I had fixed on the 1st of October to be the epoch of my return to Charleston in South Carolina, and I had nearly a thousand miles to go by land before I could arrive there, in executing the design I had formed of travelling through the state of Tennessea, which lengthened my route considerably. Pressed for time, I relinquished the intention I had formed of going farther down the Ohio, and took leave of Mr. Samuel Craft, who pursued by himself, in a canoe, his journey to Louisville, whence, after having come down the Ohio and Mississippi, he was to proceed up the river Yazous to go to Natches, and then return by land to the state of Vermont, where he expected to be about the middle of November following, after having made, in six months, a circuit of nearly four thousand miles.
{106} CHAP. XII
Fish and shells of the Ohio—Inhabitants on the Banks of the river—Agriculture—American Emigrant—Commercial Intelligence relative to that part of the United States.
The banks of the Ohio, although elevated from twenty to sixty feet, scarcely afford any strong substances from Pittsburgh; and except large detached stones of a greyish colour and very soft, that we observed in an extent of ten or twelve miles below Wheeling, the remainder part seems vegetable earth. A few miles before we reached Limestone we began to observe a bank of a chalky nature, the thickness of which being very considerable, left no room to doubt but what it must be of a great extent.
Two kinds of flint, roundish and of a middling size, furnished the bed of the Ohio abundantly, especially as we approached the isles, where they are accumulated
