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 ported from Cayuga lake to Montreal for $1.50, and it cannot be conveyed to Albany for less than $2.50. This simple fact speaks a volume of admonitory instruction. But taking it for granted, that the Ontario route will bring the commerce of the west to New-York, yet the other ought to be preferred, on account of the superior facilities it affords.

In the first place, it is nearer. The distance from Buffalo to Rome, is less than 200 miles in the course of the intended canal: by lake Ontario and Oswego, it is 232.

2. A loaded boat could pass from Buffalo to Rome by the Erie route, in less than seven days, and with entire safety. By the Ontario route, it will be perfectly uncertain, and not a little hazardous. After leaving Niagara river, it would have to pass an inland sea to the extent of 127 miles, as boisterous and as dangerous as the Atlantic. And besides a navigation of at least twenty miles over another lake, it would have to ascend two difficult streams for 55 miles; no calculation could then be made, either on the certainty or safety of