ts prospectus, from which I
extract the following:

"The commissioners of public works, in their report of 1859,
approved by government, finally settled the question of route,
by declaring that, 'after a patient and mature consideration of
all the surveys and reports, we are of opinion that the line
following the Chambly Canal and then crossing to Lake St. Louis
near Caughnawaga, is that which combines and affords in the
greatest degree all the advantages contemplated by this
improvement, and which has been approved by Messrs. Mills,
Swift, and Gamble.'

"The company's Act of Incorporation is in every respect complete
and comprehensive in its details. It empowers the company to
survey, to take, appropriate, have and hold, to and for the use
of them and their successors, the line and boundaries of a canal
between the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, to build and erect
the same, to select such sites as may be necessary for basins
and docks, as may be considered expedient by the directors, and
to purchase and dispose of same, with any water-power, as may be
deemed best by the directors for the use and profit of the
company.

"It also empowers the company to cause their canal to enter into
the Chambly Canal, and to widen, deepen, and enlarge the same,
not less in size than the present St. Lawrence canals; also the
company may take, hold, and use any portion of the Chambly
Canal, and the works therewith connected, and all the tolls,
receipts, and revenues thereof, upon terms to be settled and
agreed upon between the company and the governor in council.

"The cost of the canal, with locks of three hundred feet by
forty-five, and with ten feet six inches the mitre-sill, is now
estimated at two million five hundred thousand dollars, and the
time for its construction may not exceed two years after
breaking ground.

"Probably no question is of more vital importance to Canada and
the western and eastern United States than the subject of
transportation. The increasing commerce of the Great West, the
rapidity with which the population has of late flowed into that
vast tract of country to the west and northwest of lakes Erie,
Michigan, Huron, and Superior, have served to convince all
well-informed commercial men that the means of transit between
that country and the seaboa