canal. This had been done previously in Europe, but had not been tried in the US. This project had to succeed by getting almost 23 miles of waterway up an incline with a 706' elevation, to the summit level in Bouckville, and back down a descent of 303' to the Susquehanna river in Binghamton. At a time when there was only one engineering school in the country (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ((1824)), and hydrology was not yet a scientific discipline, Jervis and his team were able to design a complex waterway that was considered the best of its day. System The main artery Erie Canal was built between 1817 and 1825 and provided the key link in a water highway to what would become the Midwestern United States, connecting to the Great Lakes at Buffalo. It connected the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and then to the port of New York City. The Erie made use of the favorable conditions of New York's unique topography which provided that area with the only break in the Appalachian range—allowing for east-west navigation from the Atlantic coast to the Great Lakes. The canal system gave New York State a competitive advantage, helped New York City develop as an international trade center, and allowed Buffalo to grow from just 2,000 settlers in 1820 to over 18,000 people by 1840. The port of New York became essentially the Atlantic home port for all of the Great Lakes states. It was because of this vital and critical connection that New York State became known as the Empire State. The Erie Canal represented the first major water-works project in the United States. It proved the practicality of large-scale water diversions without disrupting the local environment. The canal connected the waters of Lake Erie to the tidewater of New York harbor in a multi-level route that followed the local terrain and was fed by local water sources. All of the New York branch canals would follow this model. With the Erie, as with all of the branch canals, water flow was required for several purposes: filling the canal at the beginning of each spring season; water for lockage, i.e., water loss from higher to lower levels; water loss by seepage through the berm and towpath banks and water diverted for industrial power usage. Consequently, flooding and droughts were perennial problems for all of the New York canals. The