No. 18.
Contemplated.

Improvements along the Savannah and the Tennessee rivers, and a connexion between the two. Accurate surveys for the which, are not yet made.

Distance, or length of Canal-work,

Not yet ascertained,

By this work, No. 18, the direct line of internal-navigation, will be ex-
tended into the heart of our Southern district of country. Moreover,
the Southern port of Savannah in Georgia, will become, for the inte-
rior of every quarter, as occasion may require or invite, a direct out-
let to the ocean, and inlet from the same. On one hand, we have the
Tennessee river, flowing, after a long circuitous course, into the Ohio,
sixty miles above the confluence of the latter with the Mississippi; on
the other hand, we have the Savannah river, discharging its waters
into the Atlantic, below the port of Savannah.

THE foregoing table, altogether, gives, it will probably be admitted, a pretty comprehensive view of water-improvements within the United States. Notwithstanding which, it is far from including every thing of the kind that has been projected, or even executed. I have noticed before, the Middlesex canal in Massachusetts, and that in South Carolina, some very useful canal-work is made to assist the river-navigation of that state: as is the case also in Virginia. In North Carolina, a course of navigationimprovement has been entered on by the state; they have commenced with Cape-Fear river, both below and above the port of Wilmington; as well to deepen the ship-channel from sea, as to render the upper navigation practicable for steam vessels; and the works are prosecuting, under a prospect of much success. In New Jersey, besides the proposed cut between the rivers Delaware and Rariton, a Northern canal, to connect the Delaware and Passaick, is under consideration by the legislature. In Pennsylvania the Conewago, the Conestoga, and the Le

high rivers, have been highly inproved; as there is little doubt the river Delaware itself, very soon will be, from the rapids at Trenton, upward to Easton; and thence perhaps, to Carpenter's Point, seventy miles higher than Easton: the river Susquehanna likewise, at many points of its upper navigation, particularly above Middletown, or the mouth of the Swatara, will receive improvement; and the junctions signified in No. 14 and 15 of the table, being accomplished. Harrisburg, the present seat of the Pennsylvania Government, will then be included in a direct line of navigation from Philadelphia, as follows:

1° To Lake Erie; by way of the river Schuylkill, the Union canal, Lake Seneca, and the Grand canal of New York.

2o To the Ohio at Pittsburg; by way of the Schuylkill, the Union canal, the Susequehanna, and West branch thereof, or the Juniata.

Furthermore, there can be no doubt, that attempts. will be made, to clear the great Mississippi, in some places, of snags and sawyers, or sunken trees, which now and then occasion fatal accidents.

Ir might, very possibly, gratify a rising curiosity, to ascertain, but it would at present be extremely difficult to cast up, with any approach to accuracy, the length of a voyage, within the United States which, after all or the chief part of the canal-works enumerated in the table shall have been accomplished, and supposing likewise, some enlargement in the scale of this artificial navigation at certain points, in such sort and degree as to accommodate vessels of burthen throughout, the length, I say, of a voyage, which it might then be practicable for a Steam Boat of some hundreds of tons, to make. Entering on the voyage, we will suppose, at some one of our Eastern seaports, and concluding it at the Balize, or at Mobile, in the Gulf of Florida. The voyage to consist, in visiting the different places to which the vessel can have access, proceeding from one to another, without repetition, through all the navigable water-courses of our great rivers and lakes; or, through them and the tributary streams to both, whether great or small, improved and connected as the whole will then be, by artificial means.