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 ported were likewise better in the winter season than at any other. This first year of work had brought its lessons; first and foremost it proved what a tremendous burden lay on the shoulders of the commissioners and engineers. Contracts innumerable were to be made and signed, calling for the provision of a hundred necessities: principally for stone, lumber, and lime; the proper quantities were to be deposited at the proper places—here in a heavy forest, there beside a swamp, and yonder at the foot of a hill. The country was quite innocent of anything that approached such a road as was needed everywhere along the line of work. It is difficult even to hint at the multitude of perplexing questions that the builders of the Erie Canal faced and somehow solved. The year had proved the advisability of discarding the spade and wheelbarrow—the European implements for canal building—for the plough and scraper. With the latter tools the work was more quickly done and better; the feet of the horses drawing them tended to solidify the earth along the embankments. Three Irishmen fin-