"He announced," wrote that person, Governor Morgan Lewis, then Quartermaster-General, "in language highly poetic, and to which I cannot do justice, that at no very distant day the waters of the great Western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson. I recollect asking him how they were to break through these barriers. To which he replied, that numerous streams passed them through natural channels, and that artificial ones might be conducted by the same routes." A number of eminent authorities, such as James Geddes, Simeon de Witt, and Elkanah Watson, all leave evidence that the idea of a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson was first brought to men's attention by the man who told his vision to those sleepy Revolutionary officers at Fort Edward. In his diary of a journey in Scotland in 1795 Morris thus exclaims at the sight of the Caledonian Canal, "When I see this, my mind opens to a view of wealth for the interior of America, which hitherto I had rather conjectured than seen." Six years later he wrote to a friend, after seeing ships on Lake Erie: "Hundreds of large ships will, at no distant period, bound on the billows of these inland seas.... Shall I lead your astonishment up to the verge of incredulity? I will. Know then that one-tenth of the expense borne by Great Britain in the last campaign would enable ships to sail from London through Hudson's River into Lake Erie." Simeon de Witt said in 1822: "The merit of first starting the idea of a direct communication by water between Lake Erie and Hudson's River unquestionably belongs to Mr. Gouverneur Morris. The first suggestion I had of it was from him. In 1803 I accidentally met with him at Schenectady. We put up for the night at the same inn and passed the evening together. He then mentioned the project of 'tapping Lake Erie,' as he expressed it himself, and leading its water in an artificial river, directly across the country to Hudson's River." James Geddes first heard of the early canal idea from Mr. Morris in 1804. "The idea," he said, "of saving so much lockage by not descending to Lake Ontario made a very lively impression on my mind." [Illustration: GOUVERNEUR MORRIS _Promoter of the Erie Canal_]