| Cost | Miles | |
| The Rochdale Canal | £291,900 | 31½ |
| Ellesmere | 400,000 | 57 |
| Kennet and Avon | 420,000 | 78 |
| Grand Junction | 500,000 | 90 |
| Leeds and Liverpool | 800,000 | 129 |
The miles of canal are 385½, and the cost is £2,411,900 sterling, or about 28,000 dollars per mile.
But in the estimation of the cost of these canals, unquestionably the price of the land over which they pass is included, and this is enormous. The land alone for one canal of 16 miles, is said to have cost £90,000 sterling. With us this would be but small. If we look at the history of the English canals, we shall see how many objects of great expense are connected with them, with which we should have nothing to do, and that most of them have encountered and surmounted obstacles which we should not meet with. For instance, the Grand Junction canal passes more than once the great ridge which divides the waters of England; ours will pass over a country which in comparison is champaign.
But it is said that the price of labor in our country is so much above what it is in England, that we must add greatly to the cost of her canals in estimating the expense of ours. But that is certainly a false conclusion, for not only must the price of the land and the adventitious objects which have been before referred to, be deducted from the cost of the foreign canals, but we must consider that there will be almost as great a difference in our favor in the cost of the material and brute labor, as there is in favor of England as to human labor, and it is well known that so much human labor is not now required on canals as formerly. Machines for facilitating excavation have been invented and used with great success.
Mr. Gallatin’s report on canals contains several estimates of the cost of contemplated ones. From Weymouth to Taunton, in Massachusetts, the expense of a canal of 26 miles, with a lockage of 260 feet, is set down at $1,250,000. From Brunswick to Trenton, 28 miles, with a lockage of 100 feet, 800,000 dollars. From Christiana to Elk, 22 miles with a lockage of 148 feet, 750,000 dollars. From Elizabeth river to Pasquotank, 22 miles, with a lockage of 40 feet, 250,000 dollars. These estimates thus vary from 48,000 to less than 12,000 dollars a mile, and furnish the medium of about 31,000 dollars a mile. But it must be observed that they are for small distances, are calculated to surmount particular obstacles, and contemplate an extraordinary number of locks, and that they do not therefore furnish proper data from which to form correct conclusions, with respect to the probable cost of an extensive canal, sometimes running over a great number of miles upon a level without any expense for lockage, or any other expense than the mere earthwork.
Mr. Weston, before mentioned, estimated the expense of a canal from the tide waters at Troy to lake Ontario, a distance of 160 miles, (exclusive of lake Oneida,) going around the Cohoes, and embracing 55 locks of eight feet lift each, at 2,200,000 dollars, a little more than 13,000 dollars a mile. Fortunately, however, we have more accurate information than mere estimates.
In the appendix to Mr Gallatin’s report, it is stated by Mr Joshua Gilpin, that “by actual measurement, and the sums paid on the feeder, it was found that one mile on the Delaware and Chesapeake canal, the most difficult of all others, from its being nearly altogether formed through hard rocky ground, cost 13,000 dollars, and one other mile perfectly level, and without particular impediments, cost 2,300 dollars; from hence, the general average would be reduced to 7,650 dollars per mile.”
The Middlesex canal,[31] in Massachusetts, runs over twenty-eight miles of ground, presenting obstacles much greater than can be expected on the route we purpose. This canal cost 478,000 dollars, which is about 17,000 dollars a mile. It contains 22 locks of solid masonry and excellent workmanship and to accomplish this work, it was necessary to dig in some places to the depth of 20 feet, to cut through ledges of rocks, to fill some vallies and morasses, and to throw several aqueducts across the intervening rivers. One of these across the river Shawshine is 280 feet long, and 22 feet above the river.
| From the Tonewanta creek to the Seneca river, is a fall of | 195 | feet |
| From thence to the Rome summit, is a rise of | 50 | “ |
| From thence to the Hudson river, is a fall of | 380 | “ |
| —— | ||
| The whole rise and fall | 625 | feet |