produce to our ports; and sure I am there is no other tie by which they will long form a link in the chain of federal union."
Washington's eagerness to gain every possible item of information concerning methods of internal improvement is displayed in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: "I was very much gratified . . . . by the receipt of your letter . . . . for the satisfactory account of the canal of Languedoc. It gives me great pleasure to be made acquainted with the particulars of that stupendous work, though I do not expect to derive any but speculative advantages from it." To the Marquis of Chastellux he wrote: "I have lately made a tour through the Lakes George and Champlain as far as Crown Point, then returning to Schenectady, I proceeded up the Mohawk River to Fort Schuyler, crossed over the Wood Creek, which empties into the Oneida Lake, and affords the water communication with Ontario. I then traversed the country to the head of the eastern branch of the Susquehannah, and viewed the lake Otsego, and the portage between that lake and the Mohawk River at Canajo-
