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THE PENNSYLVANIA CANAL
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by direction of a majority of the board, and by warrant of the Governor.


The method of joining the two divisions of what now became known as the Pennsylvania Canal was left undecided, pending further investigation. But an act of March 24, 1828 authorized the location and construction of the Juniata division, from Lewistown to the highest practicable point on the river. Eventually Hollidaysburg on the eastern slope of the Alleghenies, and Johnstown, on the western, were decided upon as the termini of the eastern and western divisions of the canal. The thirty-six miles intervening were to be crossed by a railway, through Blair's Gap, of the inclined planes previously suggested.

The interminable delays and postponements which have been described on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal were unknown in the present instance. What was known as the central division (there being really no eastern, though the Union Canal was such nominally) was begun at Columbia on the eastern shore of the Susquehanna, July