During the existence of the company, freight designed for Lake Erie and the West took the route of Lake Ontario to the mouth of Niagara river. From that point to the head of the Falls was a portage of 28 miles. The charge for transporting a bushel of salt for this distance, according to the report made by Mr. Geddes in 1809, was 75 cents; and for a ton of general merchandise 10 dollars. All that can be said of the works of the Western Inland Navigation Company is, that they led the way to the construction of the Erie Canal. They never held the route of any considerable commerce. For a long time after their construction, the farmers of Central and Western New York, for want of other means, sent their produce to market down the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers in arks, which were broken up when the destined market was reached. In the meantime, the subject of a canal better adapted to the wants of commerce than that of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company was by no means lost sight of. In 1807, in a series of articles published at Canandaigua in the Ontario _Messenger_, Jesse Hawley, their author, urged the construction of a canal from Lake Erie, 100 feet wide and 10 feet deep, “to be laid on an _inclined plane_,” from Buffalo to Utica; thence down the channel of the Mohawk; thence across the portage to Albany—to be constructed at the expense of the National Government. This plan of an inclined plane, strange as it may seem, was, notwithstanding its gross absurdity, favourably received, and proved for a long time, from the great difficulties it involved, a serious obstacle to the early beginning of any work of the kind.