Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/132

 harrowed out of the way of the shovel and scraper."

During the season of 1818, all but five of the ninety-four miles of Middle Section were grubbed and cleared with these powerful machines; little the wonder, however, for one of the stump machines, costing two hundred and fifty dollars, operated by seven men and two horses, could grub from thirty to forty large stumps a day. Of the eighty-nine miles cleared, forty-eight miles of the line was dug, eight miles being completed and accepted. One ten-mile stretch was half done and one twenty-mile division was one-fourth done. The total estimated expense of the Middle Section was $1,021,851; up to January 25, 1819, $578,549 had been expended; the $443,302 remaining was considered sufficient to complete the section.

This division of the canal was completed in 1819; for twenty-seven miles it was navigable and had not the frost intervened, large boats could have traversed its entire length before the close of the year. The expense proved to total up to $1,125,983, an excess over the estimate of $104,132.