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a point on the Potomac river, in Charles county, opposite to
Acquia Creek.

The contracts for the completion, within a given time, of
this road, have been made, and a part of it is now being
graded. It is under the control of an able and energetic
President and a Board of Directors thoroughly alive to the
importance of the great interests involved in its completion.
When made, it will connect the cities of Washington and
Baltimore by rail thirty-six miles distant from each other,
and give daily facilities of every kind with each, to all the
country along its route, besides being a great highway be-
tween the North and South. There is another and great
improvement in the upper part of the Peninsula, not only of
the greatest local advantage to the parts through which it may
pass, but of paramount importance to the commerce of the
great cities North of us and on our borders, the development
of the great coal interests of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and of
the great commercial interests of the whole country. This
is the Chesapeake and Potomac River Tide Water Canal.

It is destined to connect the Chesapeake bay at the mouth
of Magothy river, or at some point between .Annapolis and
Baltimore with the Potomac river at or near Bladensburg,
and thence by tide water with the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal. Several very eligible routes have been surveyed be-
tween these points, and it is believed that this work, by its
great commercial necessity, and highly remunerative returns,
will soon be in process of certain and speedy completion, it
will break down the only barrier to the nearest and cheapest
route between the Cumberland Coal Regions in Maryland,
with New York, Philadelphia and the other great commer-
cial cities of the north; will give the cheapest and speediest
transit to the Agricultural and other products of the south
and south-west to those cities, and be the common highway
for all purposes between those sections, and a great part of
the Atlantic Border of the Northern and Middle States.

It will pass transversely nearly through the middle parts
of Anne Arundel and Prince George's county, and its advant-
ages cannot well be overrated. For particulars the reader is
referred to Report of Col. Sweet, made to the corporators,
Albany, November 1866.

The Patuxent River, emptying into the Chesapeake Bay,
intersects this section, running parallel to the Potomac, and
navigable for steamboats and bay craft for about forty miles
from its mouth.

In this whole division, there is no place more than ten
miles from bold navigable water, or a well conducted railroad,
and very many immediately on them. The average distance
of the farm houses from these, does not exceed three miles.

So far in relation to its water and railroad facilities; now
for the great marts of consumption: Washington city and