There  is  a  further  history  of  the  canal,  as  connected  with  the
various  efforts  to  obtain  government  aid  to  enlarge  it  to  tlie
dimensions  of  a  ship-canal;  the  river  improvements;  the  lock  at
Henry ;  and  the  repeated  struggles  in  the  legislature  to  procure
appropriations ;  but  the  details  would  be  voluminous,  and  unin-
teresting. We  will  only  add  that  the  year  1853  was  the  first  to
obtrude  upon  public  recognition  the  disagreeable  fact  that  the
Illinois  river  required  artificial  aid  to  render  it  navigable  through
the  boating  season.  That  of  1853  lasted  from  March  to  December,
9  months;  but  from  the  first  of  July  on,  the  river  for  its  greater
length  was  uselessfor  craft  of  any  considerable  tonnage,  curtailing
the  through  carrying  trade  of  the  canal  very  greatly.
and  tbe  actual  oommencementof  the  work,  we  find  tbe  prosperity  of  that  period  to
culminate.  ShortJy  after  came  the  great  revulsion  of  1837,  which,  with  the  collapse
of  tbe  Tlslonary  internal  improvement  system  of  the  State,  two  and  a  half  years  later,
would  have  utterly  prostrated  Chicago  but  for  the  persistency  with  which  the  work  on
tbe  canal  was  sustained.  As  it  was  her  prosperity  was  checked  materially  for  7  years.
