The various disadvantages of land transportation directed, toward the middle of the last century, the attention of the British people to the importance of a system of canals. They realized that these water highways would open an easier and cheaper communication between distant parts of the country, thus enabling manufacturers to collect their materials and fuel from remote districts with less labor and expense, and to convey their goods to a more distant and more profitable market. It would also facilitate the conveyance of farm produce to a greater distance and would thereby benefit both the producer and consumer. The canal era was formally inaugurated in 1761, when the Duke of Bridgewater presented to Parliament a petition for a bill to construct the canal which has since borne his name. The canal was commenced in 1767 and was completed in 1772. The next forty years were a period of great activity in canal building, but it was left to private enterprise, with very little aid from the government. Over a hundred canal acts were passed by Parliament before the year 1800. The largest canal of the British Isles is the Caledonian, extending from Inverness to Fort William, a distance of sixty-three miles. It was commenced in 1803 and completed in 1847, and cost £1,256,000. Other canals of importance are the Great Canal, which connects the North Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, and the Grand Function Canal, which is over one hundred miles long and connects most of the water-ways of central England with the Thames River. It is estimated that there were over 2,200 miles of navigable canals in Great Britain before the introduction of railroads.
Canal-building in Spain dates back to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Charles V. built the Imperial Canal of Aragon, which is over sixty miles long. The political and commercial decline of the country during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, brought the development of her highways to a standstill, and, with the exception of Turkey, probably no European country has at the present time more deficient transportation facilities than Spain.
The comparatively high state of civilization which existed in the Italian cities during the middle ages, their commercial and industrial thrift and the importance of Rome as the metropolis of the Catholic Church combined to maintain many of the excellent ancient highways of Italy. A number of canals were built in Northern Italy as early as the fifteenth century, and it is claimed by some writers that locks were first used on the Milanese canals in 1497. But while public thoroughfares have always been well maintained in Northern Italy and even as far south as Naples, they were during the past two or three centuries permitted to greatly deteriorate in the southern part of the peninsula, to the great detriment of both agriculture and commerce. The condition of the large Italian islands is still more lamentable, Sicily and Sardinia being almost entirely devoid of roads. She that was the granary of ancient Rome to-day scarcely produces enough grain to supply her own people.
Denmark and the Scandinavian peninsula had a good system of highways long before the railroad era. Among the many excellent canals of Sweden may be mentioned the Göta Canal, which was commenced by Charles XII. in the early part of the last century, but was not entirely completed until 1832. It is, inclusive of the lakes, 118 miles long, and its construction cost $3,750,000, three-fifths of which was contributed by the state. This canal connects the Baltic Sea with Lake Wener, as well as, through the Göta-Elf, with the North Sea.
Next to Turkey and Spain, no country of Europe has been as slow to appreciate the advantages of a system of highways as Russia. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the vast empire of the Czar had but a few roads connecting its principal cities, and these were almost impassable in the spring and fall. Much progress has, however, been made since then, and at present Russia has over 75,000 miles of wagon-road and artificial waterway, and 19,000 miles of railroad. A road has been built through Siberia, extending from the Ural Mountains to the city of Jakutsk on the Lena and sending out many branch roads north and south. The development of Russia's resources has kept pace with that of her system of highways, and the agricultural and mineral products of that country are in the markets of the world constantly gaining ground in their competition with the products of Western Europe and America.
Passing now to the Western Hemisphere, we find that in ancient Peru the Incas built great roads, the remains of which still attest their magnificence. Probably the most remarkable were the two which extended from Quito to Cuzco, and thence on toward Chile, one passing over the great Plateau, the other following the coast, Humboldt, in his "Aspects of Nature," says of this mountain road: "But what above all things relieves the severe aspect of the deserts of the Cordilleras are the remains, as marvelous as unexpected, of a gigantic road, the work of the Incas. In the pass of the Andes between Mausi and Loja we found on the plain of Puttal much difficulty in making a way for the mules over a marshy piece of ground, while for more than a German mile our sight continually rested on the superb remains of a paved road of the Incas, twenty feet wide, which we marked resting on its deep foundations, and paved with well-cut, dark porphyritic stone. This road was wonderful and does not fall behind the most imposing Roman ways which I have seen in France, Spain and Italy. By barometrical observation I found that this colossal work was at an elevation of 12,440 feet." The length of this road, of which only parts remain, is variously estimated at from 1,500 to 2,000 miles. It was built of stone and was, in some parts at least, covered with a bituminous cement, which time had made harder than the stone itself. All the difficulties which a mountainous country presents to the construction of roads were here overcome. Suspension bridges led over mountain torrents, stairways cut in the rock made possible the climbing of steep precipices, and mounds of solid masonry facilitated the crossing of ravines. Under the rule of the Spaniards the roads of the Incas went to ruin. In fact, throughout South America but little, if anything, was done by the mother country to aid transportation.
North America, or at least that part of it which was settled by the Anglo-Saxon race, fared much better in this respect. The great utility of good roads was universally recognized even in the colonial times, but the scarcity of capital, the great extent of territory as compared with the population, and the want of harmonious action among the various colonies, delayed extensive road and canal building until after the establishment of the Union. Mistaken local interests but too often wrecked well-advanced plans, and what road-building was done during the colonial times was almost entirely left to individual exertion, without any direct aid from the government.
The first American turnpike was built in Pennsylvania in 1790. From there the system extended into New York and Southern New England. Up to 1822 more than six million dollars had been expended in Pennsylvania for turnpikes, one-third of which sum, or over $1,000 a mile, had been contributed by the commonwealth.
In 1800 three wagon-roads connected the Atlantic coast with the country west of the Alleghanies, one leading from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, one from the Potomac to the Monongahela, and a third passed through Virginia to Knoxville, in Tennessee. Much as was done during this period for the improvement of the roads, stage-coach travel remained for years comparatively slow. In 1792 Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State, wrote to the Postmaster-General to know if the post, which was then carried at the rate of fifty miles a day, could not be expedited to one hundred. Even this latter rate was considered slow on the great post-roads forty years later. In the year 1800 one general mail-route was extended from Maine to Georgia, the trip being made in twenty days. From Philadelphia a line went to Lexington in sixteen and to Nashville in twenty-two days. The government of the United States, appreciating the importance, for military purposes, of good roads leading to the frontiers, commenced the construction of national, or military, roads. A road was thus built from Baltimore through Cincinnati to St. Louis, and another from Bangor to Houlton, in Maine. In 1807 Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, advocated the extensive construction of public roads and canals by the general government. Mr. Gallatin took the ground that the inconveniences, complaints, and perhaps dangers, resulting from a vast extent of territory cannot otherwise be radically removed than by opening speedy and easy communications through all its parts; that good roads and canals would shorten distances, facilitate commercial and personal intercourse, and unite by a still more intimate community of interests the most remote quarters of the United States, and that no other single operation within the power of the government could more effectually tend to strengthen and perpetuate that union which secured external independence, domestic peace and internal liberty. The principal improvements recommended by Mr. Gallatin were the following:
1. Canals opening an inland navigation from Massachusetts to North Carolina.