ever, by the returns, that
the Erie canal, the Grand Junction, Champlain canal, and the Black
River, Chemung, Chenango, and Oswego, in all 528 miles, are all seven
feet deep, and seventy feet wide, and cost $83,494 per mile, while the
average cost of _all_ our canals, varying from forty to seventy-five
feet in width, and from four to ten in depth, was $28,387 per mile.
Assuming $28,000 per mile as the average cost of the canals requiring
enlargement, and $83,000 that of those per mile having already the
requisite dimensions, the difference would be $55,000 per mile, as the
average cost of those needing increased dimensions.

The estimated cost, then, would stand as follows:

598 miles New York canals,
enlargement of locks $5,980,000

Enlarging dimensions, etc.,
of 1,696 miles, at $55,000
per mile 93,280,000
-----------

Total, $99,260,000

The conjectural estimate heretofore made by me was $133,528,556, or one
tenth the cost of our existing railroads and canals, and exceeding, by
$1,528,556, the cost of all our present 4,650 miles of canal. Deduct
this from the above $133,528,556, leaves $34,268,556, to be applied to
improving the St. Clair flats, the Mississippi river, deepening its
mouth, and for the ship canal round the Falls of Niagara.

No estimate is now presented of the cost of the canal from Lake
Champlain to the St. Lawrence, because that requires the cooeperation of
Canada.

The railroads of our country would increase their business, with our
augmented wealth and population, especially in the transportation of
passengers and merchandise. They would also obtain iron cheaper for
rails, boilers, and engines, timber for cars, breadstuffs and provisions
for supplies, and coal or wood for their locomotives.

Great, however, as would be the effect of these works in augmenting our
commerce, wealth, and population, their results in consolidating and
perpetuating our Union would be still more important. When the Ohio,
Mississippi, and Missouri, and all their tributaries, arterializing the
great valley, shall be united by the proposed routes with the lakes, the
St. Lawrence, the Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Chesapeake, and
Albemarle, what sacrilegious hand could be raised against such a Union?
We should have no more rebellions. We should hear no more of North,
South, East, and West, for all would be linked together by a un