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 presented the internal improvement proposed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company to Congress, and in April 1824 an appropriation of $30,000 was made to procure surveys and estimates in order to prove the feasibility of the plan. In May the President appointed Brigadier-general Simon Bernard and Lieutenant-colonel Totten and Civil Engineer John L. Sullivan of Massachusetts as a board to outline the most suitable route for a canal from Potomac tide-water to the Ohio River. Their report was made October 23, 1826. The four memoirs of the report include a survey of the Potomac Valley from tide-water to Cumberland, Maryland, by Lieutenant-colonel J. J. Abert; a descriptive statement with reference to the eastern section of the summit level between the Potomac and the heads of the Ohio by Captain William G. McNeill; a descriptive account of Casselman's River or the Somerset route, also by Captain McNeill; a review of other routes by James Schriver.

In the eastern section the canal was planned on the Maryland side of the