164 BINNEY'S CASE.

connected navigation between the eastern and western waters, so
as to extend and multiply the means and facilities of internal com-
merce, which would produce the happy results set forth. And
the route which it was to take, up the valley of the Potomac, and
thence over to the Ohio, is specified by the declaration, that it is
Ho be fed through its course, on the east side of the mountain, by
the river Potomac, and the streams which may empty therein; and
on the western side of the mountain, and passing over the same,
by all such streams of water as may be beneficially drawn thereto
by feeders, dams, or any other practicable mode.' The termina-
tions are described by a reference to the great object expressed, of
'a connected navigation between the eastern and western waters.'
Our eastern tide waters are navigated by ships and marine vessls
to the ports, or highest point of convenient tide navigation; and
our western waters are navigated to great advantage, and chiefly
by steam-boats. These two forms of navigation, it is proposed to
connect together by one unbroken line of canal; and the termina-
tions of this new artificial connecting line of navigation are specified
accordingly, with a distinct reference to the pre-existing modes of
navigation. 'A navigable canal from the tide water of the river
Potomac in the District of Columbia,' passing along the route indi-
cated, 'to the highest steam-boat navigation of the Ohio river, or
of some one tributary stream thereof.' (6)

Here we find the western termination specified by designating
the kind of vessel which the canal boat must be enabled to meet
there; she must have it in her power to lay along side of a steam-
boat in the waters of the west; and thus the connexion with
those waters was to be formed. Hence it is manifest, that the
connexion with the eastern waters was to be formed in like man-
ner; that is, that the canal boat should be enabled to meet a ship,
by which kind of vessels alone the tide waters of the east are
navigated. The new line of navigation would then, indeed, form
a full and complete connexion 'between the eastern and western
waters;' which could be so effected in no other way. The naming
of the steam-boat clearly shews, that it was the intention of the
legislators, by this law, to provide a mode of transportation from
the one to the other of those two classes of vessels, which were
then so profitably navigating the great rivers of our country.
They intended, that the canal boat should be enabled to pass

(b) 1824, ch. 79.