Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 4.djvu/851



to the state of Maryland, and to any company incorporated, or hereafter to be incorporated, by the said state, the right to take and continue a canal from any point of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal through the territory of Columbia, or any part thereof, to the said state, in any direction it may deem proper, upon the same terms and conditions, and with it all the rights, privileges, and powers, of every kind whatsoever, granted to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company by the act of incorporation, and deciding, agreeably to the act of Congress passed at December session, eighteen hundred and twenty-four, that the canal, as locate by the Board of Public Works under the authority of this act, may be cut without impeding or injuring the navigation of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. And provided, also, That the Board of Public Works shall previously ascertain and certify to the executive the practicability of connecting, by the canal described in this act, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal with the Patapsco river at the city of Baltimore; and if the said Board of Public works shall adopt for the said canal a line wholly within the state of Maryland, then the act of Congress last mentioned in the foregoing proviso, shall not be necessary to authorize the subscriptions and expenditures aforesaid: And provided, also, That the executive shall previously be satisfied that the residue of the sum of money estimated by the United States’ Board of Engineers to be adequate to the completion of the eastern section of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, after deducting the amount of the subscriptions of the state of Maryland and of the United States, herein provided to be made, hath been actually subscribed by the bona fide and competent subscribers.”

. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That the act, entitled “An act incorporating the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, passed by the General Assembly of Virginia, at the December session, eighteen hundred and twenty-three,” which has already received the assent of the state of Maryland, and of the Congress of the United States, as well as of the Potomac Company, shall be, and the same is hereby, amended, in the manner hereinafter provided, on condition that this act receive, in like manner, the assent of the necessary parties thereto.

. And be it further enacted, That the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company shall have power to terminate the eastern section of the said canal at or near the town of Cumberland, on the river Potomac, and thence, to extend the western section thereof, in any direction that may be deemed expedient, by any other route, as well as that prescribed in the act aforesaid, towards Pittsburg, on the river Ohio; and, in extending the same in any direction across the dividing ridge which separates the eastern and western waters, to substitute for a tunnel, and numerous locks, on such part of the route, inclined planes and railways, or any other artificial communication or roads; and, in the event that the western section of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal shall leave the valley of the Potomac river at any point below the Coal Banks, at or near the mouth of Savage, on the north branch thereof, the company shall have the power, in like manner, to extend a branch from the main canal to the said Coal Banks, at or above the mouth of Savage, and to cause such branch to be constructed, of such dimensions as their views of their own and the public interest may warrant; and, for the construction of the same, shall have and enjoy the same rights, privileges, and immunities, under the same restraints and conditions, in all respects, as they are entitled to in relation to the main Chesapeake and Ohio canal.

. And be it further enacted, That nothing in this act contained shall be held to discharge the said company from a compliance with each and every of the conditions of the original act, except so far as the same are expressly altered by the provisions of this act.

. And be it further enacted, That this act shall commence and be in force as soon as it shall have received the assent of the legislature of Virginia, of the Congress of the United States, and of the Potomac Company.

We certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original act, passed the legislature of Maryland, at their present session.