Pennsylvania hills, the epic of the ore, the epic of the
railroad, the epic of the great city; and, in general, the
subjugation of a continental wilderness to the service of a vast
civilization.

The vital need of better transportation was uppermost in the
thoughts of many Americans. It was seen that there could be no
national unity in a country so far flung without means of easy
intercourse between one group of Americans and another. The
highroads of the new country were, for the most part, difficult
even for the man on horseback, and worse for those who must
travel by coach or post-chaise. Inland from the coast and away
from the great rivers there were no roads of any sort; nothing
but trails. Highways were essential, not only for the permanent
unity of the United States, but to make available the wonderful
riches of the inland country, across the Appalachian barrier and
around the Great Lakes, into which American pioneers had already
made their way.

Those immemorial pathways, the great rivers, were the main
avenues of traffic with the interior. So, of course, when men
thought of improving transportation, they had in mind chiefly
transportation by water; and that is why the earliest efforts of
American inventors were applied to the means of improving traffic
and travel by water and not by land.

The first men to spend their time in trying to apply steam power
to the propulsion of a boat were contemporaries of Benjamin
Franklin. Those who worked without Watt's engine could hardly
succeed. One of the earliest of these was William Henry of