njured up in my mind as when I have, in my wanderings,
surveyed such fragments of dismembered empires as the ruins of Carthage
or of Rome. There the reign of Art was over, and Nature had resumed her
sway--here Nature was deposed, and about to resign her throne to the
usurper Art. By the bye, the mosquitoes of this district have reaped
some benefit from the cutting of the canal here. Before these
impervious forest retreats were thus pierced, they could not have tasted
human blood; for ages it must have been unknown to them, even by
tradition; and if they taxed all other boats on the canal as they did,
ours, a _canal share_ with them must be considerably above par, and
highly profitable.

At five o'clock we arrived at Syracuse. I do detest these old names
vamped up. Why do not the Americans take the Indian names? They need
not be so very scrupulous about it; they have robbed the Indians of
everything else.

After you pass Syracuse, the country wears a more populous and inviting
appearance. Salina is a village built upon a salt spring, which has the
greatest flow of water yet known, and this salt spring is the cause of
the improved appearance of the country; the banks of the canal, for
three miles, are lined with buildings for the boiling down of the salt
water, which is supplied by a double row of wooden pipes. Boats are
constantly employed up and down the canal, transporting wood for the
supply of the furnaces. It is calculated that two hundred thousand cord
of wood are required every year for the present produce; and as they
estimate upon an average about sixty cord of wood per acre in these
parts, those salt works are the means of yearly clearing away upwards of
three thousand acres of land. Two million of bushels of salt are boiled
down every year: it is packed in barrels, and transported by the canals
and lakes to Canada, Michigan, Chicago, and the far West. When we
reflect upon the number of people employed in the manufactories, and in
cutting wood, and making barrels, and engaged on the lakes and canals in
transporting the produce so many thousand miles, we must admire the
spring to industry which has been created by this little, but bounteous,
spring presented by nature.

The first sixty miles of this canal (I get on very slow with my
description, but canal travelling is very slow), which is through a flat
swampy forest, is without a lock; but after you pass Syracuse, you have
to descend by locks to