Report On The Present State Of The Chesapeake And Ohio Canal: The Estimated Cost Of Completing It To Cumberland, And The Prospects Of Income To Be . And Iron Of The Mines In Alleghany County

Before railways ruled the map, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal promised to remake the Mid-Atlantic economy. Numbers can change a nation. In this complete historical report, William H. Swift sets out the present condition of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and tackles the question that decides every grand scheme: what will it cost, and what will it earn? With a clear canal completion cost estimate to reach Cumberland, he weighs the prospects of income driven by coal and iron transportation from the mines of Alleghany County. The result is a bracing public works finance report and a practical civil engineering reference, alive with the realities of contracts, capital, and geography. Read it for transportation history research, or simply for the drama of American ambition measured in miles, tonnage, and revenue. Historically, this document sits at the hinge of antebellum Maryland commerce, when the Cumberland Maryland canal connection was meant to unlock the Appalachian coal industry and feed the furnaces of a growing republic. For collectors of the American canal era and readers drawn to the making of infrastructure, this facsimile report reprint preserves the texture of nineteenth-century decision-making while remaining surprisingly readable today. Out of print for decades and now republished by Alpha Editions. Restored for today's and future generations. More than a reprint - a collector's item and a cultural treasure.