Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/226

 {154} the least idea of them. The flames that occupy generally an extent of several miles, are sometimes driven by the wind with such rapidity, that the inhabitants, even on horseback, have become a prey to them. The American sportsmen and the savages preserve themselves from this danger by a very ingenious method; they immediately set fire to the part of the meadow where they are, and then retire into the space that is burnt, where the flame that threatened them stops for the want of nourishment.

{155} CHAP. XVII

General observations upon Kentucky.—Nature of the soil.—First settlements in the state.—Right of property uncertain.—Population.

The state of Kentucky is situated 36 deg. 30 min. and 39 deg. 30 min. north latitude, and 28 deg. and 89 deg. west longitude; its boundaries to the northwest are the Ohio, for an extent of about seven hundred and sixty miles, to the east of Virginia, and to the south of Tennessea; it is separated from Virginia by the river Sandy and the Laurel Mountains, one of the principal links of the Alleghanies. The greatest length of this state is about four hundred miles, and its greatest breadth about two hundred. This vast extent appears to lie upon a bank of chalky stone, identic in its nature, and covered with a stratum of vegetable earth, which varies in its composition, and is from ten to fifteen feet thick. The {156} boundaries of this immense bank are not yet prescribed in any correct manner, but its thickness must be very considerable, to judge of it by the rivers in the country, the borders of which, and particularly those of the Kentucky and Dick rivers, which is one branch of it,