Chapter XX: Letter XX

Circumstances that retard Manufacturing Industry, and Causes of its prosperity

_Jeffersonville, (Indiana,) Aug. 15, 1820._

In my letter of the 26th of June last, I mentioned that mechanics were leaving the towns of the western country, becoming cultivators in the back woods. In many cases, their former habits are such as are not well calculated to reconcile them with their new situations. It appears evident that such people, placed in the forests, cannot for some time raise a quantity of produce sufficient to procure in exchange such foreign luxuries as they formerly consumed, and such articles of imported dress as they have been accustomed to wear. The former may be easily dispensed with, but for the latter a substitute must be provided. Family manufacture is the obvious resource; but it must proceed slowly in cases where the females are not acquainted with this branch of industry, and {239} in the uncleared woods, which are not suitable pastures for sheep. It is to be regretted that manufacturing establishments are not erected, as these would not only furnish employment more congenial to the habits of artizans, and preserve to them their wonted accommodations, but would be of vast national importance under the present circumstances of America.

I trust that a brief exposition of a few of the principal causes which retard manufacturing industry, and of the means of promoting it, in this country, will not be unacceptable to you; especially as the policy of America, on that subject, affects at once the interests of both countries.

The primary obstacle that has hitherto prevented Americans from fabricating their own necessaries, from the products of their own country, is universally acknowledged to be an extensive intercourse with Great Britain, in exporting produce, and importing manufactured goods in return;--a correspondence that subjects American artisans to a competition with a country in which wages are low, labour subdivided, and in which the most stupendous mechanical apparatus is employed.

The indecision which has heretofore characterized the conduct of the United States, with regard to manufactures, seems to have originated in the diversity of interests represented in the government. The people of the southern States are, for several reasons, averse to making concessions for procuring home-made goods. They are comparatively little devoted to mechanical pursuits, and still less acquainted with the diversified operations of workshops. Their negroes are seldom trained to any thing but agricultural and menial services, and the {240} condition of these labourers is otherwise unfavourable to the acquisition of skill in new employments. This part of the country, besides, exports large quantities of cotton, tobacco, and rice, articles that do not excite the jealousy of the landed interest in Britain; but, on the contrary, almost enjoy a monopoly of the British market. It is plain that the people who possess advantages of this kind, have it more in their power to continue traffic with England than their northern neighbours, whose produce is excluded by the corn laws of that country, which have been wisely enacted.

Traders who have capital vested in ships, and in the importation of manufactured goods, form a class that is more interested in opposing an independent system than any other. Though their influence in Congress appears to be declining, some time must elapse before their funds can be directed to other pursuits.

The import duties on foreign manufactures, high as in most cases they appear to be, have not the effect of protecting American artizans from competition with those of other countries, who work cheaper. This disadvantage has been produced by the profuse issues of a paper currency. Money of this sort not taking the market abroad, it remains in the country, where it operates against industry, by augmenting the nominal price of labour. Hence people are complaining of want of employment, while they depend on the labour of foreigners for almost every artificial modification of the materials raised on their own soil, or that lie unheeded under their feet. Import duties are not to be considered merely as enactments for promoting American manufactures, for they constitute the principal source of national revenue. It might be difficult to form a conception of a revenue {241} that could be collected at less expense, or of taxation raised in a more voluntary manner on the part of the people. But as moderating these duties must unquestionably, on every occasion, be injurious to home industry, and as augmenting them to the extent of the total prohibition of foreign goods would introduce smuggling, the two objects of the system are in some degree incompatible in the present state of money affairs.

The capital vested in uncultivated lands, is a mere dormant stock which cannot be applied to such active employments as the erection of workshops, machinery, and other outlays necessary for the establishment of manufactories, unless it is replaced by other funds. Neither is it so easy to procure money as formerly by mortgaging cultivated lands, now when the prices of produce are so low.

The expedients resorted to, in keeping base money in circulation, are, with respect to manufacturing interests, as impolitic as they are, in fact, unjust. Bankers, who are virtually insolvent, are to be ranked amongst the opposers of manufacturers, as it must be impossible for such men to contemplate the reduction of the quantity of money so essential to industry, without dreading the retribution that awaits them.

The present condition of the United States is well suited to convince the people of the expediency of making exertions for supplying their own wants. Europe is no longer to be relied on as a market for their produce, and Great Britain in particular has in effect excluded the grain and the timber of the United States from her markets, and prohibits Americans from trading with her West India colonies. Since these restrictions have taken place, great quantities of British manufactures have been imported into America, and the course {242} of exchange has shown, that a large money balance has arisen in favour of Britain. Some persons interested in the traffic, infer the prosperity of the United States from their being able to pay a balance of trade. Though general doctrines of this kind are sanctioned by several great economists, on the broad principle that an exportation of money indicates a corresponding importation of property, or in other words, an accumulation of wealth; before adopting an assumption of this kind in any particular case, it may be safe to inquire whether the import consist of articles, which are permanently beneficial, or of luxuries either of the more perishable kinds, or of those more conducive to ornament than utility. With regard to the late imports of the United States, it is thought sufficient to notice that they have not furnished the ability to continue them in their usual amount.

Farther, nothing can be more plain than the necessity of abridging the quantity of paper money in circulation; and when this is done to a sufficient extent, foreigners will find it impossible to procure dollars here on terms so easy as formerly. Were money rendered so scarce, that it would command three or four times the quantity of the necessaries of life that it does now, foreign labour would be excluded, and the American labourer, with a third or a fourth part of his present nominal wages, would find the only changes in his condition to be a greater demand for his work, and an immediate enlargement of his resources. The farmer would eventually find the means of increasing his produce, and the advantage of a home market; and capitalists now engaged in foreign commerce, would find employment for their funds in manufactures. Fortunately the impolitic course latterly {243} pursued is leading to its own correction. Specie is seldom to be seen in the ordinary transactions of business, except in small worn pieces of inferior denominations, and cut money, from which a portion of the metal has been fraudulently abstracted. The deficiency in weight prevents this part of the currency from being exported in direct payments, and nothing but the recent depreciation of paper seems to prevent these remnants of silver from being disposed of as bullion.

In former times, when Europe furnished a market for almost every kind of produce, the strongest inducements to agricultural industry prevailed. The fertility and the vast extent of the United States enabled cultivators to increase in numbers, in a manner that would have produced a disagreeable competition, in a more thickly peopled country; but the recent state of commercial affairs shows that America is not wide enough to prevent the inconveniences of competition in a narrow market. The necessity of a new distribution of pursuits becomes every day more apparent, as without it the people cannot enjoy the articles of comfort and luxury hitherto imported. Some of the most popular newspapers now advocate the cause of manufactures, and several public societies take a deep interest in promoting the internal prosperity of the country. The society at Philadelphia for promoting American manufactures,[130] have in some of their papers reasoned in such a manner as to prove that they possess a comprehensive knowledge of the subject, both of its effects on national wealth, and of manufacturing business. The resolutions of the society lately instituted at Cincinnati for the promotion of agriculture, manufactures, and domestic economy, are subjoined, {244} as a mark of the patriotic spirit that now prevails.[131] The committee of this society consists of people of the greatest wealth and influence in the city and neighbourhood.

Of the essays in favour of manufactures which have been published, it may be observed generally, that they recommend the adoption of higher import duties. That these have not been resorted to, need excite no surprise, as the secretary of the treasury has shown that an increase of duties must be followed by a decrease of national revenue, {245} and as the ultimate substitute, internal taxation, would probably be unpopular, although imposed with the most sparing hand. The spontaneous decrease in the amount of money capital now going on, does not seem to be duly appreciated;--an occurrence that is evidently well calculated to give an impulse to American industry.

When the United States shall abandon the spurious money now in circulation, and proceed on a smaller but more substantial capital, a new era of national prosperity will commence. The government will be freed from the danger, or rather the certainty, of losing the revenue by a smuggled trade, and will feel less necessity for resorting to restrictive regulations. A less sum of money will be sufficient to defray the public expenses. The consequent cheapness of labour will give the agriculturist new advantages in foreign markets, and develop in a new degree the natural resources of the country. The home market, occasioned by a manufacturing population, will be secure, as being beyond the reach of foreign governments, whose caprice is hostile to the security of American trade. Whenever the country shall be able to manufacture the whole, or the greater part of its necessaries, the exports of produce must be attended with an importation of specie. The ingress of foreign capitalists may also be calculated on as one of the effects to be produced by the change of system.

The introduction of manufactures must promote internal improvements, as the making of roads and the construction of works, for facilitating inland navigation. The country will be rendered capable of supporting a greater population than it can under the present system, thereby removing much of the inconvenience that attends their present settlements; {246} better opportunities for mental improvement, and the means of more prompt national defence, will be acquired; foreign commerce and foreign relations will be abridged, so that the hazard of hostilities with other countries may be greatly lessened. A small shipping trade evidently requires less naval protection than an extensive foreign commerce, and the retrenchment may perhaps admit of some relaxation in the present construction of ships of war. The reverses so frequently injurious to the manufacturers of Britain are less to be dreaded in the United States. While their manufactures do not exceed their own wants, it will always be practicable to prevent the home market from being overstocked, and while the vacant back woods are held in reserve, a manufacturing population need not be reduced to pauperism by the want of a foreign market for their fabrics.

The erection of manufacturing establishments was recommended some time ago by intelligent citizens, who foresaw that the money capital of the country could not long supply the great efflux of specie. Now, a change of policy becomes a matter of necessity. It is chiefly to be regretted several State legislatures are too active in forcing the circulation of degraded money;--a procedure which, in the meantime, retards the natural subsidence of the convulsion, and keeps property out of the hands of its real owners. However far they may succeed in procuring indemnity for past peculations, their efforts must be impotent in opposition to the future interests of mankind. The paper currency that they strive to support falls in spite of their utmost exertions. I now find that my expense of living or of travelling is nominally the same that it was in the autumn of 1818. At that time I paid in specie, or in money, which {247} was considered as nearly equivalent to it, but of late I have on various occasions found that paper is accepted which is 50 per cent. worse than silver. A person who collected a salary to the amount of about eight hundred dollars, told me that he had received only five dollars of that sum in specie. You can easily perceive that, under this state of things, very few will give specie to the tavern-keeper, grocer, or others, while he can previously procure for it one and a half times, or twice its nominal amount, in what is called current paper. Most of the small towns have a person who follows the business of money changing; and merchants and other persons transact in that way, so that specie is almost entirely withdrawn from retail business, and applied to the purchase of public lands, or other objects, for which depreciated paper would not be accepted of in payment. Under this condition, an unsettled or precarious sort of internal trade is carried on, but it is impossible to import foreign goods as formerly.

The want of employment is another strong inducement to adopt an independent system of economy, but a cumbrous load of paper money presses industry to the earth. It is found by experience that the farmer cannot pay 125 cents per day to the labourer, and sell his corn for 25 cents per bushel, nor can the labourer work for a small hire while he pays two and a half, or three dollars a-week for his board, and an extravagant price for his clothing. Similar obstacles occur in almost every branch of industry that furnishes anything for exportation, or comes into competition with the labour of foreign artizans, so that the operations of this country now consist chiefly of works of first necessity. A gentleman who has opportunities of being well acquainted with the {248} business of Philadelphia, has computed that in that county alone, there are at least 15,000 persons who are either entirely idle or are engaged in unproductive labour. He stated that he has had more than twenty applications for employment, when he could give work only to one, and that several other manufacturers say, that they cannot employ a tenth part of the applicants they meet with. The same gentleman estimates that there are about 150,000 unemployed persons along the Atlantic coast, and that there are 350,000 persons of the same description in other parts of the country.[132] It is not pretended that these enumerations are derived from accurate data, or that they are even very close approximations to the real numbers; but, taken in connection with other well known facts, they may be received as satisfactory evidence that the evil exists to a very considerable extent.[133]

{249} Want of employment is here viewed as a want of organization. With you it is represented to be an indication of an overpeopled country. The government of the United States does not attempt to get rid of its people, but, on the contrary, it welcomes the stranger who arrives on their shores. Your government pay for transporting their subjects, or encourage their removal by giving them lands gratis. Canada is wide enough to receive them, but its connection with England does not admit of a free trade. Multitudes of emigrants find their comforts as narrow as before, and remove into the United States. If facts of this sort indicate any thing, it is that no extent of country can compensate for mismanagement, or, in other words, a nation is more easily overstocked from impolicy than from want of soil.

The habits and institutions of the American people are peculiarly favourable to the adoption of manufacturing pursuits. They have no corporations with exclusive privileges, and no laws which enact any specific period of apprenticeship. Their well known spirit of enterprise, and the circumstance {250} of almost every man’s being acquainted with handling the axe, the hammer, the saw, and the joiner’s plane, must give a facility to the acquisition of mechanical labour. Besides, it is understood that a few weeks, or at farthest a few months, are enough to communicate the knowledge of most of those employments, and that the work can soon be reduced to practice by subsequent application. The progress already made in several branches of manufacture tend to inspire a strong hope as to future attainments. The fabrication of coarse cotton cloths, called _domestics_, which now undersell British goods of similar quality; the making of iron articles, of leather-hats, paper, types, engravings, the construction of steam-boats, and the building of ships, are mentioned as flattering examples.

As the disposition to promote American manufactures is progressive, and as popular opinion dictates the measures of the government, it may be safe to infer that commerce with England is now in a deep decline, and that the erection of workshops (though it should be on a moderate scale) may be hailed as the liberation of the United States from foreign monopoly.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] The Philadelphia Society for Promoting Domestic Manufactures, organized in 1803, with Stephen Girard as president, was incorporated in 1805. A central warehouse was established, where articles of American manufacture could be concentrated and sold, thus doing away with the expense of middlemen. The society was active in advocating a protective tariff.

The Cincinnati Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Domestic Economy was organized in 1819. Quarterly meetings were held, and prizes offered for the best essays on subjects relating to agriculture and domestic manufactures.--ED.

[131] “_1st._ We will not purchase, or suffer to be used in our families, any imported liquors, fruits, nuts, or preserves of any kind, unless they shall be required in cases of sickness.

“_2d._ Being convinced, that the practice which generally prevails of wearing suits of black as testimonials of respect for the memory of deceased friends, is altogether useless, if not improper, while it is attended with a heavy expense; we will not sanction it hereafter in our families, or encourage it in others.

“_3d._ We will not purchase, for ourselves or our families, such articles of dress as are expensive, and are generally considered as ornamental rather than useful.

“_4th._ We will abstain from the use of imported goods of every description, as far as may be practicable, and we will give a preference to articles that are of the growth and manufacture of our own country, when the latter can be procured.

“_5th._ We will not purchase any articles, either of food or dress, at prices that are considered extravagant, or that the citizens generally cannot afford to pay; but will rather abstain from the use of such articles until they can be obtained at reasonable prices.

“_6th._ We will observe a rigid economy in every branch of our expenditures, and will, in all our purchases, be influenced by necessity rather than convenience, and by utility rather than ornament.

“_7th._ We believe that the prosperity of the country depends in a great degree on a general and faithful observance of the foregoing declaration; we therefore promise that we will adhere to it ourselves, and that we will recommend it to others.”--_Farnsworth’s Cincinnati Directory._--FLINT.

[132] Letter to the President of the United States, by John Melish, Esq. Phil. 1818.--FLINT.

[133] From the paucity of the circumstances attended to in statistical inquiries, the most superficial observer might infer that national pride is sufficiently gratified by the number of human beings, without regard to that of useful or efficient citizens, and that governments are satisfied with knowing little more of their people than that they die, and that they were born. It were to be wished that enumerations were made annually, instead of at the usual long intervals of time; and in addition to the particulars ordinarily ascertained, such were embraced as, the number of those who can show that they procure their subsistence by lawful means; those who have fixed residences; those who have received a moral education; the nature of employments; the duration and immediate causes of their avocations; bankruptcies; convictions for specified crimes; the known or proximate causes of deaths; cases of lunacy; _felo de se_; epidemy and meteorological registers made in every department of the country. The collection of information of this kind might be conducted in a manner that would operate as a beneficial supervision of society. It would furnish the police department with a new insight into the sources of delinquency. Taken in connection with coexistent laws which effect trade and revenue, and criminal laws, and the state of markets, political economy would be furnished with new instruments for investigation. The approach of misery might frequently be anticipated and arrested without being exhibited on the poor’s list, in the workhouse, or in the shape of inability to pay taxes. Crimes might be prevented, and better criteria obtained for discriminating between offences committed _against_ law, and those perpetrated _by_ law. A new light would be thrown on several branches of physical science, and particularly on agriculture, climate, and the healing art. It is but too easy to discover that the desideratum is not in unison with the affairs of the age, but it is probable that another Alfred, or a Lycurgus must arise before it can be remedied.--FLINT.

{251} LETTER XXI

Circuit Court of Indiana--Lawyers--Presiding Judge--Trial and Whipping of a Thief--Lands--Crops--Fourteen-Mile-Creek--Salt Springs--Town of Corydon--Drought-Barrens-Caves-Effects of a Tornado--Formation of the Higher Alluvial Bottom Lands of the Ohio--More Barrens--Salt River--Large Trees--Wild Vines--Steam-Boats--The Falls of the Ohio--Prevalence of Bilious and Intermittent Fevers--Taciturnity--Americanisms.

_Jeffersonville, (Indiana,) Sept. 8, 1820._

Since writing my last letter to you, I have made several short excursions into the country.--I was at Charlestown, the seat of justice in Clark county,[134] while the circuit court sat there, and had opportunities of hearing the oratory of several barristers, which was delivered in language at once strong, elegant, and polite. A spirit of emulation prevails at the bar, and a gentleman of good taste informed me, that some young practitioners have made vast progress within two or three years past. The United States certainly open an extensive school for eloquence. The number of cases of litigation before the various courts of justice is very great; and there are numerous opportunities for exerting popular talent, as at elections, where the harangues are called stump-speeches, from the practice of candidates mounting the stumps of trees, and there addressing themselves to the people, and in State Assemblies.

{252} The circuit court consists of a presiding judge, who makes a progress over the whole State, and who meets with two associate judges at the several seats of justice. Associate judges are local, and only act in their respective counties. One of these gentlemen opened the court at Charlestown last year in the absence of the presiding judge.--A large jug, for holding cold water, that stood on the bench, had a caricature portrait of a judge painted on it, and several lawyers, on coming forward to open their cases, bowed to the figure, and directed their eyes to it during their speeches, occasioning much laughter in the house. It was not till the arrival of the presiding judge that the contempt was checked. Freedoms on the part of lawyers seem to be promoted in the back-country, in consequence of the bench being occasionally filled with men who are much inferior to those at the bar. The salary of the presiding judge (I have been told) is only seven hundred dollars a-year. As he is engaged in public business and in travelling nearly the whole of his time, that sum can only defray his expenses, even under the most economical management, so that there can be no great error in supposing that he acts gratuitously. The present presiding judge is a man who has distinguished himself in Indian warfare.[135] Whatever opinion you may form of the bench here, you may be assured that it is occupied as a post of honour.

Amongst the business of the court, the trial of a man who had stolen two horses excited much interest. On his being sentenced to suffer thirty stripes, he was immediately led from the bar to the whipping-post. Every twitch of the cowhide, (a weapon formerly described,) drew a red line across his back. This was the second infliction of the kind that had been sanctioned by {253} court in the State, since my coming into it. I do not notice the infrequency of punishments as wishing to occasion a belief that misdemeanours are seldom committed. Indeed, were it not for the absolute impunity obtained in most cases, we might soon see the partial development of a new system of physiognomy, one not founded on the features of the face, but on the striped lineaments of the back. Never, till now, did I so much value the usage of Scotland, where the inhabitant, on removing from one parish to another, carries with him the testimonial of the church.

The surface of the land in the neighbourhood of Charlestown is beautifully diversified, varying between gently undulated and steep of broken ground. The soil is of the first rate quality, and covered with luxuriant crops of Indian corn. The crops of wheat are what you would call a second rate crop, and several fields of oats, which I saw, were headed out, and were as bulky as any that I have seen in Mid-Lothian; but, for a reason formerly stated, the grain cannot be expected to arrive at fine quality. The banks of Fourteen-Mile-Creek, (which joins the Ohio at the distance of fourteen miles above the falls,) are cliffs of limestone that are overtopped by tall woods, and form, by their windings, many romantic scenes, of which I can convey no adequate idea. The stream is at present almost entirely dried up, but the extent of its bed, and the marks of inundation by its margin, convince me that its floods are nearly equal to those of the Clyde at Glasgow. Some salt springs that percolate through the rocks in the bottom, have been discovered during the present dry season: the existence of these were first surmised by an ingenious gentleman, with whom I am well acquainted. He proceeded by introducing a small tube into a {254} deep and still part of the river, and drew water from the bottom that was perceptibly saline. He has now some people engaged in boring, by which means the discharge of water has been considerably augmented, and has commenced evaporating on a small scale. This process is usually performed by filling a number of iron kettles, of about three feet in diameter, and six inches deep, with the water, and placing them on loose stones, or over a trench that is dug in the ground for receiving the fuel. Boring for salt water is a work that is occasionally accompanied with a considerable degree of difficulty. Where the bore communicates with a fresh water spring, on a higher level than the saline one, a tube of tinned iron is let down to exclude the former. At the salt-works by Kanhaway River, perforations have been made in the limestone rocks to the depth of two hundred feet. There a hundred gallons of water are said to yield a bushel of salt; but there are waters evaporated in other parts of the country that do not yield more than a fourth, or even a sixth part of that quantity.

Corydon,[136] the capital of the State of Indiana, is a small village, situated in an obscure valley of Indian Creek, and is surrounded by high and broken wooded lands. The weeds which cover the clear parts of the town plot are withered to whiteness by the drought, as is most of the ground in this part of the country, swamps and lands under crop excepted. The site of a new capital for the State is determined to be on the east branch of White River, where the lands are still in the hands of the government. Future convenience, and the prospect of promoting the sale of land in the late Indian purchase, seem to have, on this occasion, triumphed {255} over private interest.--No name has yet been assigned to this inland metropolis.

Between Corydon and the river Ohio, (about twenty-five miles,) the surface is of a rolling structure, and the soil good. Grass, at all times scanty on account of the small quantity of cleared ground, is now withered. The surface, where closely shaded by large trees, scarcely exhibits any thing that is green; rotten logs, and the leaves of last autumn, are strowed over the ground, presenting the most gloomy picture of desolation. Where large trees are thin, a growth of underwood prevails. Grounds called barrens are interspersed with the woods in this part of Indiana.--These are covered over with small copsewood, as hazel and briars, also with grasses, and an immense variety of deciduous plants.--The name _barrens_ must have arisen from the lands so denominated not producing such a large growth of vegetable matter as the forests, rather than from sterility. They are, in reality, much better pasturages than the woodlands, and, when cultivated, produce the best crops of wheat. I found travelling through the barrens to be somewhat uncomfortable, on account of exposure to the rays of the sun, and the dust of the road, which was continually raised, in a little cloud, by the motion of the horse’s feet. This sort of ground is dry, and without the vast quantity of decaying vegetable matters to be seen in the woods, and for these reasons it is probably more conducive to health.

A great portion of the soil of western America lies immediately over immense strata of horizontal limestone, in which are numerous fissures. I have often seen the presence of these indicated in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, by hollows in the {256} ground in the form of inverted cones, which are here called sink holes. Some of these fissures have openings to the surface. A stupendous one in Kentucky,[137] known by the name of the great cave, has been explored to the distance of nine miles from its entrance.[138] The nitrate of potash has been found in some of these caves, and the sulphate of magnesia in others. Many of them abound in stalactites of calc sinter; and copious streams of water pass through some of them. One of these in Kentucky turns a subterraneous mill, to which access is obtained by a sink-hole; and a Colonel C---- of Indiana told me that a settler in his neighbourhood, on digging a well, penetrated into a stream of water, and found blind fishes in it.[139]

During the last and the present summer, this country has suffered droughts, which the inhabitants consider extraordinary. Between Corydon and the Ohio the water was very muddy. Some people in that part are obliged to carry water from a distance of two miles. It is not uncommon now to see mill streams entirely dried up. I have seen several peach trees, with the fruit nearly ripened, almost dried up by the scorching heat; and, in some instances, the woods assuming the appearance of autumn prematurely, from the same cause. The disadvantage of the want of water will be thought less appalling, when it is recollected that the clearing of the ground has a tendency to increase springs; and when it is considered that {257} the dryness of rivers is not occasioned by the total want of springs, but by the evaporation from the bottoms of water-courses; and farther, that water in most situations may be procured by digging wells.

Immediately on the north bank of the Ohio, and about thirty miles below the falls, I crossed an avenue in the woods, 600 or 700 yards wide, which had been devastated by a tornado that had passed from west to east, and in its way cleared the ground almost entirely. The largest trees were either torn up by the roots or broken. In the part that I observed, nothing but underwood and the shattered fragments of trees remained. On making inquiries as to the hurricane, I was informed that it swept over the country to the length of several hundred miles; and that, on the Kentucky side of the river, it totally obstructed a road with timber which has not yet been removed.

It is also about thirty miles below the falls that the range of high land, called the knobs, intersects the river. This is the ridge that crosses the lower part of Indiana, and part of Kentucky, which the late M. Volney noticed under the name of the Silver Creek hills; and by him supposed to have once formed a dam, that retained a lake in the valley of the Ohio, extending from the ridge just mentioned, to the place where Pittsburg now stands. That philosopher attempted to show that the higher bottom lands, which are above the level of the present inundations, were deposited in the bottom of the lake; and that, on the water’s making a gap in the barrier, the lake was drained, and the Ohio withdrawn into its present lower and less capacious bed. That the knobs once formed a dam I am forced to admit, from having seen marks on a high level on the limestone rocks in the gap, which {258} clearly indicate the action of a cataract: but I am, notwithstanding, led to agree with Dr. Drake’s hypothesis, which explains the formation of the higher bottom land, as being the alluvion of the Ohio at a time when that river was much larger than at present. The facts relating to this subject that have come within the reach of my own observation, may perhaps be inserted in a well-known scientific journal. In the meantime, it may be sufficient to say, it is now ascertained, that the waters of Erie, and other great lakes, formerly flowed southward into the valley of the Ohio; and that a cataract, more tremendous than the falls of Niagara, raged among the rocks of Silver Creek hills.

In the neighbourhood of Salt River and Green River, in Kentucky, there are extensive tracks of barren wastes. Small hazel bushes from two to three feet in height abound in these; and the quantity of nuts produced exceeds any thing of the kind which I have ever seen. The soil of these wastes seems to be very similar to that of the adjoining woods; and on account of the trees diminishing gradually in size, from the forest toward the waste, it is sometimes impossible to discover a line where the one stops and the other begins. This, together with the fact told by an old settler, that some small saplings which stood on his farm twenty years ago, are now become tall trees, leads me to adopt the opinion entertained by some, that the wastes or barrens owe their characteristic form to the Indians, who set fire to dried grass and other vegetables with the design of facilitating their hunting.

Salt River is between 100 and 150 yards wide where it unites with the Ohio, and is navigable for about sixty miles. The name is derived from salt springs in its vicinity that are now wrought. Opposite to the mouth of this river, on the north {259} bank of the Ohio, stands a sycamore tree of stupendous size, which is hollow within. I measured the cavity, and found one diameter to be twenty-one feet, and the other twenty feet. In one side of it, a hole is cut sufficiently large to admit a man on horseback. It was probably a sycamore considerably less than this that is noticed in the Pittsburg Navigator, (edition printed in 1818, p. 29,) in the following words: -- “There is one of these huge trees in Sciota county, Ohio, on the land of a Mr. Abraham Miller, into whose hollow thirteen men rode on horseback, June 6, 1808; the fourteenth did not enter, his horse being skittish, and too fearful to advance into so curious an apartment, but there was room enough for two more.” [140]

There is perhaps no vegetable in this country that strikes the mind with greater surprise than the wild vine. I have seen one with a stem nine inches in diameter, and heard of others measuring eleven inches. Some detached trees have their tops closely wreathed with the vines in a manner that forms an elegant and umbrageous canopy, into which the eye cannot penetrate. In the woods they overtop the tallest trees, and from thence hang their pendulous twigs almost to the ground, or pass their ramifications from the branches of one tree to others, overshadowing a considerable space. In many instances their roots are at the distance of several feet from any tree, and their tops attached to branches at the height of sixty or eighty feet, without coming into contact with the trunks of trees, or any other intermediate support. To make the case plain, I have only to say, that the positions of some of these vines have a near resemblance to the stays, and some other ropes of a ship. The question, how they have erected themselves in this manner? is frequently put. Boats that descend the {260} Ohio are often moored without any other cable than a small vine. If a notch is cut in the stem of a vine in the spring season, clear and tasteless water runs out, not in drops, but in a continued stream. I have several times quenched my thirst from sources of this kind.

For upwards of two months, the Ohio has been low; steam-boats cannot now pass from the falls at this place to the Mississippi, nor can boats, descending with produce, get down the same rapids without unloading the greater part of their cargoes. The trade of the country is of consequence much interrupted. In spring, 1818, there were thirty-one steam-boats on the Mississippi and Ohio; at present there are sixty on these waters. This increase of craft, together with the decreasing quantity of goods imported, has lowered the freight from New Orleans to the falls of the Ohio, from six cents to two cents per pound. The rates paid by passengers, however, are not reduced in the same proportion.

The falls of the Ohio are occasioned by a bed of horizontal limestone that stretches across the river, which is upwards of a mile in breadth. At the head of the falls, the river is about a mile broad, including a small island, but in dry seasons of the year the waters are much contracted in breadth, leaving a great portion of the rocky bottom entirely dry. The interruption to the navigation is not a precipitous cascade, as the name would imply, but a rapid, which is extremely shallow at the head in dry weather, and runs over an uneven bottom, at the rate of about fourteen miles an hour. After passing the upper, or principal shoot, nearly the whole of the waters are collected into a deep but narrow channel, close by the Indiana shore, leaving some small islands toward the opposite side; {261} the second, or lower shoot, is less violent, having deeper water, and is always navigable for loaded boats passing downward. The lives of a number of strangers have lately been lost, by venturing down without pilots. The whole fall, at the lowest known stage of water, is nearly twenty-four feet; but in floods the declivity is distributed over a large portion of the river, and is imperceptible to the eye. The rocks contain vast quantities of organic remains, as madrepores, millepores, favocites, alcyonites, corals, several species of terebratulæ, trilobites, trochites, &c. &c. These remains being harder than the water-worn rocks, appear prominent, as if in relief, and many of them almost entirely detached. They are so numerous, that the surface is literally studded with them. Volney, who visited this place, has represented the rocks to be destitute of such subjects. It must have been at a time when they were covered by water.

The inhabitants in the neighbourhood of the Falls have been visited by attacks of bilious fever and ague. A considerable number of persons have been carried off by the former of these complaints, and the convalescent of both are much debilitated. A surmise lately appeared in a Louisville newspaper, that many poor people had suffered from the want of medical assistance, and hazarded the opinion, that a number had died in cases where seasonable applications might have been efficacious. Accounts from Vincennes [141] say, that about a third part of the people there are confined to bed by sickness, and that much of the Wabash country, both in Indiana and Illinois, are now subject to the same evil. Reports from the settlements on the lower parts of White river represent that sickness prevails there and along other water courses. There are many {262} people who act as if they were not sufficiently sensible of the disadvantages resulting from settling in unhealthy situations. Fertility of soil and commercial advantages are the great attractions, but men who look to these as primary considerations, obviously undervalue some of the strongest checks to population and public prosperity. The endemical distempers of this country, so far from being chiefly confined to the weak and the aged, seem to commit their greatest devastations amongst the young and the strong. Surviving sufferers are frequently rendered unfit for labour for a third or fourth part of the year, and receive an irreparable injury to their constitutions; regimen and medicine become almost as indispensable as food; productive labour is thus diminished, and an additional cost imposed on life.

Tavern-keepers observe that travellers are not nearly so numerous as they were last year. The change is to be imputed solely to the decline in trade, and to depression in the price of lands. The fact shows that a proportion of the populace remains at home through necessity or economical motives. Happy it is for them, that the pressure of the times does not, as in certain other countries, turn out a numerous class in the condition of houseless poor. Travellers, however, are still so numerous, that a stranger, not fully aware of the rapidity with which new settlements are forming, and of the great populace of eastern States, might be apt to imagine that Americans are a singularly volatile people.

In the whole of my correspondence with the unlettered part of the people of the western country, I have observed a brevity of language, that seems to be occasioned by their not being acquainted with {263} an extensive vocabulary. Their manner of speech is grave, apparently earnest, and adapted to business more than to intellectual enjoyment. It is seldom that any thing jocular, or any play of words, or circumlocution, or repartee, is uttered by them. If a question is put, it is usually answered in the shortest manner possible. Sometimes abridgments are made that render expressions inconclusive, and give them the form of the inuendo, even where ambiguity is not intended, and by people who, if they were accosted in ironical terms, would make no other reply than an astonished gaze. Technical language is, for obvious reasons, much limited. I have had opportunities of seeing a number of Americans and Irish, who were engaged in the same sort of employment, and could not omit noticing the contrast formed. Where work was let by the piece, the Irish (although previously strangers to one another) uniformly joined in working together in large groupes, and amused themselves by conversation, occasionally introducing the song, the pun, and the bull; while Americans, under similar conditions, preferred working alone, or in parties not exceeding three, and attended to their business in silence. The conversation of those whom _you_ would call the lower orders, shows that they have a very considerable knowledge of the institutions of their country, and that they set a high value on them. Their discourse is usually intermixed with the provincialisms of England and Ireland, and a few Scotticisms. This might be expected, since America has been partly peopled by the natives of these countries. They also use some expressions the original applications of which I have not been able to discover. These I must call Americanisms, and will subjoin some examples.

{264} Movers _for People in the act of removing
from one place to another._
Fresh --_Flood in a river._
Bos --_Master._
Hired Girl --_Servant Girl._
Hired Man --_Servant Man._
Reach --_A part of a river that continues for a
considerable distance nearly in a
straight line._
Raised --_Bred or reared, the participle passive
of to breed, (frequently applied to
the human species.)_
Tot --_Carry. This is said to be of negro
origin._
Carry the horse to water --_To take or lead the horse to the
water._
Chores --_Probably derived from chars; little,
odd, detached or miscellaneous
pieces of business._
Rowdy --_Blackguard._
Truck --_Culinary vegetables; sometimes applied
to baggage._
A Machinery --_A Machine._
Floy --_Dirty or foul._
Clever --_Honest, or of good disposition._
Creature --_Horse._
Rooster, or he-bird --_Cock, the male of the hen._

FOOTNOTES:

[134] Charlestown, first settled in 1808, is near the centre of Clark County, twelve miles north of Jeffersonville, and has always been the county seat.--ED.

[135] This was Benjamin Parke, a leading man in Indiana under both territorial and state governments. Emigrating from his native state, New Jersey, in 1797, he came first to Lexington, where he studied law, then removed to Vincennes in 1801. He was chosen the first territorial delegate to Congress, but resigned (1808) to become a territorial judge. Upon the admission of Indiana to the Union, he was appointed by President Madison United States district judge with circuit court powers, a position held until his death in 1835. He took part in the battle of Tippecanoe, and was for several years an Indian agent.--ED.

[136] The capital of Indiana Territory was moved from Vincennes to Corydon in 1813, and remained there until 1825 (see _ante_, note 100). Corydon is near the center of Harrison County, twenty-five miles west of Louisville.--ED.

[137] Mammoth Cave, about ninety-five miles south-west of Louisville, was accidentally discovered by a hunter in 1809. At the present time two hundred and twenty-three of its avenues have been explored, making a total length of one hundred and fifty miles. During the War of 1812-15, salt was manufactured from the nitrous earth in its caverns, and transported across the mountains to Philadelphia and Baltimore. The close of the war rendering this industry unprofitable, the cave has since been used only for exhibition.--ED.

[138] A description of this cave was written by John H. Farnham, Esq., and by him transmitted to the American Antiquarian Society, instituted by the legislature of Massachusetts.--FLINT.

_Comment by Ed._ “Extract of a letter .... describing the Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky,” in American Antiquarian Society _Transactions_, i, p. 355.

[139] Since the above was written, a notice of blind fishes has appeared (if I mistake not) in the memoirs of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh.--FLINT.

_Comment by Ed._ This was a Scottish Society composed of the followers of the German geologist, Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750-1817), who promulgated the doctrine of the aqueous origin of rocks. His followers were known also as Neptunists.

[140] It was common for early Western travellers to mention large trees as indicative of the richness of the soil. Among others, the following mention the great trees of the West: Washington, Harmar, William Brown, Cutler, Harris, Baily, Hildreth, and Birkbeck. Most of these trees were sycamores, such as that monster which Washington measured on his tour in 1770. Some very large apple-trees are also mentioned.--ED.

[141] For the early history of Vincennes, see Croghan’s _Journals_, volume i of our series, note 113.--ED.