The navigation of the river is here intercepted by four successive magnificent falls, the highest of them ninety six feet : around these falls a carrymg place was made, and the inhabitants on the Genesee River now receive their salt from the Onondaga salt works, and their stores from Albany, with a very trifling land carriage compared with what they were necessitated to undertake from Geneva. The opening of this navigation has also furnished them with a ready water communication for their surplus produce. Mr. Granger, last winter, built a schooner of forty tons, which was launched early in April : before the middle of May she made a trip to Niagara, with two hundred barrels of provisions, and there w^ere then laying on the beach two hundred barrels more, ready to be put. on board on her return. K we calculate on what has been experienced in the other setilements, the port on the Genesee River bids fair,

1144 PAPERS RELATING TO

in a very few years, to be a place of considerable importance.

Should the inhabitants of the immense flats on the Genesee River and the adjacent country turn their attention to the cultivation of hemp, and the manufacturing of it into cordage, which may be sent, with very trifling land carriage, either to Quebec or Ballimore, both of which are advantageous markets, it is not possible to calculate what may hereafter be the value of this country.

1798. The number of families that came into this country last winter far exceeded any former year. Not less than three thousand people are supposed to have come into the counties of Ontario and Steuben in the course of six weeks last winter; and this spring families w^ere coming in the moment the navigation was free from ice. A Mr.