Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/307

Rh abandoned by the state, the result of an ignorant and weak constituency and an aggressive lobby who represented the powerful railways behind the movement. These canals will be rebuilt on a grander scale commensurate with the magnitude of the barge canal. Already some of the great inland lakes have applied for a renewal of the canals. The history of the lateral canals will insure a favorable response. Even then they will not be money-makers. They will make money for the state only in proportion to the trade developed. It is doubtful if the history of the country can parallel such useless destruction. From the amount of money squandered and the human

interests involved, it stands alone, not as an object of public plunder, but, worse than that, a colossal blunder.

In going over these old canals it appears among the marvels of time, how quickly they are disappearing. Stones of monolithic size are lying in heaps. Canals, like the Chemung, are simply weed grown ditches, Wooden locks have left scarcely a trace; ruin, measured by the hundreds of miles, disfigures and encumbers the earth.

The Genesee Valley was one of the most important of the subsidiary canals. During the year previous to its official abandonment the total movement of goods amounted to 96,000 tons, in a total of nearly a half million. In 1873, 132 tons of wheat and 245 tons of