Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 13).djvu/27

It is interesting to note that the subject of canals was being widely mooted in America at a time far remote from the day when they came actually into existence. England waited a century after the celebrated Languedoc Canal in France proved what vast good this form of internal improvement could bring, before she took up the canal problem in earnest. Within half a century, and less, after canal building was common in England it became common in young America. We were comparatively quick to make the most of opportunities in this as in every branch of invention and promotion which helped toward annihilating distances. The great extent of our territory in itself was an inducement to this end. Our colonial roads were often impassable in the winter season and wretched in any wet weather; the main line of communication was the Atlantic Coast, never easily navigated and, for a large part of the year, extremely dangerous in these early days before the invention of the blessings of our present coast surveys, lighthouses, and lightships. As a consequence, it was natural that the idea gained