he ocean, with the
mountain-river known as the Great Kanawha, which rises near the
fountains of the upper James and descends into the broad bosom of the
Ohio. Although this undertaking was prosecuted slowly at first, it was
permanently recognized as one that must go on; in 1832 and 1835 it
received new impulses; and in 1840 it had reached the piedmont
districts. In 1847 a powerful impetus was given to the work, and it was
thenceforth, till 1856, forced rapidly westward up the eastern slopes of
the Alleghanies, as a complete and working structure, above a point
three hundred miles from the Atlantic capes, and two hundred miles from
Richmond, leaving an unfinished gap to the upper or navigable part of
Kanawha River of a little over one hundred and fifty miles. This
enormous work was more than half finished at an outlay of $10,436,869--a
sum which, during the economic period of its expenditure, went as far as
nearly twice that amount would go now.

By recent legislation the State of Virginia proposes to turn over the
entire property of the canal to the United States, on the sole condition
of its being finished by the government and converted into a national
water-highway for the good of the common country--in other words, upon
the one condition of its _nationalization_.

It is sometimes contended that the day of canals has passed, and
henceforward the railway must take their place. But this notion is
opposed to the present economic necessities of the world, as well as to
the provisions of Nature, which evidently point to the utilization of
the hydraulic systems of the globe. The lavish and prodigal use of the
coal-deposit of the earth, and the deforesting of vast tracts of soil to
supply fuel for the locomotive and the stationary engine, have already
wrought incalculable and almost irremediable evils. The past year has
seen the prices of all English coals go up at least eighty per cent.,
and the coal-famine of Great Britain, foreseen some years ago, has
already threatened to sap the vigor of her industrial systems and
destroy her manufacturing supremacy, or, at any rate, place her at the
mercy of the United States for the fuel with which to operate them. The
denudation of the vast territories of the United States by the axe of
emigration has already told in a marked degree upon the condition of its
climate, and greatly affected its meteorology and rainfall; while the
railroads, which have spread their Briarean arms over t