Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/275

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made of this wood. There is here too, an abundance of excellent yellow pine, suitable for masts and spars. These, with many other kinds of lumber, are rafted and floated down the rivers to New-Orleans, and there sell at a high price. Upon these rafts large quantities of produce are often transported to the same place.

The produce carried down to this vast market consists, principally, of flour, corn, pork, beef, bacon, venison, flax, whiskey, lumber, and live stock, particularly horses. The foreign goods received into the western states, lying on the Mississippi and {165} Ohio, and their principal sources, come, as has been observed, from Philadelphia and Baltimore, by the way of Pittsburg. This place is the great depot for the supply of all places below it. Foreign goods to a large amount are also brought from New-Orleans; and some from Virginia, by the way of Richmond.

In speaking of large vessels on the Ohio, I may add, that ships of large tonnage have been built on this river, laden for the West-Indies, and there sold, both vessel and cargo. A person in Europe, unacquainted with the geography of our western waters, would be astonished to see, in the Atlantic ocean, a large vessel, freighted with country produce, which was built and laden at Pittsburgh, between two and three thousand miles from the Gulf of Mexico.

How wonderfully impressive is the prospect, which this country presents to the politician, during his cogitations upon our remote destinies! Every thing is conspiring to render the United States far more populous than Europe. In the course of a few hundred years all that is great, and splendid will characterize us.—The arts of Greece, the arms of Rome, the pride of England will be ours. May God avert the rest!

Whilst on the Ohio, I was pleased with the appearance