companies in the commercial history of America. The Lehigh
Navigation Company was formed with a capital stock of $150,000
and the Lehigh Coal Company with a capital stock of $55,000. This
incident forms one of the most striking illustrations in American
history of the dependence of a commercial venture upon methods of
inland transportation. The Lehigh Navigation Company proceeded to
build its dams and walls while the Lehigh Coal Company
constructed the first roadway in America built on the principle--
later adopted by the railway--of dividing the total distance by
the total descent in order to determine the grade. Not to be
outdone in point of ingenuity, the Lehigh Navigation Company,
then suffering from an unprecedented dearth of water, adopted
White's invention of sluice gates connecting with pools which
could be filled with reserve water to be drawn upon as navigation
required. By 1819 the necessary depth of water between Mauch
Chunk and Easton was obtained. The two companies were immediately
amalgamated under the title of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation
Company and by 1823 had sent over two thousand tons of coal to
market.

As most of the efforts to improve the rivers, however, met with
indifferent success and many failures were recorded, the pendulum
of public confidence in this aid to inland commerce swung away,
and highway improvement by means of stone roads and toll road
companies came into favor in the interval between the nation's
two eras of river improvement and canal building.



CHAPTER IV. A Nation On Wheels