The adoption of this programme would make the Erie Canal the most important artificial waterway in the world, the tonnage that would make use of it, when thus improved, being calculated at 20 to 25 millions a year. The cost of the undertaking (estimated at 25,000,000_l._ to 30,000,000_l._), although a large sum, is not deemed to be too much for a great artificial river more than 300 miles long, 18 feet deep, 100 feet wide at the bottom, and having locks 450 feet long and 60 feet wide. These dimensions would enable the canal to float the largest vessels that navigate the great lakes from Lake Erie to the deep waters of the Hudson. FOOTNOTES: [110] In 1880, the Erie canal carried 4,608,651 tons of traffic and earned 1,120,691 dols. of income. [111] The main line of this canal was sold in 1857 to the Pennsylvania Railway Company for 7½ million dollars, and the branches were sold to various private companies for five million dollars more. [112] Poor’s ‘Manual of the Railroads of the United States,’ 1881. [113] Report of the Committee of Ways and Means. [114] Poor’s Manual for 1881, p. xxxviii. [115] Including in the latter year nearly 1½ million bushels of beans and oatmeal. [116] ‘Annual Report on the Commerce and Navigation of the United States’ for 1884, p. xlxi. [117] Consisting of 23 inclined planes and 23 lift locks. [118] ‘Railroad Transportation,’ p. 31. [119] ‘Report of the Tenth Census,’ vol. iv. pp. 29-31. [120] ‘Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers,’ vol xiv. p. 99. CHAPTER XVI. THE WATERWAYS OF CANADA. “Heads the running springs and standing lakes, And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.” —_Dryden._ It appears to be among the “things not generally known” that Canada has, relatively to the trade and population of the Dominion, one of the most extensive and perfect systems of canal communication in existence. The really important canals are few in number, and the traffic that they transport is by no means so considerable as that carried on many of the canals of the United States and some European countries. But, all the same, the Canadian people, always appreciative of the advantages of cheap water transport, and looking to that agency as a means for the development of their internal resources, have neglected no opportunity that offered for advancing their waterways, and utilising them to the utmost extent. The principal canals in Canadian territory are the Welland, the Lachine, the Cornwall, the Galops, the Murray, the Quebec and Montreal, and the Sault Ste Marie, or St. Mary’s Falls, the latter being partly on United States and partly on Canadian territory. These canals have chiefly been constructed for the purpose of affording communication between the great lakes and the St. Lawrence river, whence vessels pass into the Atlantic.