Mohawk Rivers for this purpose commanded the attention of the nation at the time; these projects were the first steps toward building the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Erie canals, and will be treated in the chapters devoted to those topics. It is our purpose here only to emphasize in general terms the mania for improving the minor waterways in which so many millions of dollars were wasted before such advice as that given by Franklin in 1772, as quoted, was found to be well-grounded.
The spirit of this enterprising but unfortunate movement cannot be caught better than by studying the papers and projects of a "Society for promoting the improvement of roads and inland navigation," formed in Philadelphia at the beginning of the last decade of the eighteenth century and of which the able but unfortunate Robert Morris was president. Much of Pennsylvania's leadership in works of improvement was due to the activity of this organization. One of the main objects of the society is stated in a memorial to the Pennsylvania Assembly dated February 7, 1791, the introduction of which reads:
