water and the Ohio Basin the scheme had been greatly favored by them. Already, on March 6, 1825, the Maryland legislature had provided for the formation of what was known as the "Maryland Canal Company" with a capital of half a million dollars, which should bind the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal with the city of Baltimore. In any lesser sense—as merely a canal in the Potomac Valley—the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was of far less interest to Baltimoreans than an improvement of communications, for instance, to the rich Susquehanna country. And the moment it was known that merely the Middle Section, of seventy miles, of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was to cost nearly twice the entire proposed capitalization of the company, the idea of a continental canal to the West through the Alleghenies was deemed impracticable at Baltimore. A new estimate of the expense was undertaken by James Geddes and Nathan S. Roberts, who cut down the figures named by General Bernard one half.[1] Those greatly interested in the advancement of the scheme hailed
- ↑ Scharf's History of Maryland, vol. iii, p. 165.
