Baltimore. The superior safety, rapidity, and cheapness of canal
communication showed Pennsylvania that she must adjust her
transportation to the new conditions.

The way was prepared by the experience of corporations attempting to
reach the coal-fields of northeastern Pennsylvania. In 1820
practically the whole output from the anthracite fields came from
the Lehigh Valley and amounted to three hundred and sixty-five tons-
-an equivalent of one for each day of the year. By the end of the
decade the output of the anthracite fields was about one hundred and
seventy-five thousand tons, and the retail price was reduced to six
dollars and a half a ton. Navigation had been secured by the coal
companies between the mines and Philadelphia by the Schuylkill; the
Union Canal connected the Schuylkill and Susquehanna, and New York
City was supplied by the Delaware Canal. [Footnote: McCulloch,
Commercial Dictionary (ed. of 1852), I., 366; U.S. Census of 1880,
IV.; Worthington, Finances of Pa.]

This activity in Pennsylvania in the improvement of navigation so
far had been the work of corporations; but now, with the growth of
population in the west and the completion of the Erie Canal, a
popular demand arose for state construction of inland waterways. In
1825 the legislature passed an act under which an extensive system
of canals was begun, to connect Philadelphia with Pittsburgh, the
Allegheny River with Lake Erie, and Philadelphia with the central
counties of New York at the head of the Susquehanna. [Footnote: See
chap. xvii., below.] Obstacles speedily developed in the jealousies
of the various sections of the state. The farmers of the Great
Valley, whose interests lay in the development of a communication
with Baltimore, were not enthusiastic; the southern counties of the