Five lines of stakes were now driven into the ground from the eastern to the western boundaries of the state of New York--a circumstance which must be considered epoch-making in the history of America. For, look at it as you will, the beginning of the Erie Canal must be considered a greater marvel than the building of it. It would be difficult now to propose an engineering feat that is within the range of sanity that would provoke so much ridicule and debate as did the plan to build the Erie Canal through those hundreds of miles of dense forests and reeking swamps in 1816. A bridge across the Atlantic or a tunnel underneath it could scarcely provoke more sneers today. Yet the summer of 1817 saw the rows of stakes driven into the ground--over hill and vale, through densest forest and sickliest swamp, from east to west; the outer rows were sixty feet apart and indicated the space to be grubbed; between these were two other rows forty feet apart which indicated the exact dimensions of the canal; a single row of stakes in the middle marked the exact center of the canal. Those who laughed at the stakes grew sober when men came on over the route boring with four inch augers into the ground every few rods to a depth of twelve feet; by this means the nature of the soil was tested all along the route and estimates could be made of the cost of the digging; thereupon profiles could be drawn by the engineers. Each of the three great sections of the canal was subdivided into very small sections which were to be let to contractors; each working section was bounded, when possible, by a brook or ravine, in order that each contractor might have the advantage of independent drainage. The plan of the state's furnishing the tools for the work of digging the canal was soon changed, the contractors being expected to furnish their own tools. An instance of the skill of the old Erie Canal engineers, in a day when "surveying" was as loose a word as the dictionary contained, is interesting: "While Benjamin Wright, Esquire, was re-examining and laying off sections from Rome, west along the canal line, it was deemed expedient, as a test to the accuracy of the work, that James Geddes, Esquire, should start, at a given point on the canal line at Rome, and carry a level along the road to the east end of Oneida Lake, marking on permanent objects the height of the surface of the water while the lake was tranquil, at various places from the east to the west end, along its southern shore; that he should then connect by a level, the Oneida with the Onondaga Lake; after which he was to carry a level from the last mentioned lake, at Salina, south about one and a fourth miles to the canal line, and from thence to work to the east, laying off sections along the canal line. This was accomplished, and nine miles at the west end of the summit level were laid out into sections. And the commissioners have the satisfaction to state, that when the level of Mr.