It is not to be concealed, that a great portion of the productions of our western country are now transported to Montreal, even with all the inconveniences attending the navigation down the Seneca and Oswego rivers; but if this route is improved in the way proposed, and the other not opened, the consequences will be most prejudicial. A barrel of flour is now transported from Cayuga lake to Montreal for $1.50, and it cannot be conveyed to Albany for less than $2.50. This simple fact speaks a volume of admonitory instruction. But taking it for granted, that the Ontario route will bring the commerce of the west to New-York, yet the other ought to be preferred, on account of the superior facilities it affords. In the first place, it is nearer. The distance from Buffalo to Rome, is less than 200 miles in the course of the intended canal: by lake Ontario and Oswego, it is 232. 2. A loaded boat could pass from Buffalo to Rome by the Erie route, in less than seven days, and with entire safety. By the Ontario route, it will be perfectly uncertain, and not a little hazardous. After leaving Niagara river, it would have to pass an inland sea to the extent of 127 miles, as boisterous and as dangerous as the Atlantic. And besides a navigation of at least twenty miles over another lake, it would have to ascend two difficult streams for 55 miles; no calculation could then be made, either on the certainty or safety of this complicated and inconvenient navigation. 3. When a lake vessel would arrive at Buffalo, she would have to unload her cargo, and when this cargo arrived at Albany by the Erie canal, it would be shifted on board of a river-sloop, in order to be transported to New-York. From the time of the first loading on the great lakes, to the last unloading at the storehouses in New-York, there would be three loadings and three unloadings on this route. But when a lake vessel arrived with a view of passing the canal of Niagara, she would be obliged to shift her lading for that purpose, for it would be almost impracticable to use lake vessels on the Niagara river, on account of the difficulty of the ascending navigation. At Lewistown, or some other place of the Niagara, another change of the cargo on board of a lake vessel for Ontario would be necessary: at Oswego another, and at Albany another; so that on this route there would be five loadings and five unloadings before the commodities were stored in New York. This difference is an object of great consequence, and presents the most powerful objections against the Ontario route; for to the delay we must add the accumulated expense of these changes of the cargo, the storage, the waste and damage, especially by theft (where the chances of depredation are increased by the merchandise passing through a multitude of hands) and the additional lake vessels, boats and men that will be required, thereby increasing in this respect alone, the cost two thirds above that attending the other course.