mencement, would be at the rate of 1.11,875, Virginia currency, per annum. The toll must every year become more productive, as the quan tity of articles for exportation will be augmented in a rapid ratio, with the increase of population and the extention of fettlements. In the mean time the effect will be immediately feen in the agriculture of the interior country; for the multitude of horfes now employed in carrying produce to market, will then be used altogether for the purposes of tillage. But, in order to form just conceptions of the utility of this inland navigation, it would be requifite to notice the long rivers which empty into the Patomak, and even to take a furvey of the geographical pofition of the western waters. The Shenandoah, which disembogues just above the Blue Mountains, may, according to report, be made navigable, at a trifling expence, more than 150 miles from its confluence with the Patomak; and will receive and bear the produce of the richest part of the state. The South Branch, ftill higher, is navigable in its actual condition nearly or quite 100 miles, through exceedingly fertile lands. Between these, on the Virginia fide, are several fmaller rivers, that may, with facility, be improved, so as to afford a passage for boats. On the Maryland fide are the Monocafy, Antictam, and Conegocheague, some of which pass through the state of Maryland, and have their fources in Pennsylvania. From Fort Cumberland (or Wills' Creek) one or two good waggon roads may be had (where the distance is faid by fome to be 35, and by others 40 miles) to the Yohogany, a large and navigable branch of the Monongahela; which laft forms a junction with the Allegany at Fort Pitt : from whence the river takes the name of the Ohio, until it lofes its current and name in the MISSISSIPPI. But, by paffing farther up the Patomak than Fort Cumberland, which may very easily be done, a portage by a good waggon road to the Cheat River, another large branch of the Monongahela, can be obtained through a space which forme say is 20, others 22, others 25, and none more than 30 miles. When we have arrived at either of these western waters, the navigation through that immense region is opened in a thousand directions, and to the lakes in several places by portages of less than 10 miles; and by one portage, it is afferted, of not more than a fingle mile. Notwithstanding it was sneeringly faid by fome foreigners, at the beginning of this undertaking, that the Americans were fond of engaging in splendid projects which they could never accomplish; yet it is hoped the fuccefs of this first effay towards improving their inland navigation, will, in fome degree, rescue them from the reproach intended to have been fixed upon their national character, by the unmerited imputation. • The Great Kanbaway is a river of confiderable note for the fertility of its lands, and still more, as leading towards the head waters of James river. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether its great and numerous rapids will admit a navigation, but at an expence to which it will require ages to render its inhabitants equal. The great obstacles begin at what are called the Great Falls, 90 miles above the mouth, below which are only five or fix rapids, and these passable, with some difficulty, even at low water, From From the falls to the mouth of Green Briar is 100 miles, and thence to the lead mines 120. It is 280 yards wide at its mouth. • The Little Kanbarway is 150 yards wide at the mouth. It yields a navigation of 10 miles only. Perhaps its northern branch, called Junius Creek, which interlocks with the western waters of Monongahela, may one day admit a shorter paffage from the latter into the Ohio.' Mountains.] For the particular geography of our mountains, I muft refer to Fry and Jefferfon's map of Virginia; and to Evans's analyfis of kis map of America for a more philofophical view of them than is to be found in any other work. It is worthy notice, that our mountains are not folitary, and scattered confufedly over the face of the country; but that they commence at about 150 miles from the fea coaft, are difpofed in ridges one behind another, running nearly parallel with the fea coaft, though rather approaching it as they advance north-eastwardly. To the fouth-weft, as the tract of country between the fea coaft and the Miflifippi becomes narrower, the mountains converge into a fingle ridge, which, as it approaches the Gulph of Mexico, fubfides into plain country, and gives rife to fome of the waters of that Gulph, and particularly to a river called the Apalachicola, probably from the Apalachies, an Indian nation formerly refiding on it. Hence the mountains giving rife to that river, and feen from its various parts, were called the Apalachian Mountains, being in fact the end or termination only of the great ridges paffing through the continent. European geographers however extended the name northwardly as far as the mountains extended; fome giving it, after their feparation into different ridges, to the Blue Ridge, others to the North Mountains, others to the Allegany, others to the Laurel Ridge, as may be seen in their different maps. But the fact I believe is, that none of thefe ridges were ever known by that name to the inhabitants, either native or emigrant, but as they faw them fo called in European maps. In the fame direction generally are the veins of lime-ftone, coal and other minerals hitherto difcovered; and fo range the falls of our great rivers. But the courses of the great rivers are at right angles with thefe. James and Patomak penetrate through all the ridges of mountains eastward of the Allegany, that is broken by no water courfe. It is in fact the fpine of the country between the Atlantic on one fide, and the Miflifippi and St. Lawrence on the other. The paffage of the Patomak through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the moft ftupendous fcenes in nature. You ftand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to feek a vent. On your left approaches the Patomak, in queft of a paffage alfo. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pafs off to the fea. The first glance of this scene hurries our fenfes into the opinion, that this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow afterwards, that in this place particularly they have been dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that continuing to rise they have at length broken over at this fpot, and have torn the mountain down from its fummit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disruption and avulfion from their beds by the most powerful powerful agents of nature, corroborate the impreffion. But the diftant finishing which nature has given to the picture is of a very different character. It is a true contrast to the fore ground. It is as placid and delightful, as that is wild and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven afunder, the prefents to your eye, through the cleft, a fmall catch of fmooth blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach, and participate of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately compofes itfelf; and that way too the road happens actually to lead. You cross the Patomak above the junction, pafs along its fide through the bafe of the mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in fragments over you, and within about 20 miles reach Frederick town and the fine country round that. This fcene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic. Yet here, as in the neighbourhood of the natural bridge, are people who have paffed their lives within half a dozen miles, and have never been to furvey thefe monuments of a war between rivers and mountains. which must have fhaken the earth itself to its center.-The height of our mountains has not yet been estimated with any degree of exactnefs. The Allegany being the great ridge which divides the waters of the Atlantic from thofe of the Miffifippi, its fummit is doubtlefs more elevated above the ocean than that of any other mountain. But its relative height, compared with the bafe on which it ftands, is not fo great as that of fome others, the country rifing behind the fucceffive ridges like the fteps of ftairs. The mountains of the Blue Ridge, and of these the Peaks of Otter, are thought to be of a greater height, meafured from their bafe, than others in our country, and perhaps in North America. From data, which may be found a tolerable conjecture, we fuppofe the highest peak to be about 4000 feet perpendicular, which is not a fifth part of the height of the mountains of South America, nor one third of the height which would be neceffary in our latitude to preferve ice in the open air unmelted through the year. The ridge of mountains next beyond the Blue Ridge, called by us the North Mountain, is of the greatest extent; for which reafon they are named by the Indians the Endless Mountains. any A fubftance fuppofed to be pumice, found floating on the Miffifippi, has induced a conjecture, that there is a volcano on fome of its waters: and as thefe are moftly known to their fources, except the Missouri, our expectations of verifying the conjecture would of course be led to the mountains which divide the waters of the Mexican Gulph from those of the South Sea; but no volcano having ever yet been known at fuch a distance from the fea, we muft rather fuppofe that this floating fubftance has been erroneously deemed pumice. Cafcades and Caverns.] The only remarkable cascade in this country, is that of the Falling Spring, in Augufta. It is a water of James river, where it is called Jackfon's river, rifing in the warm fpring mountains, about 20 miles fouth-west of the warm fpring, and flowing into that valley. About three quarters of a mile from its fource, it falls over a rock 200 feet into the valley below. The sheet of water is broken in its breadth by the rock in two or three places, but not at all in its height. Between the fheet and rock, at the bottom, you may walk acrofs dry. This cataract will bear no comparifon with that of Niagara, as to the quantity of water compofing compofing it; the fheet being only 12 or 15 feet wide above, and fomewhat more fpread below; but it is half as high again, the latter being only 156 feet, according to the menfuration made by order of Mr. Vandreuil, Governor of Canada, and 130 according to a more recent ac count. In the lime-ftone country, there are many caverns of very confiderable extent. The most noted is called Madifon's Cave, and is on the north fide of the Blue Ridge, near the interfection of the Rockingham and Augufta line with the fouth fork of the fouthern river of Shenandoah. It is in a hill of about 200 feet perpendicular height, the afcent of which, on one fide, is fo fteep, that you may pitch a bifcuit from its fummit into the river which washes its bafe. The entrance of the cave is, in this fide, about two thirds of the way up. It extends into the earth about 300 feet, branching into fubordinate caverns, fometimes afcending a little, but more generally defcending, and at length terminates, in two different places, at bafons of water of unknown extent, and which I thould judge to be nearly on a level with the water of the river; however, I do not think they are formed by refluent water from that, because they are never turbid; because they do not rife and fall in correfpondence with that in times of flood, or of drought; and because the water is always cool. It is probably one of the many refervoirs with which the interior parts of the earth are fuppofed to abound, and which yield fupplies to the fountains of water, diftinguished from others only by its being acceffible. The vault of this cave is of folid lime-ftone, from 20 to 40 or 50 feet high, through which water is continually percolating. This, trickling down the fides of the cave, has incrufted them over in the form of elegant drapery; and dripping from the top of the vault generates on that, and on the bafe below, ftalactites of a conical form, fome of which have met and formed maffive columns. Another of thefe caves is near the North Mountain, in the county of Frederick, on the lands of Mr. Zane. The entrance into this is on the top of an extenfive ridge. You defcend 30 or 40 feet, as into a well, from whence the cave then extends, nearly horizontally, 400 feet into the earth, preferving a breadth of from 20 to 50 feet, and a height of from 5 to 12 feet. After entering this cave a few feet, the mercury, which in the open air was at 50°, rofe to 57° of Farenheit's thermometer, answering to 11° of Reaumur's, and it continued at that to the remoteft parts of the cave. The uniform temperature of the cellars of the obfervatory of Paris, which are 90 feet deep, and of all fubterranean cavities of any depth, where no chymical agents may be fuppofed to produce a factitious heat, has been found to be 10° of Reaumur, equal to 54° of Farenheit. The temperature of the cave above-mentioned fo nearly correfponds with this, that the difference may be afcribed to a difference of inftruments. At the Panther gap, in the ridge which divides the waters of the Cow and the Calf pafture, is what is called the Blowing Cave. It is in the fide of a hill, is of about 100 feet diameter, and emits constantly a current of air of fuch force, as to keep the weeds proftrate to the dif tance of twenty yards before it. This current is ftrongest in dry frosty weather, and in long spells of rain weakeft. Regular infpirations and expirations expirations of air, by caverns and fiffures, have been probably enough accounted for, by fuppofing them combined with intermitting fountains; as they muft of courfe inhale air while their refervoirs are emptying themfelves, and again emit it while they are filling. But a conftant issue of air, only varying in its force as the weather is drier or damper, will require a new hypothefis. There is another blowing cave in the Cumberland mountain, about a mile from where it croffes the Carolina line. All we know of this is, that it is not conftant, and that a fountain of water iffues from it. The Natural Bridge, the moft fublime of Nature's works, though not comprehended under the prefent head, muft not be pretermitted. It is on the afcent of a hill, which feems to have been cloven through its length by fome great convulfion. The fiffure, juft at the bridge, is, by fome admeasurements, 270 feet deep, by others, only 205. It is about 45 feet wide at the bottom, and go feet at the top; this of course determines the length of the bridge, and its height from the water. Its breadth in the middle is about 60 feet, but more at the ends, and the thickness of the mafs at the fummit of the arch, about 40 feet. A part of this thickness is conftituted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large trees. The refidue, with the hill on both fides, is one folid rock of lime-stone. The arch approaches the femi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of the ellipfis, which would be the cord of the arch, is many times longer than the tranfverfe. Though the fides of this bridge are provided in fome parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have refolution to walk to them, and look over into the abyfs. You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head-ach. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impoffible for the emotions arifing from the fublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: fo beautiful an arch, fo elevated, fo light, and fpringing as it were up to Heaven, the rapture of the fpectator is really indefcribable! The fiffure continuing narrow, deep, and freight for a confiderable distance above and below the bridge, opens a fhort but very pleafing view of the North mountain on one fide, and Blue Ridge on the other, at the diftance each of them of about five miles. This bridge is in the county of Rock bridge, to which it has given name, and affords a public and commodious paffage over a valley, which cannot be croffed elsewhere for a confiderable distance. The ftream paffing under it is called Cedar creek. It is a water of James river, and fufficient in the drieft seasons to turn a grift-mill, though its fountain is not more than two miles above*.' There is a natural bridge, fimilar to the one above described, over Stock creek, a branch of Pelefon river, in Washington county. • Don Ulloa mentions a break, fimilar to this, in the province of Angaraez, in South-America. It is from 16 to 22 feet wide, 111 deep, and of 14 miles continuance, English measure. Its breadth at top is not fenfibly greater than at bottom. |