But it stopped short of us in a very business-like manner when we
reached the canal; and, before we left the wharf, went panting up
this hill again, with the passengers who had waited our arrival
for the means of traversing the road by which we had come."*

* Op. cit.


This Pennsylvania route was likewise famous because it included
the first tunnel in America; but with the advance of years,
tunnel, planes, and canal were supplanted by what was to become
in time the Pennsylvania Railroad, the pride of the State and one
of the great highways of the nation.

In the year before Pennsylvania investigated her western water
route, a joint bill was introduced into the legislatures of the
Potomac Valley States, proposing a Potomac Canal Company which
should construct a Chesapeake and Ohio canal at the expense of
Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The plan was of
vital moment to Alexandria and Georgetown on the Potomac, but
unless a lateral canal could be built to Baltimore, that city--
which paid a third of Maryland's taxes--would be called on to
supply a great sum to benefit only her chief rivals. The bitter
struggle which now developed is one of the most significant in
commercial history because of its sequel.

The conditions underlying this rivalry must not be lost sight of.
Baltimore had done more than any other Eastern city to ally
herself with the West and to obtain its trade. She had
instinctively responded to every move made by her rivals in the