4S8 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 18,

surdly moderate. If the present canal with boats of 120 tons
capacity, and nominal depth of six feet, but actual depth of
five feet only, carried 837,000 tons of coal in 1874; when the
cost of boatage was $1.25, and the point of delivery wag
Georgetown or Alexandria. What must be the increase ot
its coal tonnage, when boats of 300 tons burden, shall de-
liver coal direct at Baltimore, at 50 cents the ton?

The cost of delivering coal in Baltimore by rail in 1874,
was $2.45 cents a ton, the cost by canal at Georgetown, was
$1.96 cents, the saving by canal being only 49 cents. But,
if the canal be improved and extended to Baltimore, the sav-
ing by canal over railroad will be $1.25 cents per ton. This
must transfer coal freights to the canal when the navigation
is open.

Now, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad brought 1,537,129
tons of coal in 1874 from Piedmont. Will not this coal aban-
don the rail and dump into the boat at Cumberland, to save
$1.24 cents in cost of transportation? On the perfected canal,
be it remembered, the delivery of coal in Baltimore, will be
as regular and reliable as it now is by rail.

To estimate the increase of coal tonnage at only double its
present quantity, is therefore, simply absurd. The greater
economy of canal transportation will surely absorb the whole
coal tonnage during navigation season. The total tonnage
from the coal region in 1874, was 2,410,895 tons, nearly
three times the tonnage of the canal daring that year.

But, if the cost of Cumberland coal in Baltimore be thus
reduced, its consumption as fuel, &c., must largely increase,
and this increased demand will induce increase of mining, and
the canal must inevitably be stocked to its utmost carryingca-
pacity. That capacity, with a perfected navigation for boats
of 300 tons burden, will be three times its present capacity
with boats of 120 tons burden only. The net revenues will
grow from $527,000 to more than a million, and will pay six
per cent, on more than fifteen million dollars.

Surely, with so large a basis of credit as the revenues of a
long established canal; resting as they will, on the necessi-
ties of our civilization, there can be no fear thut the money
to accomplish the work can be obtained.

These calculations have been presented, with a view to
show that the canal itself, when completed as proposed, will
be an ample basis of credit for a loan of all the money re-
quired for the enterprise. It is contended that the revenues
from a prefected oanal, reaching up to the heart of the coal
region, and delivering at the harbor of Baltimore, will be
abundantly sufficient to discharge the present debt—to meet