Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 3).djvu/201

company to open the navigation of the Potomac and James rivers passed the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland. It is difficult for us to realize how canals were viewed a century ago; how commercial prosperity seemed to depend upon their building. Already Washington, in fancy, had covered the West with a network of canals. As early as 1784, he wrote to Governor Harrison urging a survey of the Ohio; he added: "Let the courses and distances be taken to the mouth of the Muskingum and up that river to the carrying place of the Cuyahoga; down the Cuyahoga to Lake Erie, and thence to Detroit. Let them do the same with Big Beaver Creek and with the Scioto. In a word, let the waters east and west of the Ohio which invite our notice by their proximity, and by the ease with which land transportation may be had between them and the lakes on the one side, and the rivers Potomac and James on the other, be explored, accurately delineated, and a correct and connected map of the whole be presented to the public. . . . The object in my estimation is of vast commercial and political importance."