the stream to the Crescent City. In a few cases small ocean-going
vessels were built to transport goods to the West Indies or to the
Eastern coast towns. Salt, iron, guns, powder, and the absolute
essentials which the pioneers had to buy mainly in Eastern markets were
carried over narrow wagon trails that were almost impassable in the
rainy season.

=The National Road.=--To far-sighted men, like Albert Gallatin, "the
father of internal improvements," the solution of this problem was the
construction of roads and canals. Early in Jefferson's administration,
Congress dedicated a part of the proceeds from the sale of lands to
building highways from the headwaters of the navigable waters emptying
into the Atlantic to the Ohio River and beyond into the Northwest
territory. In 1806, after many misgivings, it authorized a great
national highway binding the East and the West. The Cumberland Road, as
it was called, began in northwestern Maryland, wound through southern
Pennsylvania, crossed the narrow neck of Virginia at Wheeling, and then
shot almost straight across Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, into Missouri.
By 1817, stagecoaches were running between Washington and Wheeling; by
1833 contractors had carried their work to Columbus, Ohio, and by 1852,
to Vandalia, Illinois. Over this ballasted road mail and passenger
coaches could go at high speed, and heavy freight wagons proceed in
safety at a steady pace.

[Illustration: THE CUMBERLAND ROAD]

=Canals and Steamboats.=--A second epoch in the economic union of the
East and West was reached with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825,
offering an all-water route from New York City to the Great Lakes and
the Mississippi Valley. Pennsylvania, alarmed by the advantages
conferred on New York by this enterprise, began her system of canals and
portages from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, completing the last link in
1834. In the South, the Chesapeake and Ohio Company, chartered in 1825,
was busy with a project to connect Georgetown and Cumberland when
railways broke in upon the undertaking before it was half finished.
About the same time, Ohio built a canal across the state, affording
water communication between Lake Erie and the Ohio River through a rich
wheat belt. Passengers could now travel by canal boat into the West with
comparative ease and comfort, if not at a rapid speed, and the bulkiest
of freight could be easily handled. Moreover, the rate charged for
carrying goods was cut b