The Caughnawaga Ship Canal
Company, "Incorporated By Special Act Of The
Dominion Of Parliament Of Canada, 12th May,
1870," (Capital,
Three million dollars; shares, one
hundred dollars each,) with a board of directors
composed of citizens of the United States
And
Canada, has issued its prospectus, from which I
extract the following:
"The commissioners of public works, in
their report of 1859, approved by government,
finally settled the question of route, by declaring
that, 'after a patient and mature consideration of
all the surveys and reports, we are of opinion
that the line following the Chambly Canal and
then crossing to Lake St. Louis near
Caughnawaga, is that which combines and affords in the
greatest degree all the advantages contemplated
by this improvement, and which has been
approved by Messrs. Mills, Swift, and Gamble.'
"The company's Act of Incorporation is in
every respect complete and comprehensive in its
details. It empowers the company to survey, to
take, appropriate, have and hold, to and for the
use of them and their successors, the line and
boundaries of a canal between the St. Lawrence
and Lake Champlain, to build and erect the
same, to select such sites as may be necessary
for basins and docks, as may be considered
expedient by the directors, and to purchase and
dispose of same, with any water-power, as may
be deemed best by the directors for the use and
profit of the company.
"It also empowers the company to cause their
canal to enter into the Chambly Canal, and to
widen, deepen, and enlarge the same, not less in
size than the present St. Lawrence canals; also
the company may take, hold, and use any
portion of the Chambly Canal, and the works
therewith connected, and all the tolls, receipts, and
revenues thereof, upon terms to be settled and
agreed upon between the company and the
governor in council.
"The cost of the canal, with locks of three
hundred feet by forty-five, and with ten feet six
inches the mitre-sill, is now estimated at two
million five hundred thousand dollars, and the
time for its construction may not exceed two
years after breaking ground.
"Probably no question is of more vital
importance to Canada and the western and eastern
United States than the subject of transportation.
The increasing commerce of the Great West, the
rapidity with which the population has of late
flowed into that vast tract of country to the west
and northwest of lakes Erie, Michigan, Huron,
and Superior, have served to convince all
well-informed commercial men that the means of
transit between that country and the seaboard
are far too limited even for the present
necessities of trade; hence it becomes a question of
universal interest how the products of the field, the
mine, and the forest can be most cheaply
forwarded to the consumer. Near the geographical
centre of North America is a vast plateau two
thousand feet above the level of the sea, drained
by the Mississippi to the south, by the St.
Lawrence to the east and by the Saskatchewan and
McKenzie to the north.
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