isited the country, and this marvelous rate of increase was fully
maintained during the subsequent decade.

It is not remarkable that the cities and States of the Union which first
took steps to connect the fertile regions lying beyond the Allegheny
Mountains with the Atlantic should have made the greatest progress in
importance and prosperity. It was the fortune of the State of New York to
take the earliest step to effect this great desideratum, although
Washington had perhaps first suggested its importance, in agitating a
movement for the purpose of connecting the country adjoining the Great
Lakes with his native Virginia. The construction of the Erie Canal placed
New York in the very front of American communities. Before the canal was
opened the cost of transit from Lake Erie to tidewater was such as to
prohibit the shipment of western produce and merchandise to New York; and
it consequently came only to Baltimore and Philadelphia. "As soon as the
lakes were reached," says a Federal report, "the line of navigable water
was extended through them nearly one thousand miles farther from the
interior. The Western States immediately commenced the construction of
similar works, for the purpose of opening a communication from the more
remote portions of their territories with this great water-line. All
these works took their direction and character from the Erie Canal, which
in this manner became the outlet for the greater part of the produce of
the West. Without such a work the West would have had no attractions for
a settler, and have probably remained a waste up to the present time; and
New York itself could not have progressed as it has done." In addition,
however, to the formation of the Erie Canal, New York originated, in
advance of most other States, lines of railway throughout its territory,
in connection either with the canal, or between its various towns and
settlements. It also connected itself by railroad with Lake Champlain,
and succeeded in diverting a considerable portion of the transit trade of
Canada from the St. Lawrence through these communications to the port of
New York. The effect of this enterprise displayed by the people and by
the State may be estimated by the fact that the population, which was, in
1830, 1,918,608, had increased in 1840 to 2,428,921, and in 1850 was
3,097,394. In 1830, the value of the imports at New York was $38,656,064;
in 1840 it had reached $60,064,942, and in 1851, when the netwo