Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/157

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LOCAL INFLUENCES OF THE CANAL
153

Again, each section is divided into three classes; Class I includes the land within six miles of the canal route; Class II includes all land between six and twelve miles from the canal route; Class III includes all land within the counties tapped by the canal lying at a greater distance than twelve miles from its course. Mr. Winden first discusses the effect of the canal on the population of the counties through which it ran, and thus summarizes his results:

"Of the three sections considered, we have found one, Section A, with a certain condition of the population due to the influence of an old waterway, the Hudson river. Population was concentrated along the banks of the river and decreased as the distance from the river increased. The extension of this waterway into new and broader fields resulted in a very great increase of the concentration of population on the banks of the stream, but had little or no influence on the population at a distance of six or more miles from it.

"The second region, Section B, presented conditions very similar to the one preced-