[BF] Arkansas became a State in 1836. [It is a strange oversight of the
author to say, that Missouri is the only State west of the Mississippi,
when nearly the whole of Louisiana is on its right bank. Neither is it
correct to say, that Missouri is one of the least important States.
In point of territorial extent, geographical position, agricultural
resources, and mineral wealth, she is one of the most important,
and even in point of population, which is increasing with great
rapidity, is little behind many of her sisters. The Territory of Iowa,
established in 1837, on the north of Missouri, has now about 30,000
inhabitants, and is rapidly filling with settlers.--TRANSL.]
[BG] This difficulty is almost wholly, if not quite, remedied by
ice-boats.
[BH] In 1792 the New York legislature incorporated two companies, the
Western and the Northern Inland Lock Navigation companies, which,
however, did nothing of importance, the former with authority to
connect the Hudson by the Mohawk with Seneca Lake and Lake Ontario, the
latter to form a junction between the Hudson and Lake Champlain.
[BI] By Mr Baldwin, father of the late Loammi Baldwin, who constructed
the dry docks at Charlestown and Gosport.
[BJ] The official statements of the Canal Board, Feb. 23, 1837, are
here given instead of those of M. Chevalier. The statement in the text
does not include the Black River Canal and the Genesee Valley Canal,
begun in 1837, with a total length of 168 miles, exclusive of 40 miles
of improved navigation in the Black River; estimated cost, 3,000,000
dollars.--TRANSL.
[BK] Michigan became a State in 1837, at which time it had a population
of 175,000 souls.--TRANSL.
[BL] The increase of the population has since been at a still more
rapid rate; from 1830 to 1835, the number of inhabitants increased
from 203,000 to 270,000, or including Brooklyn, from 218,000 to
294,000.--TRANSL.
[BM] It is 40 feet wide on the surface and 4 feet deep; the locks are
95 feet long and 15 wide. The Languedoc Canal is 90 feet wide, and 6
1-2 feet deep, with locks 115 feet long, 36 feet wide in the centre,
and 18 at each end. The English Canals are generally of about the
dimensions of the Erie Canal.
[BN] The legislature incorporated the company on the express condition
that they should transport only travellers and their baggage.
Notwithstanding this provision, when the books were opened, seven times
the amount of capital needed was subscribed; the sum required was
2,000,000 dollars; the amount of subscriptions 14,000,000.
[BO] Several links in this chain between Auburn and Utica on one side,
and Rochester on the other, are already completed.--TRANSL.
[BP] In the session of 1836, the legislature authorised a loan of the
credit of the State for the sum of 3,000,000 dollars to the company;
the estimated cost of the road is 6,000,000. This road terminates at
Tappan Sloat on the Hudson.
[BQ] The maximum of inclination allowed by our _Administration des
Ponts-et-Chaussées_ (board of public works) is 1/200; in the great
lines executed at the expense of government, the inclination has
generally been kept below 1/333, which is the maximum adopted in the
fine railroad from London to Birmingham.
[BR] In 1836 the Maryland legislature voted the sum of 8,000,000
dollars in aid of public works, of which 3,000,000 were appropriated to
the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and 3,000,000 to the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal, and rest is divided between several works, one of which is
intended to connect Annapolis, the capital, with the Potomac. Baltimore
has also subscribed 3,000,000 dollars towards aiding the completion of
the railroad. [Virginia and Wheeling have also subscribed 1,000,000
each for the same object, and so far from being come to a stand, the
Baltimore and Ohio railroad is now pushed on with great vigour towards
Cumberland.--TRANSL.]
[BS] In 1836, the construction of this road has been authorised by
the legislatures of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South
Carolina. The surveys have been completed, the route fixed upon, and
a board organised for pushing the work with vigour. Mr Hayne, late a
Senator in Congress, and since governor of South Carolina, and one of
the most highly respected men in the country, is president. Including
the two branches, one to Louisville, and one to Maysville, the whole
length of the road will be 700 miles; the estimated cost is 11,870,000
dollars.
[BT] [Two great works are now actively pushed on in Georgia, which
will form another connection between the Mississippi Valley and the
Atlantic; these are the Central railroad from Savannah to Decatur, 285
miles, and the Georgia railroad from Augusta to the same place, 160
miles in length; the Main Trunk of the Atlantic and Western railroad
is the common continuation of these two roads from Decatur to the
Tennessee, a distance of 120 miles. These works are already in a state
of forwardness, and a third, the Brunswick and Florida railroad,
now under survey, will extend from Brunswick to the head of the
Appalachicola, and connect the southernmost part of the western valley
with the Atlantic. In North Carolina, beside the Raleigh and Gaston
railroad, the railroad from the Roanoke to Wilmington is now nearly
completed. As steam-packets run from Wilmington to Charleston, and the
Chattahoochee is already connected with Montgomery, which stands at
the head of steamboat navigation on the Alabama, the continuation of
the Central railroad from Decatur to the Chattahoochee, a distance of
80 miles, is all that is wanted to complete the communication between
Boston and New Orleans by railroads and steamboats.--TRANSL.]
[BU] These grants of land are generally made so that every other
section (of six miles square) along the line of the work is retained by
Congress, and the rest are given to the State or company constructing
the canal. Sometimes, however, a certain number of acres in some other
quarter is granted outright.
[BV] No one can look at a map of the United States without being struck
by the appearance of the right lines, constituting the frontiers of
most of the States; this method of bounding a territory by meridians
and parallels of latitude is absurd, since it requires an infinite
number of geodesic operations, which have not been executed, and cannot
be so for a long time. Meridians and parallels do very well for the
divisions of the heavens; but for the earth, there are no suitable
boundaries but the beds of rivers, or water-sheds in the mountain
chains.
[BW] By the act establishing the State of Michigan (1836), Congress has
annexed this disputed belt to Ohio. [The whole line of this great work
is now nearly completed.--TRANSL.]
[BX] The work was begun on the canal, July 4, 1836; it is six feet
deep, and 60 feet wide at top; estimated cost 8,654,300 dollars. [The
progress of population in that region within the last two years has
given rise to new and very important projects. One of these is a canal
connecting the Rock River with Lake Michigan, at Milwaukie, and the
other is the junction of the Wisconsin with the Fox River of Green
Bay, thus adding two links to the chain of communication between the
Mississippi and St. Lawrence valleys.--TRANSL.]
[BY] In 1836, the legislature of Indiana adopted a general system
of public works, for the execution of which it authorised a loan of
10,000,000 dollars. The system embraces the canalisation of the Wabash
and White River, the connection of the Wabash with the Maumee, and of
Lake Michigan with the same river by canals, and a canal across the
centre of the State from Evansville by Indianapolis to the Wabash and
Erie canal. Appropriations were made by the same law for railroads
from Madison and Jeffersonville on the Ohio to the Wabash canal, and
in aid of the Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis railroad which has been
undertaken by a company. [The State of Illinois has also made provision
for a series of public works on an equally liberal scale; an act of
1837 establishes a Board of Public Works and an Internal Improvement
Fund, and provides for the construction of a railroad across the
State from north to south, reaching from the junction of the Ohio and
Mississippi by Vandalia and Peru to Galena, being about 460 miles in
length; of four roads crossing the State from east to west, namely,
from Shawneetown on the Ohio to Alton on the Mississippi, from Mt.
Carmel on the Wabash to Alton, from Terre Haute on the Wabash to Alton,
and from Covington on the Wabash to Quincy on the Mississippi, and of
another cross road from Bloomington, in the centre of the State to
Warsaw on the Mississippi. These works are now in active progress, as
are also some works for improving the navigation of the Illinois, Rock
River, Kaskaskia and Little Wabash. The youthful State of Michigan has
followed the example of these elder sisters, by establishing a Board of
Public Works, and directing the construction of three railroads across
the peninsula, from Monroe, Detroit, and Huron to Lake Michigan, and a
canal from the river Saginaw of Lake Huron to the Grand River of Lake
Michigan. There are also several railroads executed by companies in
Michigan.--TRANSL.]
[BZ] [This work was completed in the spring of 1838, at which time
several steamboats passed wholly through the place formerly occupied by
the raft. The removal of that obstruction, has extended the navigation
by steamboats 750 miles on the Red River, exclusive of 600 miles on
several branches.--TRANSL.]
[CA] It is 50 feet wide at bottom and 200 feet at top, and has four
locks, 170 feet long by 50 wide.
[CB] It is from 65 to 75 feet wide at top, and 7 feet deep. The locks
are well constructed, and very expeditiously worked.
[CC] [The link between New Brunswick and Trenton has since been
authorised by the State and constructed.--TRANSL.]
[CD] [The Baltimore and Philadelphia, Fredericksburg and Roanoke, and
Portsmouth and Roanoke railroads have since been completed.--TRANSL.]
[CE] It will be easy to construct a branch from the Charleston and
Augusta railroad to Columbia, and the route has been surveyed. [This
branch is now in progress, and as the Raleigh and Gaston railroad, from
the Roanoke to Raleigh, is also nearly completed, there remains only
the link between Raleigh and Columbia not yet undertaken.--TRANSL.]
[CF] [A prolongation of the Georgia railroad to Decatur, 160 miles from
Augusta, is already in progress, and the Montgomery and Chattahoochee
railroad, extending from West Point on the latter to the river Alabama,
forms another link in the chain between Boston or rather Bangor and New
Orleans.--TRANSL.]
[CG] During the session of 1836 the legislature of Massachusetts
subscribed 1,000,000 in aid of the Western Railroad; this measure was
the first step taken by the State in the promotion of public works,
and indicates a complete revolution in its policy on this point.
[This act was immediately followed by similar acts in aid of the
several other railroads now in progress in the State, and in 1838, by
a further grant of the credit of the State to the Western Railroad
to the amount of 1,200,000 dollars. That work will be completed to
Springfield in October (1839), and the section between Springfield and
West Stockbridge is already far advanced towards its completion. The
Lowell railroad has been extended to Nashua, and an eastern branch is
now completed to Haverhill, of which a continuation towards Exeter is
now in progress.--TRANSL.]
[CH] [To these should be added the railroads from Newark to Morristown,
and from Elizabethtown to Somerville, both intersecting the New
Brunswick railroad, and extending into a fine farming country. The
Brooklyn railroad has also been continued about 20 miles beyond
Jamaica.--TRANSL.]
[CI] On some of the canals the locks are partly of wood and partly of
stone; these composite locks are economical and easily kept in repair,
and deserve to be introduced in other countries. On many canals the
locks are wholly of wood.
[CJ] The bridge over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia consists of a
single arch of 300 feet span. [This beautiful structure has lately been
destroyed by fire.--TRANSL.]
[CK] At this very time, Mr Wright, in spite of his 60 years, is
directing in person the Harlæm railroad, the great New York and Erie
road, the great work of connecting the James and Kanawha, by a railroad
and canal, the works going on along the St. Lawrence in Upper Canada,
750 miles further north, and the railway from Havana to Guines in
the islands of Cuba. The aggregate length of all these works is 870
miles. The most eminent engineers have always several works under their
direction at once; it is understood, of course, that they are aided by
skilful and intelligent assistants, who do most of the work.
[CL] The lowest rate of speed on a railroad can be hardly less than 15
miles an hour, or about three times greater than the ordinary speed
of the stage-coaches in France and America. At this rate, a country
with railroads, nine times larger than France, would be on the same
footing in respect to intercommunication, as France without railroads;
supposing a velocity of 25 miles an hour, or five times greater
than that of the coaches, the proportion would then stand as one to
twentyfive, and a territory four and a half times greater than western
Europe, or five times greater than that included within the limits
of the 27 States, would be as easily and as promptly administered as
France is at present.