streams as Little River or Wood Creek, the havoc of the wind was even more noticeable. The company now at work on Wood Creek planned to clear the banks of timber for four rods back on each bank and, by the report of 1796, the contracts were actually proposed to that effect. The company had trouble with settlers along the rivers, for felling trees which grew along the banks into the water, thereby saving themselves the labor of burning them or hauling them away. The company expected to cut a canal from the Mohawk to Wood Creek near Rome, New York, to take the place of the famous portage path. In the report of 1796 it was proposed even to mortgage the works at Little Falls in order to secure funds for this portage canal.
The plan of the complete communication was outlined by the company's engineer, Mr. Weston, December 23, 1795, and was embodied in the report of 1796. It called for a canal from the Hudson, above Lansing's Mill, to the Mohawk above Cohoes Falls; these falls, seventy feet in height, had made necessary the portage path through the pine barrens from Schenectady
