to view the whole to be able to judge of a preference due to any part of the grounds, which imposed a task of examining a space comprehending upwards of two thousand square miles; a task rendered still more incumbent by the solicitude and importunities of the inhabitants of every part of the district, who severally conceived their grounds entitled to a preference. It becoming necessary, in the interim, to run various lines of experiment for ascertaining the geographical position of several points entitled to attention, and the service suffering great delay for want of another surveyor, it was thought consistent with the public interest to employ, in that capacity, Arthur Rider, the vaneman, who had been chosen with qualification to meet such an emergency; and whose services as vaneman could then be dispensed with. He commenced, as surveyor, on the 22nd day of September, and continued so at field work until the first day of December, when he was retained as a necessary assistant to the principal surveyor, in copying field notes and hastening the draught of the work to be reported.

"The proceedings of the commissioners are especially detailed in their general journal, compiled from the daily journal of each commissioner, to which they beg leave to refer, under mark No. 2.

"After a careful and critical examination of all the grounds within the limits prescribed, as well as the grounds and ways out from the Ohio westwardly, at several points, and examining the shoal parts of the Ohio river as detailed in the table of soundings, stated in their journal, and after gaining all the information, geographical, general and special, possible and necessary, toward a judicial discharge of the duties assigned them, the commissioners repaired to Cumberland to examine and compare their notes and journals, and determine upon the direction and location of their route.

"In this consultation the governing objects were:

I. Shortness of distance between navigable points on the eastern and western waters.

2. A point on the Monongahela best calculated to equalize the advantages of

this portage in the country within reach of it.

3. A point on the Ohio river most capable of combining certainty of navigation with road accommodation; embracing, in this estimate, remote points westwardly, as well as present and probable population on the north and south.

4. Best mode of diffusing benefits with least distance of road.

"In contemplating these objects, due attention was paid as well to the comparative merits of towns, establishments and settlements already made, as to the capacity of the country with the present and probable population.

"In the course of arrangement, and in its order, the first point located for the route was determined and fixed at Cumberland, a decision founded on propriety, and in some measure on necessity, from the circumstance of a high and difficult mountain, called Nobley, laying and confining the east margin of the Potomac, so as to render it impossible of access on that side without immense expense, at any point between Cumberland and where the road

from Winchester to Gwynn's crosses, and even there the Nobley mountain is crossed with much difficulty and hazard. And this upper point was taxed with another formidable objection; it was found that a high range of mountains, called Dan's, stretching across from Gwynn's to the Potomac, above this point, precluded the opportunity of extending a route from this point in a proper direction, and left no alternative but passing by Gwynn's; the distance from Cumberland to Gwynn's being upward of a mile less than from the upper point, which lies ten miles by water above Cumberland, the commissioners were not permitted to hesitate in preferring a point which shortens the portage, as well as the Potomac navigation.

"The point of the Potomac being viewed as a great repository of produce, which a good road will bring from the west of Laurel Hill, and the advantages which Cumberland, as a town, has in that respect over an unimproved place, are additional considerations operating forcibly in favor of the place preferred.

"In extending the route from Cumber

land, a triple range of mountains, stretching across from Jening's run in measure with Gwynn's, left only the alternative of laying the road up Will's creek for three miles, nearly at right angles with the true course, and then by way of Jening's run, or extending it over a break in the smallest mountain, on a better course by Gwynn's, to the top of Savage mountain; the latter was adopted, being the shortest, and will be less expensive in hill-side digging over a sloped route than the former, requiring one bridge over Will's creek and several over Jening's run, both very wide and considerable streams in high water; and a more weighty reason for preferring the route by Gwynn's is the great accommodation it will afford travelers from Winchester by the upper point, who could not reach the route by Jening's run short of the top of Savage, which would withhold from them the benefit of an easy way up the mountain.

"It is, however, supposed that those who travel from Winchester by way of the upper point to Gwynn's, are in that respect more the dupes of common prejudice than judges