ation of the United States, as it
stood in 1870, into two equal parts. This line is nearly parallel to the
line of the Atlantic coast. From these calculations it will appear that
both the "centre of gravity" and the line that divides the population in
half are more than one hundred and fifty miles west of the Appalachian
chain.

If these computations be correct, Poor's figures are too low by two or
three millions at least. But, apart from the demand for an
inter-continental canal by the population on the west of the Appalachian
chain, the seaboard States and cities east of the Appalachians are, as
we have already shown, as profoundly interested in such a national cheap
thoroughfare as is the former section. Careful estimates have shown that
the surplus produce[F] of the trans-Alleghany sections and the
Mississippi Valley cannot be less than twenty-five million tons; and
this would immediately seek an outlet through the Virginia water-line
to the sea. The saving that would result to the West and to the whole
country would be enormous; and at a very moderate calculation the amount
would be an average of two dollars per ton on the river route, _via_ New
Orleans, and ten dollars per ton over the railroad routes. The
completion of a comparatively short canal of eighty miles, to cover the
gap from Buchanan to the upper Kanawha, would without the shadow of
exaggeration save the West forty millions of dollars a year; and the
central water-line would yield an interest of ten to fifteen per cent.
on the capital invested, while opening a continuous water-road from
Liverpool to Omaha, running nearly due west, fifty-nine hundred miles in
length! By reducing the freights on the other present thoroughfares
through the influence of wholesome competition, it would perhaps at once
lessen the cost of inland transportation by nearly one hundred millions
of dollars annually!

These considerations, and the added fact that for many years the
chambers of commerce of the great Western cities, the many commercial
conventions that have met, and the legislatures of the States bordering
on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, have earnestly and unanimously
memorialized Congress in behalf of the completion of this great
inter-continental highway, fully establish the _national_ character of
the measure now pending in the national councils.

THOMPSON B. MAURY.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] New York _Times_.

[B] From the 3d to the 6th o