GENERAL GEOGRAPHY. 11

the practicability of uniting the western with the
eastern waters, through this channel. The prac-
ticability of the task has been clearly deter-
mined, as well as the facility with which connec-
tions can be continued from the Potomac to the
Patapsco on one hand, and from the Ohio to the
Lakes on the other, thereby effecting much the
shortest water communication between the sea
ports of the Atlantic, and the vast territories of
the west. No one who considers the advanta-
ges, political as well as commercial, which
would result from such a connection, can doubt
for a moment its ultimate accomplishment.

The course of the Potomac, from its source
to Cumberland, a distance of 140 miles, is
North-East. It here reaches within four or five
miles of the Pennsylvania line, to which width
the territory of Maryland is reduced for some
distance. Thence the Potomac taking a S. E. di-
rection, and receiving in its course the south or
larger branch of that river, and the Shenandoah,
from the Virginia side, and the Antietum and
Monocacy from the Maryland side, reaches tide
water at Georgetown, three miles above Wash-
ington, and 188 miles below Cumberland, In
this distance there are five falls. 1st, Little
Falls 37 feet, six miles above Washington—2d,
nine miles higher up is the Great falls, of 76
feet—3d, six miles further up, is the Seneca
Falls, a rapid descending about 10 feet—4th,
the Shenandoah Falls of 15 feet high, is sixty