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 possibilities, and believed that America might "speedily behold an astonishing mass of people on the western waters;" and although for that reason it might be impossible to select a site for the capital that would remain central as regards population, it was of the utmost importance to choose a point whence the knowledge of new enactments could be the most quickly disseminated throughout the land. If it were possible, he contended, to promulgate the proceedings of Congress by some simultaneous operation, it would be of less consequence where the seat of government might be established. A site along the Potomac began to be favored, as the then projected canal, now paralleling the Potomac from Georgetown to Cumberland, would afford the most convenient and rapid means of conveying to waiting citizens beyond the Alleghanies the documentary decrees of the Congress of the United States.

Could Washington and his colleagues have imagined that in a later age the tidings of the deliberations of Congress, instead of depending for transmission upon canal-boats, would be flashed instantly, by the clicking of mysterious keys, to the distant shores of the continent,