THE CINCINNATI AND WHITE WATER CANAL.

It is estimated to cost, four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Its length is twenty five miles, and connects with the White water canal of Indiana at the state line, half a mile south of the town of Harrison. It passes down the east side of the White water river to near its mouth, thence crossing the Miami river a little above the town of Cleves, it enters the Ohio valley through a deep cut at North Bend of one fourth of a mile in length, thence along the the bank of the Ohio river, to Cincinnati.

ROADS.

The Cumberland road, extending west from Bridgeport, opposite Wheeling, is making by the United States. It will, when completed, reach all the capitals of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and strike the Mississippi river, either at Alton, or, opposite St. Louis, in Missouri. This road is completed from Bridgeport to fourteen miles west of Columbus. The labor now doing on it, is performing immediately east of Springfield. It ought to be finished, in this state, to Indiana line, within three years, or by 1840. As soon as any portion of it is finished, the state receives it from the general government, and places gates on it, and collects tolls, wherewith to keep it in repair.

RAIL ROADS.

The first rail road made in this state, was finished in 1836 by the people of Toledo, a town some two years old then, situated near the mouth of Maumee bay. The road extends westwardly into Michigan and is some thirty miles in length. There is a rail road, about to be made from Cincinnati, to Springfield. This road follows the Ohio river up to the Little Miami river, and there turns northwardly up its valley, to Xenia, and passing the Yellow Springs, reaches Springfield. Its length must be about ninety miles. The state will own one half of the road, individuals and the

city of Cincinnati, the

other half. This road will, no doubt, be extended to lake Erie, at Sandusky city, within a few short years.

There is a rail road about to be made, from Painesville, to the Ohio river. There are many charters for other rail roads, which will never be made. So we fear, we might say of several turnpikes, for want of enterprise and public spirit where they should be made by the people in their vicinity.

TURNPIKE ROADS.

The first one made in this state, extended from Warren in Trumbull county to lake Erie.

There is a clay turnpike from Ohio City, in the direction of Columbus, but, except in dry weather, we cannot praise it greatly.

The same remarks apply to the road from Columbus to Sandusky city, one hundred and six miles in length. There is a charter for a turnpike, from Cincinnati to Zanesville, through Chillicothe, Lancaster, &c. There is a sort of a road, from Sandusky to Perrysburgh.

There is a turnpike in progress, actually making from Cincinnati to Springfield, through Lebanon, Waynesville and Xenia. So far as it is finished it is an excellent road.

There is another road from Cincinnati, along the Ohio river and up the Little Miami, twenty odd miles, completed in a substantial manner.

There are two other excellent roads from Cincinnati, extending northwardly into the interior.

All the canals, rail roads and turnpikes actually begun, will be finished by 1843. And these canals and roads will have cost fifteen millions of dollars. We shall then have eight hundred miles of canals, and one thousand miles of rail roads, and turnpikes, including the Cumberland road. Tolls will be collected on all of them. On the Cumberland road, sufficient tolls will be paid to keep it in repair. Some of the roads, will do more than that, but, the capital expended on roads, generally, may be considered as gone forever. Few roads will

ever do more than keep themselves in repair. Canals will pay for their construction, at some future day, roads never will do it. We have neither the room, nor the wish to prove our proposition, but from information which we have received all over the Union, as to roads, we are satisfied that our Ohio roads will never refund a cent of the capital, expended on them.

If the Baltimore turnpike from Baltimore to Cumberland can do no more than keep itself in repair, no road in this state can even do that, without more travel than we have, and higher tolls than travelers will pay. The state has done wrong, to subscribe to the stock in our roads, until we had more money than we knew what to do with. However, it is done, and cannot be undone.

The Cumberland road must soon be made wider, to accommodate the increased travel upon it. Allowing the western country to contain now eight millions of people, and that our increase be one million a year (a low estimate) in 1850 there will be twenty-one millions in the country west of the mountains. These twenty-one millions will visit every year, (that is our business men) the eleven millions east of the mountains. And the ten or eleven millions in the east, will also travel westward more or less. No small portion of all this travel will pass over our territory in Ohio. To accommodate all this traveling population, we must have more, wider and better roads and canals. In constructing them, we should have spe cial regard to the increase of travel and business to be done on them, even within a very few years.

If our roads and canals are too narrow for our population thirteen years hence, how can they accommodate the travelers on them, fifty years hence, when nine new states will be and must be admitted into the Union, on this side the Rocky moun tains; and those states be the largest states as to territory, in in the whole Confederacy? This hint is intended for those who are in authority. Even this state, in 1850, will contair three, but more probably four millions of people. Our roads

and canals are scarcely sufficient for the people, whose business must be done on these great highways of the nation.

We have said nothing of our vastly increased amount of agricultural products at that time, which will pass along these highways to a market; nor of the increased wants of the eastern people for the prime necessaries of life, as their soil wears out, and fails to produce food enough for those who live on that sterile, narrow strip of land, called the old thirteen states. Their food must eventually come from this western country, or from Europe; probably from both, within a very few years to come. Our board of canal commissioners should elevate their views as they look through the vista of futurity, and project all our public highways for fifty years' growth of the West. Should a war come with England again, these highways would save millions of dollars to the nation.

Should a war happen between this nation and England six years hence, forty thousand volunteers could easily be raised in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. After the troops from Kentucky had reached the Ohio river, at the proper points, they and all their munitions of war, could be carried to lake Erie in five days. All their provisions, horses and cannon would be conveyed along these highways, free of toll. In this view our improvements are invaluable, not only to us, but to the whole nation. But no future Proctor will ever land on the soil of this state, and no army of ours will ever again suffer for food, for raiment, or ammunition, on the soil of Ohio.

Should the south be invaded, our four hundred steamers in the West, would soon convey an overwhelming force to meet, and either conquer, or drive the enemy into the sea. The days of our infancy in the West are passed away, and gone forever. Our youth is ripening into manhood, when the West will be the seat of an empire, such as the world does not contain now, either in numbers, wealth or power. The reverse of our now situation in Ohio, must one day, be our lot. Now when New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina and Georgia, have four secretaries at Washington, and we, two inferior clerks!

On the valley of the Mississippi, the sun of our prosperity has risen and will assuredly continue to ascend until he shines in all his meridian splendor. The seat of the last, the greatest, the most glorious, wealthy and powerful empire in the world, must be located in the Mississippi valley. The hand of time which will strike out of existence other empires, and sink them into oblivion, shall only roll up the curtain which hangs before them, and show the world all the splendors of this. We must have patience, and wait a short period, and "this day of small things" shall be forgotten, or remembered only with pride and exultation at the then contrast. Let us discard all narrow ones, all low aims, destiny which awaits us, as well as our

elevate our views, and prepare for the posterity, forever.

COMMON ROADS AND HIGHWAYS.

Many of these are very good during about eight months in the year. From Columbus to Chillicothe is such a road, but it needs more bridges across the streams, and should be thrown up in the form of a turnpike, so that no water would stand on it. The difficulty of procuring stone to cover it, is a misfortune, which at present we cannot remedy. We have not in this region any good hard limestone near us. In this respect the Miami country enjoys a privilege which we do not possess. Our country is alluvial and all the stone we have fit for the purpose is in the beds of our streams brought to us from near their head waters. These pebbles will one day be used by those who come after us. All our common roads are not what they should be, and what we hope they will be at a future day. Every man in the state is taxed annually, two days work on our roads. We have a small amount from the United States on the sales of their lands, and a tax on our property, in aid of our poll tax, appropriated yearly for road purposes. More labor is necessary to be beneficially expended on our roads. The best common roads are now, perhaps, in New Connecticut.