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The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (C&D Canal) is a -long, -wide and -deep ship canal that connects the Delaware River with the Chesapeake Bay in the states of Delaware and Maryland in the United States. The C&D Canal is owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District. The project office in Chesapeake City, Maryland, is also the site of the C&D Canal Museum and Bethel Bridge Lighthouse. In Delaware, the canal is considered the "divide" between the northern and southern parts of the state. It is also widely considered the beginning of the Delmarva Peninsula, although the fall line onto the Atlantic Coastal Plain lies farther north. == Early years == As early as the 17th century, settlers to the New World realized that industrial and commercial growth would depend upon economical transportation of goods across both land and water. In the mid‑17th century Augustine Herman, a mapmaker and Prague native who had served as an envoy for the Dutch, observed that two great bodies of water, the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay, were separated only by a narrow strip of land. Herman proposed that a waterway be built to connect the two. The canal would reduce, by nearly 300 miles (500 km), the water routes between Philadelphia and Baltimore. More than a century passed before any action was taken. In 1764, a survey of possible water routes across the Delmarva Peninsula was made. One was proposed by Thomas Gilpin, Sr., a Quaker from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who, along with other members of the American Philosophical Society, sought a waterway to shorten the shipping distance from the Chesapeake Bay to Philadelphia. He proposed a canal across the Delmarva Peninsula to connect the Chester River at modern-day Millington, Maryland, to the Delaware River. He even bought of land, largely in and around Millington, but the canal would not become a reality for decades. The idea was raised again in 1788 by regional business leaders, including noted Philadelphians Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. In 1802, following actions by the legislatures of Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company was incorporated, with merchant and banker Joseph Tatnall as president. More surveys followed, and in 1804, construction of the canal began under Benjamin Latrobe.〔 The work included 14 locks to connect the Christina River in Delaware with the Elk River at Welch Point, Maryland, but the project was halted two years later for lack of funds. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chesapeake and Delaware Canal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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