on his small canals; and stated that fifteen or twenty of his small rectangular boats, linked together, could be drawn by one horse, and be kept in their proper line upon the canal by a man with a boat-hook walking by the side of them on the towing-path: this was to prevent the use of pointed poles tipped or shod with iron, which the boatmen used for shoving barges along, on account of the damage which such often did, by penetrating and disturbing the lining and banks of the canal, thus causing it to leak.

Mr. Fulton's Treatise on Canals made it known that he had turned his thoughts to that subject, and probably induced Mr. Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury, to address a number of queries to Mr. Fulton, for information on which to ground the Report made by the Treasury Department to Congress, on the subject of public roads and canals, in the spring of 1808. In answer to these queries, Mr. Fulton made a communication to Mr. Gallatin, which is annexed to the Report. It contains a great variety of information and calculations of the most useful kind, upon the subjects proposed. We cannot refrain from extracting some passages of it which show the extensive view which Mr. Fulton took of objects which were presented to his mind; that, so far from being limited by mere