legal protection of their access to markets, sometimes bordering upon monopoly. The company's charter addressed the canal problem by granting the right to haul property as well as passengers, with this proviso "but the corporation hereby created shall not take and transport merchandise in such a manner as to lessen the income on the Erie Canal during the time when the canal is navigable." The charter did not specify either a penalty for contravention of this clause nor any means of its enforcement against the company. As far as is known, this was never tested in court; the matter became moot when the canal laws changed in 1844. Gibson, an official of the Ontario Bank, was elected president, and Charles Seymour, the secretary and treasurer. They held these positions during the remaining corporate life of the company. When the Auburn and Rochester Railroad Company was consolidated on 1 August 1850 into the Rochester and Syracuse, they served in the same positions in that company and held them until that line was in turn merged into the New York Central. The company appointed Robert Higham as engineer. He had been a resident engineer on the Utica and Schenectady; he left when the road was opened in August 1836, with a glowing commendation by his former employer. He built the Auburn and Rochester, serving for some years as its superintendent and went from this road to the Hudson River Railroad. Higham set out to develop the route. The route surveys took the spring and summer of 1837. From his report to the board, one can derive a sense of the state of railroad technology at the time: To the President and Directors of the Auburn and Rochester Railroad Company: Gentlemen: We shall be able to pass the whole distance, between Auburn and Rochester, without having any grade to exceed twenty-eight feet ascent or descent, per mile, and that without any very deep cuttings on the summits, or high embankments in the valleys. The curves generally will be of a large radius only one being as low as 1000 feet. The work throughout, will be of a plain and easy character, without any heavy rock excavation, or expensive river walling, and with as little perishable structure as perhaps any Road of the same extent in the United States. The superstructure of bridges over the Erie and Seneca canals, the Seneca and Genesee rivers,