water to reach the harbors of Savannah and Charleston. This scheme has
been clearly proved to be feasible, although the distance seems
objectionable. The third (or central) water-line proposed is that so
long agitated since the beginning of the present century, so often
surveyed and re-surveyed by the most eminent engineers, and not long
since by the United States Engineer Corps under the direction of General
A. A. Humphreys, the chief engineer of the United States army. It is the
shortest and most direct line, and has the advantage that it is, as we
have seen, already nearly half completed, from the head of tide-water on
the James River, above Lexington, to Buchanan, near the summit-level of
the mountains. The engineers who have reported upon it--among whom are
the late Colonel E. Lorraine, Benjamin H. Latrobe, Esq., and other
eminent engineers--estimate that the largest sum required for its
completion to the Kanawha River is $37,364,000, and the length of time
required four years. "Of this large sum, however," they say, "it can be
clearly shown that there will be no need of any other advance by
government than the interest which will accumulate while the work is in
progress, which, by issuing the bonds every six months, as required,
will not reach the sum of _six million dollars. And this is every cent
that will ever be required to be advanced_. Should the government
undertake to make the work a fine one, it will of course cost the whole
amount estimated, but this would be more than made up by its increased
benefits to the whole country.

"The work when completed, even at a low rate of tolls--not over about
half the rate charged on the Erie Canal--will return the advance, pay
the interest and redeem the principal in less than twenty years.

[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-LINE.]

"In considering this question we are not left to mere conjecture. The
wonderful history of the Erie Canal, and a comparison of the
circumstances connected with the operations of that great work with
those under which this enterprise will be inaugurated and accompanied,
furnish sufficient data for reliable conclusions."

When we consider that the Erie Canal, though frozen up and useless for
half the year, has not only long since paid for its construction out of
its tolls, but makes a present of itself to the State, with _about
thirty millions of dollars_ of net profit, and that it does more than
five times the