Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/204

 upwards of twenty {123} miles distant from it, is not so populous.[39] We may attribute the rapid increase o Lexinton to its situation in the centre of one of the most fertile parts of the country, comprised in a kind of semicircle, formed by the Kentucky river.

There are two printing-offices at Lexinton, in each of which a newspaper is published twice a week. Part of the paper is manufactured in the country, and is dearer by one-third than in France.[40] That which they use for writing, originally imported from England, comes by the way of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Two extensive rope walks, constantly in employ, supply the ships with rigging that are built upon the Ohio. On the borders of the little river that runs very near the town several tan-yards are established that supply the wants of the inhabitants. I observed at the gates of these tan-yards strong leathers of a yellowish cast, tanned with the black oak; in consequence of which I saw that this tree grew in Kentucky, although I had not observed it between Limestone and Lexinton; in fact, I had seen nothing but land either parched up or extremely fertile; and, as I have since observed, this tree grows in neither, it is an inhabitant of the mountainous parts, where the soil is gravelly and rather moist.

{124} The want of hands excites the industry of the inhabitants of this country. When I was at Lexinton one of them had just obtained a patent for a nail machine,