Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/43

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MOHAWK IMPROVEMENT
39

to Albany. The surveyor spoke hopefully of the rapids between Schenectady and Utica (Fort Schuyler) since rapids always indicated pools above and below. The rapids were to be overcome by small, low dams with oblique walls "to collect a greater quantity of water in the channel and pond above." In the forty odd miles down Wood Creek and Lake Oneida to Fort Brewerton, the "chief impediment is occasioned by an old Indian ell wear [weir]—a wing wall to confine the channel into a narrow compass."[1] At Oswego Falls (Rochester) a canal was proposed on the south side of the river, sixty-two chains in length, and with a fall of eighteen feet. Thence to Lake Ontario, twelve miles, the rapidity of the river necessitated a series of dams and locks. "Arrived at lake Ontario, it is almost superfluous to remark (what is so obvious to every person the least acquainted with the geography of the state) on the immense expanse of internal navigation, that opens upon our view—the extent of these lakes (with one obstruction only, that doubtless will be surmounted in

  1. Id., p. 16.