_Letter X_ is dated “_Johnstown, August 20_.” Mr. P. left Pittsburgh on the 18th, at nine in the evening, in the canal packet Cincinnati, Captain Fitzgerald. In a few minutes after moving, the packet entered the aqueduct which carries the canal over to the western bank of the Alleghany, “along which it runs in a north eastern direction for thirty miles.” At five o'clock on the morning of the 19th, our tourist passed the village of Freeport, which stands on the western bank of the Alleghany, below the mouth of the Kiskeminitas. A few minutes afterwards he crossed the Alleghany through an aqueduct, which “carries the canal over that river to the northern bank of the Kiskeminitas, the course of which the canal now pursues in a south eastern direction.” At eight A. M. Mr. P. passed Leechburg, at twelve Saltsburgh—and at two P. M. an aqueduct leading the canal into a tunnel eight hundred feet long, going through the mountain and cutting off a circuit of four miles. At 3 A. M. on the 20th, Johnstown is reached, “the eastern end of the trans-Alleghanian canal, and the western beginning of the Portage rail road.” _Letter XI_ gives a vivid picture of the Portage rail road. This also we will be pardoned for copying. _Packet Juniata, near Lewistown, August 21, 1835._ Yesterday, at Johnstown, we soon despatched the ceremony of a good breakfast, and at 6 A. M. were in {450} motion on the first level, as it is called, of four miles in length, leading to the foot of the first inclined plane. The _level_ has an ascent of one hundred and one feet, and we passed over it in horse-drawn cars with the speed of six miles an hour. This is a very interesting part of the route, not only on account of the wildness and beauty of the scenery, but also of the excitement mingled with vague apprehension, which takes possession of every body in approaching the great wonder of the internal improvements of Pennsylvania. In six hours the cars and passengers were to be raised eleven hundred and seventy-two feet of perpendicular height, and to be lowered fourteen hundred feet of perpendicular descent, by complicated, powerful, and _frangible_ machinery, and were to pass a mountain, to overcome which, with a similar weight, three years ago, would have required the space of three days. The idea of raising so rapidly in the world, particularly by steam or _a rope_, is very agitating to the simple minds of those who have always walked in humble paths.