It is, sir, _a great commercial, military, mail, national work_. To give the House, or those of its members who are unacquainted with the fact, some idea of the immense commercial advantages which the eastern as well as the western country has derived from the construction of this road, let me call their attention to the amount of merchandise transported to the Ohio river in a single year after its completion; and here, sir, I avail myself of an estimate made by an honorable member of the other House on another occasion, when he strongly urged the propriety and importance of the extension of the road through the State of Ohio. In the year 1822, shortly after the completion of the road, a single house in the town of Wheeling unloaded 1,081 wagons, averaging about 3,500 pounds each, and paid for the carriage of the goods $90,000. At that time there were five other commission houses in the same place, and estimating that each of them received two-thirds the amount of goods consigned to the other, there must have been nearly 5,000 wagons unloaded, and nearly $400,000 paid as the cost of transportation. But, further, it is estimated that at least every tenth wagon passed through that place into the interior of Ohio, Indiana, &c., which would considerably swell the amount. These wagons take their return loads and carry to the eastern markets all the various articles of production and manufacture of the West--their flour, whisky, hemp, tobacco, bacon, and wool. Since this estimate was made, the town of Wheeling is greatly enlarged; its population has nearly doubled; the number of its commercial establishments has greatly increased; and the demand for merchandise in the West has increased with the wealth and improvement and prosperity of the country. But, further, sir, before the completion of this road, from four to six weeks were usually occupied in the transportation of goods from Baltimore to the Ohio river, and the price varied from six to ten dollars per hundred. Now they can be carried in less than half the time and at one-half the cost, and arrangements are making by some enterprising gentlemen of the West to have the speed of transportation still increased, and the price of carriage diminished.