830) the area of the United States was about two million
square miles. The population of the old states had greatly increased.
Especially the cities had grown. In 1800 New York City held about sixty
thousand people; it now held two hundred thousand people. But it was in
the West that the greatest growth had taken place. Since 1800 Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri had all
been admitted to the Union.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of transport over the Alleghanies. _McMaster_,
252, 280-282.]

[Sidenote: The Cumberland Road.]

295. National Roads.--Steamboats were now running on the Great
Lakes and on all the important rivers of the West. The first result of
this new mode of transport was the separation of the West from the East.
Steamboats could carry passengers and goods up and down the Mississippi
and its branches more cheaply and more comfortably than people and goods
could be carried over the Alleghanies. Many persons therefore advised
the building of a good wagon road to connect the Potomac with the Ohio.
The eastern end of this great road was at Cumberland on the Potomac in
Maryland. It is generally called, therefore, the Cumberland Road. It was
begun at the national expense in 1811. By 1820 the road was built as far
as Wheeling on the Ohio River. From that point steamboats could steam to
Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, or New Orleans. Later on, the road was
built farther west, as far as Illinois. Then the coming of the railroad
made further building unnecessary.

[Sidenote: The Erie Canal, 1825. _McMaster_, 282-284.]

[Sidenote: De Witt Clinton.]

[Sidenote: Results of the building of the Erie Canal.]

296. The Erie Canal.--The best way to connect one steamboat route
with another was to dig a canal. The most famous of all these canals was
the one connecting the Hudson River with Lake Erie, and called the Erie
Canal. It was begun in 1817 and was completed so that a boat could pass
through it in 1825. It was De Witt Clinton who argued that such a canal
would benefit New York City by bringing to it the produce of the
Northwest and of western New York. At the same time it would benefit the
farmers of those regions by bringing their produce to tide water cheaper
than it could be brought by road through Pennsylvania. It would still
further benefit the farmers by enabling them to buy their goods much
cheaper, as the rates of freight would be so much lower by canal than
they were b