Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/194

190 had expected; indeed it was so great that the enlargement of the canal was rendered imperative within a decade. This was first urged by the citizens of one of the jewel-cities made by the great waterway—Utica. The memorial now reported to the legislature by E. F. Johnson called for a steamboat canal from Utica to Oswego (Lake Ontario) which was to be extended to Albany; the proposed depth was eight feet, width fifty-eight feet on the bottom and ninety feet on the surface, the locks one hundred and thirty feet long by thirty feet wide. "On the Erie Canal," the memorial urged, "the cost of animal power is 12 per cent greater than steam power on the Hudson for flour, and 42 per cent greater for merchandize; agricultural products, including ashes, 21 per cent greater on the canal than on the Hudson river. The Erie canal is small, and the traction of boats that navigate it is from 30 to 45, and most usually 40 per cent greater than would occur on a canal of the most favorable size for the boat used That a canal boat, 104 feet long, 16 feet wide, drawing 7 feet water, would carry