when quitting the last of them, she had been lifted up to an elevation of
sixty feet by these five locks, and if we had not observed the busy hands
working for our ascent, we might have been inclined to imagine that an
invisible cloud was slowly carrying us to unknown regions on high.

We made _Lockport_ our resting-place for the night; since the sun had
wheeled his broad disk already down into the west and the heavens were
brightened only by the parting smiles of the day.

Going on shore, we visited Lockport, a prosperous city with about 20,000
inhabitants, which is the center of a large paper and pulp industry.

A five hours' journey on Saturday morning, July 29th, past Pendleton,
Picardsville, Martinsville, Tonawanda and Lower Black Rock, completed our
charming trip on the Erie Canal, which has from Schenectady to Buffalo a
length of 323 miles.

The construction of this great artificial waterway, in all nearly 350
miles long, having an elevation of about 500 feet above tide water, made
by seventy-two locks, was commenced in 1817, and its completion took place
in 1825. Although this immense undertaking has caused an expense of
$50,000,000, the State of New York has made an excellent investment with
that sum of money; since by means of the Erie Canal the domestic trade
between the large western inland towns and the eastern seaports,
especially the metropolis, is considerably facilitated. This traffic will
receive a still greater importance, and can be more advantageously carried
on, when the plan of utilizing the electric current for the driving power
of canal-boats--a project recently tested by experiments--has been
successfully executed.