Last year, even during a war, breadstuffs and provisions, reaching $109,676,875 in value, were exported abroad, from the loyal States alone; but, with these enlarged canals, the amount could be more than tripled, the augmented exports bringing in increased imports, and vast additional revenue. Can we not realize the certainty of these great results, and have we not the energy and patriotism to insure their accomplishment? Assuredly we have. Nor is it only our revenue from duties that would be increased to an extent sufficient of itself, in a few years, to pay the principal and interest of the debt incurred in the construction of these works, but our internal revenue, also, would be prodigiously augmented. The census of 1860 shows our increase of wealth, from 1850 to 1860, to have been 126.45 per cent. (Table 35). Now, if we would increase our wealth only one tenth, in the next ten years, by the construction of these works, then (our wealth being now $16,159,616,068) such increase would make our wealth, in 1870, instead of $36,593,450,585, more than sixteen hundred millions _greater_, or more than _ten times_ the cost of these works; and, in 1880, instead of $82,865,868,849, over three billions six hundred millions more, or more than twenty times the cost of those works. The same percentage, then, of our present internal tax, on this augmented wealth, estimated at only one per cent., would be $16,000,000 (annually) in 1870, and $36,000,000 (annually) in 1880, and constantly increasing. Add this to the great increase of our revenue from duties, as the result of these works, and the addition would not only soon liquidate their cost, but yield a sum which, in a few years, would pay the principal and interest of our public debt. With such works, we would certainly soon be the first military, naval, and commercial power of the world. The West, with these reduced freights, would secure immense additional markets for her products, and the East send a much larger amount of manufactures, in return cargoes, to the West. A new and great impulse would be given to the coal and iron interest. If the Delaware, Susquehanna, and their tributaries, and the Ohio and its tributaries, especially the Youghiogheny, Monongahela, and Alleghany had the benefit of low freight, afforded by these canals, they could supply not only the seaboard at reduced rates, but also central and western New York, the Canadas, and the whole lake region, with coal and iron. Indeed, the increased demand, thus caused for these great articles, would soon bring our make of iron, and consumption of coal, up to that of England, and ultimately much larger. Freight is a much greater element in the cost of coal and iron, than of agricultural products, but the increased exchange would be mutually advantageous.