The following extracts from a letter published in the Olive Branch, February 27, 1821, on the “Project of a Canal,” is but a fair specimen of the philanthropy of the times, and says: “Nothing can be of more importance to the State of Ohio than the making of a navigable canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio river. That it is practicable to make such canal admits not of a doubt. Were it made, and the Hudson and Erie canal finished, we should have an easy and cheap highway on which to transport our surplus produce to the New York market. I have had the level between the Scioto and the Sandusky bay at Lower Sandusky. From the summit level on the most favorable route for a canal that I am acquainted with, to Lower Sandusky, the descent, agreeable to the report of Mr. Farrer, whom I employed for the purpose of taking the levels, is 318 feet.... And by the report of the engineers employed by the State of Virginia, they make the Ohio river at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river 83 feet lower than Lake Erie. If those levels are to be relied on, and we ascertain what is the amount of descent in the Ohio river from the mouth of the Great Kanawha to the point where the canal is intended to communicate with the Ohio, we will then know what will be the whole amount of lockage required. If we allow 50 feet for the descent, the lockage will be as follows: From Lake Erie to the summit level, 318 feet; and from summit level to Ohio river, 433 feet; making the whole amount, 751 feet. I do not know how near this estimate is to the truth, but I am satisfied in my own mind the lockage would be between seven and eight hundred feet. “The estimate of the commissioners for making the New York canal is $13,800 per mile. Owing to the reduction in the price of labor it is found it can be made for much less money. The ground for making a canal across the State of Ohio is much more favorable than that over which the New York canal is now making. Although there would be more lockage on the Ohio canal than on the New York, yet it is believed it can be made at less expense than an equal distance of the New York canal. When we take into consideration the low price at which labor can be had, and the advantage to be gained by the employment of experienced engineers now employed on the New York canal, I think I hazard but little in saying that a canal can be made across this state for $12,000 a mile.”... “I am aware that some will say that ‘the State of Ohio is too young and too poor to undertake this mighty project.’ But I deny that the State of Ohio is either young or poor. She contains at this time more than 500,000 souls, and ranks fourth or fifth state in the Union. Can a state with such a population (of industrious people, too) be poor? It has been justly remarked, ‘_That population is power_; and _industry is wealth_,’ so I contend that we are both _powerful_ and _rich_.