround it.
Its level summit is filled with marshes, and therefore offers great
facilities for feeding the canals which traverse it; further west,
where it is scarcely higher than the rest of the country, it is often
as dry as the surrounding prairies.