passing through the counties of Macomb, Oakland, Livingston, Ingham, Eaton, Barry, and Allegan. The summit level on this route was found in the then village of Pontiac, 28 miles from Mount Clemens, 344 61-100 feet above the level of St. Clair, and 336 11-100 feet above the waters of Lake Michigan, requiring a lockage on the east of 349 61-100 feet, and on the west of 341 11-100 feet. The report of James Hurd, made to the Legislature of 1838 (see Senate Documents, 1838), gives the following statement in round numbers: One level of 43 miles, one of 29, one of 28, one of 15, 17, and 12, respectively. On the plan of said canal it was estimated that at the summit would be required for 100 lockages per day, including evaporation and filtration, 4 83-100 cubic feet of water per minute. The amount ascertained was 8 915-1000, or nearly enough for 200 lockages per day. The total amount required per minute for 100 lockages per day, the entire distance was 27,313 cubic feet per minute. The amount ascertained, exclusive of the water upon the summit already mentioned, was as follows, viz.: The Thornapple and Rabbit rivers can be used at different points where the volume of water is many times greater than above mentioned. There are other streams that will furnish much water that can be received into the canal at different points. In relation to the general surface of the country and the soil over which the canal line passes, it has been found more than ordinarily favorable to the construction of a canal. The soil, generally, is of a character easily removed, and few obstacles, aside from the lockage, more than common excavation and embankments, of a serious character, are met with. The locks and aqueducts west of the summit level are mostly located in the vicinity of materials convenient and suitable for their construction. In crossing the summit an excavation from ten to twenty-four feet will require to be encountered a distance of three miles and nine chains, through the dividing ridge between the tributaries of the Huron and Shiawassee rivers. The summit ridge and the crossing of the Grand river present the most formidable obstructions on the route, and will be most expensive for the distance of any part of the line; but as the former will prove, I think, common excavation, and the latter is located in the vicinity of materials for the construction of the work, and the very favorable location which the route has across the valley, they can-in comparison with what has been accomplished in other States hardly be considered as presenting anything like a formidable difficulty in the construction of a work of so much importance to the State. The elevation of the level over the Grand river is 28.5 feet, which level enables us to cross the dividing ridge between the valley of the Grand river and the waters of the Thornapple with a cut of but nine feet, and that not exceeding one chain in distance. At this point is a break or gap in the ridge of sufficient width only to admit the construction of a canal of the size proposed, then rising on either side in hight from 60 to 80 feet. A proposition lessening the cost according to the surveys, but increasing the distance materially, was favorably entertained in 1838-9 of following Grand river from Lansing to its mouth. This route is practicable, and the great amount of lakes of Oakland county not taken into the estimate, that might be utilized as feeders, demonstrates the practicability of the route even for a ship canal. Another project was early entertained of the improvement of the St. Joseph river to Union City, and a canal by the way of Homer, and across the counties of Jackson and Washtenaw to the Huron at Dexter. Under the direction of the Committee of Internal Improvements of the State of Michigan, Charles F. Smith, in the summer of 1838, made a survey of the river, from which it appears (see his report, page 262, Senate Documents, 1838) that at Branch county, in town 7 west, a distance by the river of 160 miles,-43 of which was through the State of Indiana, the elevation is 285 feet. The survey to determine the feasibility of a canal to Homer, and the use of the Kalamazoo river and lakes in that vicinity as feeders, in a distance of 20 miles of further ascent, was made, making theKalamazoo and lakes near Homer, in Calhoun county, 375 feet above the level of Lake Michigan, which is fifteen feet higher than Lake Erie. Mr. Cyrus Holmes, a gentleman of this party, run for the citizens of Jackson and vicinity a line to the Huron from Homer, and favorable report was made without a cut of more than 20 feet. The report of that portion of the survey we fail to find in the archives of the State, but from the surveys as shown since for railroads we have no doubt that the report is correct, and that the summit on that route is about 390 feet instead of 490 feet as given by railroad surveys. Of the contemplated canal from Chicago to Toledo the time and space allotted me will not permit more than this to be said: The distance, hight to overcome, and the contemplated use of the Canadian canals as an outlet, the central route affording Milwaukee and the northwest equal facilities with Chicago, has many advantages over the proposed one through Indiana. We now come to the discussion of the project of a ship canal from the mouth of the Kalamazoo river to the Detroit river, a distance by government surveys of 1623 miles, which can unquestionably be accomplished by the construction of 190 miles of canal and slackwater navigation. The line would follow the valley of the Kalamazoo to Battle creek; thence up Battle creek to section 15, in the town of Walton, 5 west, 1 north; thence in an easterly course up one of the tributaries to Battle creek near its head; thence in nearly a direct line to Grand river in town 1, range 3 west; from here following Grand river into the county of Ingham, passing on to the level of the Portage marsh and lakes of Jackson and Ingham, near the base line, striking the headwaters of the Huron and the Rouge, and seeking an outlet in the Detroit river. Actual surveys show this to be the shortest line for the proposed canal, and, aside from the Saginaw line, the cheapest of any proposed. The hight to overcome between Battle creek and Grand river will not exceed 18 feet; there within a distance of seven miles is a fall of 183 feet, sufficient, by the use of feeders for three miles, to fill a level extending nearly or quite to the meridian line of the State. A survey but yesterday completed by Engineer Miller and associates between Leslie and Whitmore lake. situated upon the base line of the State, in township 6 east, shows the summit of the State on this line to be in section 33, in town 1 north, 1 west. A glance at the map of the State shows that upon this summit in a distance of fifty miles there are over 300 of our 5,173 lakes, covering 712,864 acres. These 300 lakes cover an area of 40,000 acres. The line after leaving Battle creek near its source, besides numerous rivulets, crosses streams as follows: Spring brook, 25 feet wide, 2 feet deep; Grand river, 150 feet wide, 3 feet deep; Willow brook, 15 feet by 2; Huntoon creek, 10 feet by 31; Rice creek, 10 feet by 4 feet; Baptiste river, 10 feet by 3 feet; Otter creek, 15 feet by 3 feet, Turtle creek, 15 feet by 3 feet; Portage river, 15 feet by 3 feet; Huron river, 90 feet wide, 1 foot deep. Whitmore lake is found to be 59 feet lower than the railroad track at Leslie depot on the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw road, which is 50 feet above the surface 1 miles south. If the wants of the proposed canal should require upon the summit 40,000 cubic feet of water per minute for lockage, evaporation, and filtration, here we have not less than 164,640 cubic feet of water at our command. Nor are we to be confined to surface water, for upon every portion of this route, including half the distance, where artesian wells have been sunk to the depth of 150 to 180 feet, the only limit to the amount of water obtained has been the size of the drill used. We may be asked, what is the estimated cost of this improvement, and what is to be gained by it? Briefly let me say, then, that after reading an article published in one of our neighboring cities to the effect that all the cereals of the west would not pay the expense of its construction in the next fifty years, I would be inclined to be somewhat reticent did not the same sheet furnish the answer that the writer was a secretary of a railroad. Chicago alone has shipped upwards of 2,000,000 tons of products the last year,-not by railroad, but largely by water. This grain, if carried by teams, each team with a ton per load and 5 rods to the team, would require a train 10,000,000 rods in extent, which is equal to 31,250 miles. But this article was written for a locality somewhere about 70 feet above the level of the proposed canal, where, in 1840, they flung eggs and made night hideous with pans and horns on the return of their members from the Legislature, for advocating the extension of the Central railroad to Kalamazoo,-here it was that the urgent request was made to the town pump to toot, declaring it would make 100 increase in their majority at the next election. If the estimate of the cost of the Clinton and Kalamazoo canal, $2,250,000, was correct, four times the amount would construct this. But what if it should cost $15,000,000? What have we gained? First, we have gained from six to ten weeks more water communication with the proposed improvement of the New York canal each year, which means to extend for that length of time shipments at from 30 to 40 cents per hundred instead of paying from 70 to 75 cents per hundred. We shall save the world three-quarters of the losses sustained by the present transportation around the lakes, amounting last year to more than $3,700,000. We shall save the producers indirectly, by lessening insurance on their products, over $2,000,000 annually. With this improvement in time alone, without taking into account the loss of life, sufficient will be saved in cost of transportation to pay for this work in a few years. Will it pay? When the Erie canal was completed, less than 1,000,000 people inhabited the vast territory of the United States west of Buffalo; but for trade this work was accomplished, and steadily has the great State of New York kept pace with the demands of commerce, until this year her canal has supplied her metropolis with a tonnage equal to a train of loaded cars at ten tons per car twenty miles long. The limit of the capacity of the Erie, without enlargement of her locks has been reached. Her resources for water for almost double the amount of lockage required to connect Lake Michigan with Erie has not failed. The last report that has reached us, made by the Auditor of the Canal Department of New York in 1874, shows that the income from the tolls on all the canals in the State was $126,300,972.83, and the total operating expenses $40,675,095.75, leaving, as the net profit of operating, $85,625,877.08. The total cost of constructing all the canals, exclusive of interest, was $76,076,906.74, showing net earnings over cost of construction to have been $9,548,970.34. The same statement with interest charged and credited shows the net earnings, over cost of construction, to have been $679,970.41, and this, too, when several of those canals proved unprofitable, and where fraud in the management of canal funds has been more than suspected. Intimately connected with this saving of several hundred miles of dangerous navigation is the proposition to enlarge the facilities for boats to pass from Lake Michigan at Chicago to the Mississippi, thus giving them an opportunity for use during the winter months, and opening a more direct market for our staves and lumber. But I have already consumed too much of your time in discussing this subject. In conclusion, let me say, it is not for Michigan alone I speak. This contemplated improvement is demanded as much for Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the yet unsettled regions of the far west, as for us. Nor are the consuming States of the east idle spectators in the coming struggle to cheapen transportation. But in a few more years, when one-half the cereal-producing regions of the great west instead of one-tenth-as at the present time-shall be brought under cultivation, the difference in value, whether in the car upon tracks at our sea-board, or stowed away in a sea-going vessel, ready to hoist her sails and speed away to supply a foreign demand, one crop alone would defray the expense of a ship canal. Almon Harrison of Lansing township recited the following verses from memory, he having composed them in view of the changes from his boyhood's days. He was loudly applauded by the old pioneers present, and the laughter was excessive at some of his hits: Only sixty years ago, boys, Your mothers tell us that |