We  have  seen,  from  the  pamphlet  published  by  Christopher  Colles,  in
seventeen  hundred  and  eighty-five,  that  as  early  as  at  that  day,  the  ex-
traordinary adaptation  of  the  country,  on  our  western  borders,  for  water
communications,  had  been  perceived.  His  expression  that  "the  Allegany
mountains  died  away,  as  they  approached  the  Mohawk,"  shews  that  he
had  some  idea  of  the  path  which  nature  has  provided  for  the  great  western
Canal.  It  was  known  too,  long  before  that  project  was  undertaken,  that
the  waters  of  Lake  Erie,  lying  above  the  Great  Falls,  must  be  higher  than
the  waters  of  the  Hudson.  In  a  communication  from  Mr.  Charles  Thomp-
son, who  was  so  long  Secretary  of  the  Continental  Congress,  to  Mr.  JefTer-
son,  which  the  latter  has  appended  to  his  Notes  on  Virginia,  published  in
seventeen  hundred  and  eighty-seven,  Mr.  Thompson  supposes,  that  if  the
barriers  of  the  Niagara  River  were,  by  any  convulsion  of  nature,  to  be  torn
asunder,  the  country  below  would  be  deluged.
30  MEMOIR,

It  must  have  been  seen,  also,  that  many  of  the  interior  Lakes  were

so  high,   that   their  outlets  traversed   the   path   whicli  the  Canal    now
occupies.
