As the main object of these works is cheap transportation, the tolls should be diminished, as the works were completed, to the full extent that freight could be carried more cheaply in large boats, and provision should be made for an adequate sinking fund, so as gradually to liquidate the whole cost, and then to collect no more toll than would pay to keep the works in repair. Such is the true interest of the States and of the nation. If New York could collect a toll for navigating the Hudson, it would be against her interest, for the diminution and diversion of business, and tax on labor and products, would far exceed the net proceeds of any such toll. The same principle will apply to these canals. As some of them, unfortunately, are owned by private companies, adequate provision should be made, to prevent these aids from being perverted to purposes of individual speculation. The Erie and Ontario canal, at the falls of Niagara, and the Superior, Huron, and Michigan canal (less than a mile long), at the falls of St. Mary, should be made ship canals, much larger than those of Canada. The cost of all these works may exceed $100,000,000, but the admirable financial system of Mr. Secretary Chase, would soon supply abundant means for their construction. Already the price of gold has fallen largely, our legal tenders are being funded, by millions, in the Secretary's favorite 5-20 sixes, and we shall soon have, under his system, a sound, uniform national currency, binding every State and citizen to the Union, and fraught ultimately with advantages to the nation, equal to the whole expense of the war. In passing down the Susquehanna canal, at Middletown, commences the canal which, by way of Reading and the Schuylkill, connects Philadelphia with the Susquehanna and the lakes. Most of this work is already six feet deep, but the whole route, if practicable, should be enlarged to the dimensions of the Erie canal. I have met in the British Museum some documents showing the original project (absurdly abandoned) for a large canal from the Schuylkill to the Susquehanna. A slight change will restore this work, and give to Philadelphia a complete seven-foot canal, via the Schuylkill and Susquehanna to the lakes, as short as from New York, and through a richer country, both mineral and agricultural. It appears that Washington and Franklin both favored this route. 1. Gunboats, and large commercial steamers, could then pass, without interruption, through all the lakes, to the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, the Delaware, Susquehanna, Chesapeake Bay, Albemarle Sound, the Ohio, and Mississippi.