Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/60

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56
THE GREAT AMERICAN CANALS

The actual descent would be 525 feet. Mr. Geddes's plan included aqueducts across the Genesee River twenty-six feet high and one hundred and fifty yards long, across the mouth of Seneca Lake eighty-three feet high, and across the mouth of Cayuga one hundred and thirty feet high. As a detailed survey had not been made, it was impossible to estimate accurately the expense.

Agitation of the great question was the only tangible result of this investigation. In 1811 Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton were added to the committee, and a report was made to the legislature, March, 1812. This report showed that the friends of the great waterway had resolved to exhaust all resources before relinquishing the work. They applied to Congress through Morris and De Witt Clinton for "Co-operation and aid in making a canal navigation between the great lakes and Hudson's river, which, in the opinion of the Legislature of New-York, will encourage agriculture, promote commerce and manufacture, ficilitate [sic] a free and general intercourse between different parts