The explanation of this excess brings out some interesting facts concerning the progress of the work. For instance, the aqueducts over Oneida and Onondaga Creeks had been made of solid masonry instead of wood as stipulated in the estimate. Lack of snow during the winter of 1818–19 had prevented the hauling of much of the needed material. Sickness among the army of workmen had produced costly delays; pioneer conditions prevailed—the fever and ague of those who first invaded the sluggish morasses of the interior of a new continent. Special trouble had been experienced where the canal line approached the low-lying valley of the sluggish Seneca. For thirty-five miles the works paralleled this stream, and pioneers here suffered heavily every fall; of course the laborers on the canal were, to say the least, not more fortified against the miasma and fever than the pioneers who came more or less prepared for such drawbacks. At one time a thousand men on the Erie Canal were stricken down in this region, and in some instances the work on certain "jobs" was entirely abandoned for several weeks.
