The original Erie Canal was one of the greatest of early engineering projects in America, and its importance in the development of N.Y. State, and of the country to the west, can hardly be overestimated. Construction was begun in 1817, under a commission including Gouverneur Morris, De Witt Clinton, Robert Fulton, and Robert R. Livingston, and in 1825 the main channel, 363 miles in length, was opened between Albany and Buffalo, the total cost being $7,143,790. Three branches were added later. At the close of 1882, when tolls were abolished, the total revenues derived from the canal had been $121,461,871, while expenditures had amounted to $78,862,154. Various factors, including the competition of the railroads, caused a considerable decline in canal traffic in the last quarter of a century. The old canal was a ditch following the line of the Mohawk and other rivers and creeks. The new barge canal system has four branches, the Erie, from Albany to Buffalo; the Champlain, from Albany to Lake Champlain the Oswego, which starts north midway on the line of the Erie Canal and reaches Lake Ontario, and the Cayuga and Seneca, which leaves the Erie canal a little to the west of the Oswego junction and extends south, first to Cayuga Lake and then to Seneca Lake. The new canal system was first intended for 1,000 ton barges, but its capacity has been made much larger. Various sections of the improved canal were completed between 1916 and 1918, and the total cost has been about $150,000,000. Within 35 years Albany has increased fivefold in size, and is today the intersecting point of the principal water routes of the Eastern States, for besides being near the head of navigation for large steamers on the Hudson, it is virtually the terminus of the N.Y. State barge canal. It is also the key point in the transportation system of the state, for here the B. & A. and the D. & H. railroads meet the New York Central, so that one can take train for Buffalo and Chicago, the Thousand Islands, the Adirondacks, Saratoga, Lakes George and Champlain, Montreal, Vermont and the Green Mts., the Berkshires, and Boston. It is the second largest express and third largest mail transfer point in the United States. The forests of the Adirondacks and of Canada have made it a great lumber post. Its manufactures have an annual value of $30,000,000 or more; they include iron goods, stoves, wood and brass products, carriages and wagons, brick and tile, shirts, collars and cuffs, clothing and knit goods, shoes, flour, tobacco, cigars, billiard balls, dominoes and checkers. Leaving Albany, we follow closely the path of the old Iroquois Trail, which was in early days, as now, the chief highway to the Great Lakes.