Lastly, two canals are about to be undertaken, which will connect the
Pennsylvania works with those of Ohio, and of consequence, form new
connections between the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. One of these
is the Sandy and Beaver canal, which, beginning at the confluence of
the Big Beaver with the Ohio, follows the latter to the mouth of the
Little Beaver, ascends the valley of this stream, and passes down that
of the Sandy River to the Ohio canal at Bolivar; the length will be
90 miles. From Bolivar to New York by the Ohio canal, Lake Erie, Erie
canal, and the Hudson, the distance is 785 miles; by the new canal
the distance from Bolivar to Philadelphia, that is, to the ocean, is
only 512. The Mahoning canal leaves the Ohio canal at Akron, following
the valleys of the Little Cuyahoga, the Mahoning, a tributary of the
Big Beaver, and the Big Beaver, to the Ohio; it is about 90 miles in
length; the distance from Akron to the river Ohio is 115 miles.
The generally level character of the surface of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois is not less favourable to the construction of railroads than
to that of canals. But as capital is scarce in this new country,
which is as yet but imperfectly brought under cultivation, but few
enterprises of much importance have hitherto been undertaken. The
financial companies and institutions, which have always preceded the
introduction of canals and railroads, have, however, been already
established and are prosperous, and their success is the omen of the
approach of the latter. In the absence of companies, the States are
ready to adopt the most extensive schemes of public works; for the
American of the West is not a whit behind the American of the East in
enterprise. At present, I know of but a single railroad actually in
process of construction beyond the Ohio, and that does not seem to be
pushed forward with much activity; it is the Mad River railroad, which
is to extend from Dayton, on the Miami canal, to Sandusky, on the bay
of that name in Lake Erie; the length will be 153 miles. Many others
have been projected in this region, and Indiana has caused surveys to
be made for a railroad extending across the State from north to south,
or from New Albany on the Ohio to some point on Lake Michigan.[BY]
WORKS FOR IMPROVING THE NAVIGATION OF THE OHIO, MISSISSIPPI, AND ST.
LAWRENCE.
To this head belong the works executed in the beds of the rivers
themselves. The Mississippi is the _beau idéal_ of rivers in regard
to navigable facilities. From St. Louis to New Orleans, a distance of
nearly 1200 miles, there is water enough for steamers of 300 tons
throughout the year. Its yellow and muddy waters flow in a deep,
although very circuitous channel, and its general breadth is from 800
to 1,000 yards, in places where it is not expanded to a much greater
width by low, flat islands, thickly covered with trees. There are
no sand-banks in this part of the channel, yet there are formidable
dangers in the way of the inexperienced navigator; these are the trunks
of trees, that have been carried away from the banks, as has been
before mentioned, and in the removal of which the Federal government
keeps steam _snag-boats_, the Heliopolis and Archimedes, employed;
these boats are provided with a peculiar machinery by means of which
they drag the trees up from the bed, and saw them into pieces of an
inconsiderable length.
Captain Shreves, who has the command of these boats, and who invented
the machinery, is also employed in constructing sunk dams of loose
stones in the Ohio, which have the effect of increasing the depth of
water in the dry season. He is at present engaged with a flotilla
of steamboats in opening the bed of Red River, one of the great
tributaries of the Mississippi, which the drift timber has choked up
and covered over through a distance of 165 miles.[BZ] At Louisville,
the Ohio, whose bed has generally a very slight inclination, has a
descent of 22 feet in the distance of two miles, so as to be impassable
for steamboats, except during the season of high water. The Louisville
and Portland canal has been constructed by a company to avoid this
obstruction; it is nearly one mile and three fourths in length, and
cost 750,000 dollars.[CA] It receives the largest boats at a rate of
toll which for the Henry Clay amounts to 175 dollars, and for the
Uncle Sam 190 dollars. It has been proposed that Congress should buy
this canal, and make the passage toll-free; and the importance of the
navigation of the Ohio would justify the measure.
The St. Lawrence differs essentially from the Mississippi; instead
of an expanse of muddy waters, it presents to the eye a clear
blue surface. The Mississippi traverses a low, uninhabited, and
uninhabitable region, of which the soil consists entirely of sand;
or rather of mud deposited by the river-floods; not a stone as large
as the fist is to be found, and only a few bluff points are met
with which are above the reach of high water, and on which the pale
inhabitants struggle unsuccessfully with the pestilential emanations
of the surrounding swamps. The St. Lawrence flows through a broken,
hilly, and sometimes rugged country, with a fertile soil, everywhere
healthful, sprinkled with flourishing villages, which attract the eye
of the traveller from a distance by their houses newly white-washed
every year, and their churches built in the French style with their
spires covered with tin. The Mississippi, like the Nile, has its annual
overflow, or rather it has two in each year, but the spring-floods
are much the most considerable. The St. Lawrence, owing to the vast
extent of the lakes which serve as a reservoir and feeder to it, always
preserves the same level, the extreme range of its rise and fall being
only about 20 inches. The St. Lawrence, from the beauty of its waters,
from their prodigious volume, from the country which it waters, and
from the groups of isles scattered over it, would be one of the first
rivers in the world in the eyes of the artist, but in those of the
merchant, it is of quite a secondary importance. Its transparent waters
hardly hide the numerous rocks; the navigation is interrupted first
by the Falls of Niagara, and after it leaves Lake Ontario by numerous
rapids, cataracts, or rocks between that lake and Montreal, and none
but an Indian or a French Canadian, would dare to descend these points
in that portion of the river in a canoe; at several points, the most
powerful steamer would be unable to make head against the current.
The spirit of emulation which has prevailed among the States of
the Union, has extended to the British Provinces, to the English
population, which, leaving the lower part of the river to the French,
has occupied Upper Canada. The inhabitants of this Province have
embraced the opinion, that if the chain of communication which is
broken by the cataracts and rapids, could be made whole, much of
the produce, which now finds its way to the Mississippi, or to the
Pennsylvania and New York canals, would seek a more convenient vent by
the St. Lawrence, and that the British manufactures would take the same
route up the river, through the ports of Quebec and Montreal, to the
Western States. One canal has, therefore, already been executed around
the falls of the Niagara, which forms a communication between Lakes
Erie and Ontario; the Welland canal is 28 miles in length, exclusive of
20 miles of slack-water navigation. It is navigable by lake-craft of
120 tons, and has cost 2,000,000 dollars, nearly the whole of which was
furnished by the upper Province, Lower Canada and the mother country
having contributed a very trifling sum.
Since that work has been completed, the river below Lake Ontario has
been surveyed, and it has been found that the aggregate length of the
points not passable by steamboats of ten feet draft is only 30 miles,
pretty equally divided between the two provinces. Upper Canada, which
contains hardly 250,000 inhabitants, with no large towns and with
little capital, has begun her portion of the work along the rapids
within her limits. This work will be large enough to admit the passage
of steamboats drawing nine feet water, and of the burden of 500 tons. I
saw the labourers at work along the Long Saut Rapids at Cornwall, where
there will be a cut of 13 miles in length; the estimated cost of this
section is 1,250,000 dollars. The French population of Lower Canada,
swallowed up in political quarrels, the result of which cannot be
foreseen, neglects its essential interests in pursuit of the imaginary
interests of national pride. It has done nothing towards continuing,
within its limits, the great work, which has been begun by the poorer
province of Upper Canada.