ground rapidly that if the splendid rivers which are scattered in profusion up and down our seaboard could be connected by canals a new era would dawn in our coastwise trade, which was, in fact, almost our only trade. Thus it came about that hosts of schemes were proposed for connecting our Atlantic rivers and bays.
In many cases our rivers were easily navigated for long distances into the interior; but these distances varied in different seasons of the year, and when, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century the western movement became prominent, and the rivers were ascended further than before, the question of the navigation of unnavigable waters came quickly to the fore. Unfortunately for their pocketbooks, our forefathers did not agree with the Spanish idea that improving unnavigable rivers was a wilful attempt "to mend the imperfections of providence." The story of the sorry attempts to make such rivers as the Mohawk and upper Potomac navigable proves that the Spanish decree was somehow in the right, whether the Spanish reasoning was correct or not.
