Accordingly the commissioners named explored the country between the Hudson and Lake Erie through which the prospective waterway would run, in the summer of 1810 with Jesse Hawley's contributions of 1807-08 in their hands. At the next meeting of the legislature they presented an elaborate report. It would seem that the committee had passed over the route of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company from Schenectady to Lake Ontario; James Geddes, the experienced engineer who had given some little study to the region under survey, made a map and a few rough estimates. The report opens with the declaration that the idea of making small rivers navigable had long ago been exploded in Europe; this was a polite way of saying that the days of the Lock Navigation Company were fairly numbered. The report affirms that a canal parallel with the rivers improved by the Navigation Company (Mohawk, Wood Creek, and Oswego) is practicable as far as Oswego Falls (Rochester). The twelve remaining miles to Lake Ontario might well be covered by a railway. However, the committee had another plan, that of building the canal straight west from the Oswego to Lake Erie, avoiding Lake Ontario's winds and waves entirely. Certain interesting commercial questions were here involved. Even with the advantages offered by the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, New York and Albany could not hold their own in competition with Montreal. Freight rates down the St. Lawrence were marvelously cheap; fifty cents a hundredweight, only, was charged by descending boatmen from Kingston to Montreal--one-half the early rate from Buffalo to New York on the Erie Canal when it was at last built. The rate of freight up the St. Lawrence was only one dollar per hundredweight. If any point east of Niagara Falls was made the terminus of New York's canal, it was feared that Montreal would profit by it more, perhaps, than the cities it was intended to build up and benefit. Mr. Geddes favored the direct route to Lake Erie by way of the "Tanawanta" River. He advanced the following rough estimate of distances in the direct route: _Miles_ _Descent_ (_feet_) Mouth of Tanawanta 10 5 Genesee River (about) 68 34 Seneca Lake 46 23 Cayuga Lake 6 3 Rome (summit) 66 33 Little Falls 38 19 Schoharie 38 19 Summit between Schenectady and Albany (about) 24 12 Hudson River 14 7 --- --- Totals 310 155