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in the firſt place," read this memorial, "if we turn our view to the immenſe territories connected with the Ohio and Miſſiſſippi waters, and bordering on the great lakes, it will appear from the tables of diſtances, that our communication with thoſe vaſt countries (conſidering Fort Pitt as the port of entrance upon them) is as eaſy and may be rendered as cheap, as to any other port on the Atlantic tide waters. The diſtance from Philadelphia to the Allegheny, at the mouth of Kiſkeminetas, is nearly the ſame as from the mouth of Monongahela to George Town on Potomac; and ſuppoſing the computed diſtances from Pittſburgh to the Dunkard Bottom to be juſt, and the navigation of Cheat river, on the one hand, and the Potomack, at the mouth of Savage river, on the other, to be, at all ſeaſons of the year, equal to the navigation of the Kiſkeminetas, Conemaugh and Juniata; yet as the portage from Dunkard Bottom to the Potomack, at the mouth of Savage river, is thirty-ſeven miles and a quarter, and the portage from Conemaugh to Juniata only eighteen miles (which may be conſiderably ſhortened by