Our boards of engineers have deemed it best to collect troops on the Champlain line, and, by penetrating between Montreal and Quebec, separate the enemy's forces and cut off all the remainder of Canada from supplies and reinforcements from England.

But it has been discovered by certain western men that to cut the _trunk_ of a tree is not the proper method of felling it: we must climb to the _top_ and pinch the buds, or, at most, cut off a few of the smaller limbs.

To blow up a house, we should not place the mine under the foundation, but attach it to one of the shingles of the roof! We have already shown that troops collected at Albany may reach the great strategic point on the St.Lawrence by an easy and direct route of _two hundred miles_; but forces collected at Pittsburg and Memphis must pass over a difficult and unfrequented route of _two thousand miles_.
Our merchant marine on the lakes secures to us a naval superiority in that quarter at the beginning of a war; and our facilities for ship-building are there equal if not superior to any possessed by the enemy.

The only way, therefore, in which our ascendency on the lakes can be lost, is by the introduction of steam craft from the Atlantic.

The canals and locks constructed for this object will pass vessels of small dimensions and drawing not over eight and a half feet water.
How are we to prevent the introduction of these Atlantic steamers into our lakes?
Shall we, at the first opening of hostilities, march with armed forces upon the enemy's line of artificial communication and blow up the locks of their ship-canals, thus meeting the enemy's marine at the very threshold of its introduction into the interior seas; or shall we build opposition steam-navies at Pittsburg and Memphis, some two thousand miles distant, and then expend some forty or fifty millions[27] in opening an artificial channel to enable them to reach Lake Ontario, after its borders have been laid waste by the hostile forces?
Very few disinterested judges would hesitate in forming their opinion on this question.[28] [Footnote 27: The construction of the Illinois ship-canal, for vessels of eight and a half feet draught, is estimated at fifteen millions; to give the same draught to the Mississippi and lower Illinois, would require at least ten millions more; a ship canal of the corresponding draught around Niagara Falls, will cost, say, ten millions; the navy yard at Memphis, with docks, storehouses, &c., will cost about two millions, and steamers sent thence to the lakes will cost about fifty thousand dollars per gun.