At the same time, 1793, work was begun at other points, principally on a canal from the Mohawk to the Hudson (to avoid Cohoes Falls), but the work soon ceased because of lack of funds. In that summer the preliminary work on the water route down Wood Creek and the Onondaga to Lake Ontario was done. The little, winding creek was found to be almost incorrigible. It was so crooked that thirteen cuts were made across the points of land contained within its curving banks. The banks were lined with aged trees whose predecessors had fallen into the narrow waterway which they choked with their many huge, straggling branches. It was no less a task to remove the debris from the waterway than it was to remove from the banks the trees which would fall into the water during the next windstorm. Many have written gaily of the swift canoes of the olden days, gliding peacefully on the limpid surface of the old-time rivers; a study of the condition of the old Mohawk, Susquehanna, or Ohio would have corrected suggestions which are inherently misrepresentations. On such smaller
