He predicted that among the " rising glories of the western world at no distant day the waters of the great inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson." While travelling in Scotland in 1795 he notes in his diary his impressions of the Caledonian Canal and says : When I see this, my mind oi>ens to a view of wealth for the interior of America which hitherto I had rather conjectured than seen." In ISOl, after his visit to Canada and Niagara Falls, he described to a friend in London a visit to Lake Erie : "At this point commences a navigation of more than one thousand miles. Shall I lead your astonishment to the verge of incredulity ? I will: know then that one-tenth of the expense borne by Britain in the last campaign would enable ships to sail from London through Hudson River into Lake Erie." At a dinner party, in Washington, not many yeare after this letter Robert Morris asked Gouverneur what he would think if they were then in convention and it should be proposed to establish the seat of government at Newburgh, on the Hudson. He replied : '' Yes, that would have been the i)lace " for the seat of Government. And the members of "Congress could have come from all parts by water." The company were astonished and asked how. Morris answered: "Why, by tapping Lake Erie and "bringing its waters to the Hudson, by an inclined plane or a water table which can be found." Simeon De Witt, Surveyor General of New York, gives Mr. Morris the credit of starting the idea of direct communication between Lake Erie and the Hudson, and Stephen Van Rensselaer, one of the first canal commissioners, considered Mr.