Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/110

 handsome little river, about thirty yards wide; half a mile below which, we saw the division line between Pennsylvania and Virginia on the left, {85} and between the former and Ohio on the right, which were cleared of wood forty feet wide in their whole length some years ago; a new growth of trees, bids fair to obliterate very shortly these temporary boundaries.[61]

Near this on the left bank opposite a small island, is a curious stratum of slate, covering a substratum of coal, which also shews itself.

A mile below this is Custard's island, a mile long, opposite the lower end of which on the left, is the very pleasantly situated house and farm of Mr. Stewart, in passing which we were asked by some people at the landing, if we had seen a man polling up a skiff yesterday on his way to Pittsburgh, and they pointed out his house on the opposite bank, which he had left yesterday; which was matter of astonishment to us, how the man we hailed in this skiff above Beaver, could have surmounted so many ripples and rapids in so short a time; it evinced uncommon strength, activity, and perseverance.

to rise from or through a bed of mineral coal embowelled under the bed of the river. The virtues of the Seneca oil are similar to those of the British oil, and supposed to be equally valuable in the cures of rheumatick pains, &c.—Large quantities of the Seneca oil is collected on Oil creek, a branch of the Allegheny river, and sold at from one dollar and a half to two dollars per gallon. The mode of collecting it is this; the place where it is found bubbling up in the creek is surrounded by a wall or dam to a narrow compass, a man then takes a blanket, flannel, or other woollen cloth, to which the oil adheres, and spreading it over the surface of the enclosed pond, presses it down a little, then draws it up, and running the cloth through his hands, squeezes out the oil into a vessel prepared for the purpose; thus twenty or thirty gallons of pure oil can be obtained in two or three days by one man.—]
 * [Footnote: high, it can be strongly smelt while crossing the river at Georgetown: It is presumed