Governor Clinton poured the Lake Erie water into the ocean, another gentleman poured in water from several other places, and the waters of the Atlantic and the Great Lakes were pronounced “wedded,” joined in indissoluble union. A procession a mile and a half long, the greatest ever formed in America at that date, marched through the streets, a grand exhibition of fire-works was held, and a ball was given in a room made by the joining of an amphitheatre and a circus building, forming the largest ball-room ever used in America. All about the hall the great names of the canal constructors were blazoned, and in the ladies’ banquet room a boat made of maple sugar, which had been presented to Governor Clinton at Utica, floated in a vessel filled with Lake Erie water. At the end of the celebration the committee from the West departed for home, bearing a keg of Atlantic water, ornamented with the arms of the city of New York and the following words in letters of gold: “Neptune’s return to Pan. New York, 4th Nov. 1825. Water of the Atlantic.” When the committee reached Buffalo with this gift, they held the closing scene of the great pageant, mingling the waters of the Atlantic with those of Lake Erie. If words, festivities, symbolic ceremonies, and a waterway of commerce could do it, the Great Lakes and the Atlantic were united. The importance of the outcome justified the hopes of the canal-promoters. The canal cost nearly eleven million dollars; but the last debts were discharged in 1836. Commerce increased greatly and was immensely benefited, and within twelve years plans were on foot for enlarging the canal, which were soon carried out.