[BR] In 1836 the Maryland legislature voted the sum of 8,000,000 dollars in aid of public works, of which 3,000,000 were appropriated to the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and 3,000,000 to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and rest is divided between several works, one of which is intended to connect Annapolis, the capital, with the Potomac. Baltimore has also subscribed 3,000,000 dollars towards aiding the completion of the railroad. [Virginia and Wheeling have also subscribed 1,000,000 each for the same object, and so far from being come to a stand, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad is now pushed on with great vigour towards Cumberland.—Transl.]
[BS] In 1836, the construction of this road has been authorised by the legislatures of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The surveys have been completed, the route fixed upon, and a board organised for pushing the work with vigour. Mr Hayne, late a Senator in Congress, and since governor of South Carolina, and one of the most highly respected men in the country, is president. Including the two branches, one to Louisville, and one to Maysville, the whole length of the road will be 700 miles; the estimated cost is 11,870,000 dollars.
[BT] [Two great works are now actively pushed on in Georgia, which will form another connection between the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic; these are the Central railroad from Savannah to Decatur, 285 miles, and the Georgia railroad from Augusta to the same place, 160 miles in length; the Main Trunk of the Atlantic and Western railroad is the common continuation of these two roads from Decatur to the Tennessee, a distance of 120 miles. These works are already in a state of forwardness, and a third, the Brunswick and Florida railroad, now under survey, will extend from Brunswick to the head of the Appalachicola, and connect the southernmost part of the western valley with the Atlantic. In North Carolina, beside the Raleigh and Gaston railroad, the railroad from the Roanoke to Wilmington is now nearly completed. As steam-packets run from Wilmington to Charleston, and the Chattahoochee is already connected with Montgomery, which stands at the head of steamboat navigation on the Alabama, the continuation of the Central railroad from Decatur to the Chattahoochee, a distance of 80 miles, is all that is wanted to complete the communication between Boston and New Orleans by railroads and steamboats.—Transl.]
[BU] These grants of land are generally made so that every other section (of six miles square) along the line of the work is retained by Congress, and the rest are given to the State or company constructing the canal. Sometimes, however, a certain number of acres in some other quarter is granted outright.
[BV] No one can look at a map of the United States without being struck by the appearance of the right lines, constituting the frontiers of most of the States; this method of bounding a territory by meridians and parallels of latitude is absurd, since it requires an infinite number of geodesic operations, which have not been executed, and cannot be so for a long time. Meridians and parallels do very well for the divisions of the heavens; but for the earth, there are no suitable boundaries but the beds of rivers, or water-sheds in the mountain chains.
[BW] By the act establishing the State of Michigan (1836), Congress has annexed this disputed belt to Ohio. [The whole line of this great work is now nearly completed.—Transl.]
[BX] The work was begun on the canal, July 4, 1836; it is six feet deep, and 60 feet wide at top; estimated cost 8,654,300 dollars. [The progress of population in that region within the last two years has given rise to new and very important projects. One of these is a canal connecting the Rock River with Lake Michigan, at Milwaukie, and the other is the junction of the Wisconsin with the Fox River of Green Bay, thus adding two links to the chain of communication between the Mississippi and St. Lawrence valleys.—Transl.]
[BY] In 1836, the legislature of Indiana adopted a general system of public works, for the execution of which it authorised a loan of 10,000,000 dollars. The system embraces the canalisation of the Wabash and White River, the connection of the Wabash with the Maumee, and of Lake Michigan with the same river by canals, and a canal across the centre of the State from Evansville by Indianapolis to the Wabash and Erie canal. Appropriations were made by the same law for railroads from Madison and Jeffersonville on the Ohio to the Wabash canal, and in aid of the Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis railroad which has been undertaken by a company. [The State of Illinois has also made provision for a series of public works on an equally liberal scale; an act of 1837 establishes a Board of Public Works and an Internal Improvement Fund, and provides for the construction of a railroad across the State from north to south, reaching from the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi by Vandalia and Peru to Galena, being about 460 miles in length; of four roads crossing the State from east to west, namely, from Shawneetown on the Ohio to Alton on the Mississippi, from Mt. Carmel on the Wabash to Alton, from Terre Haute on the Wabash to Alton, and from Covington on the Wabash to Quincy on the Mississippi, and of another cross road from Bloomington, in the centre of the State to Warsaw on the Mississippi. These works are now in active progress, as are also some works for improving the navigation of the Illinois, Rock River, Kaskaskia and Little Wabash. The youthful State of Michigan has followed the example of these elder sisters, by establishing a Board of Public Works, and directing the construction of three railroads across the peninsula, from Monroe, Detroit, and Huron to Lake Michigan, and a canal from the river Saginaw of Lake Huron to the Grand River of Lake Michigan. There are also several railroads executed by companies in Michigan.—Transl.]
[BZ] [This work was completed in the spring of 1838, at which time several steamboats passed wholly through the place formerly occupied by the raft. The removal of that obstruction, has extended the navigation by steamboats 750 miles on the Red River, exclusive of 600 miles on several branches.—Transl.]
[CA] It is 50 feet wide at bottom and 200 feet at top, and has four locks, 170 feet long by 50 wide.