Illinois early understood that an Illinois-Michigan canal would help to people her northern lands. This led to many efforts to secure such a waterway. In 1819 a favorable topographical report concerning the route for the proposed canal was made,(356) and in 1822 the state was authorized to construct the canal, but no tangible aid was given.(357) In 1825 the legislature petitioned Congress for a grant of the townships through which the canal would pass. A committee report of March, 1826, which was almost identical with another presented in February, 1825, pointed out that the cost of transporting a ton of merchandise from Philadelphia, New York, or Baltimore was about ninety dollars, and required from twenty to twenty-two days. The probable cost by the proposed canal, the Lakes, and the Erie Canal, from St. Louis to New York was from sixty-three to sixty-five dollars per ton, and the time from twelve to fifteen days. The canal would bind Illinois and Missouri to the North.(358) Congress received a memorial from the legislature on the same subject in January, 1827, requesting the grant of “two entire townships, along the whole course of the canal,” and declaring that markets at New Orleans fluctuated because of speculators, and that grain and goods sent from the West to the Atlantic ports by way of New Orleans was exposed to the dangers of both the southern climate and the sea.(359) A few weeks later the desired grant was made, the state being given one-half of five sections in width on each side of the canal, the United States reserving the alternate sections.(360) The canal commissioners promptly platted the original town of Chicago and sold lots at from twenty to eighty dollars each, but no immediate settlement followed the land sale, and Chicago remained for some years longer an Indian town. The prospect of having a canal doubtless had some influence upon settlement, but at the close of 1830 the actual construction of the canal was still a thing of the future. By the close of 1828, Congress had donated to Illinois, for various purposes, chiefly for schools and internal improvements, 1,346,000 acres.(361) The salt springs had been vested in the state of Illinois with the provision that no part of the reservations should be sold. Large reservations were made at the Saline River salt works and at the Vermilion saline near Danville, the object being to reserve a supply of wood for the making of salt. Upon the discovery of coal near the springs the state was permitted to sell not more than thirty thousand acres of the Saline River reservation.(362)