tants of the same country: and it has been well observed, that "were we to make the supposition of two states, the one having all its cities, towns, and villages upon navigable rivers and canals, and having an easy communication with each other; the other possessing the common conveyance of land carriage, and supposing both states to be equal as to soil, climate, and industry, commodities and manufactures in the former state, might be furnished thirty per cent. cheaper than in the latter: or in other words, the first state would be a third richer, and more affluent than the other."
The general arguments in favor of inland navigation, apply with peculiar force to the United States, and most emphatically to this state. A geographical view of the country, will at once demonstrate the unexampled prosperity that will arise from our cultivating the advantages which nature has dispensed with so liberal a hand. A great chain of mountains passes through the United States, and divides them into eastern and western America. In various places, rivers break through those mountains, and are finally discharged into the
