Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/267

 river, the deepest channel through which is near the Indiana shore, and has only six feet water, and that even very narrow when the river is low. The fall here has been proved by a level to be twenty-two inches and a half in two miles, from Bear Grass creek to Shipping Port, which causes a velocity of current of about twelve miles an hour in the channel. Clarksville, a new village in Indiana at the lower end of the rapids, is next seen, beyond which Silver creek hills, a moderately high and even chain, bound the view five or six miles distant.[170] Continuing {235} to turn to the left, Rock island, and the same chain of hills appearing over it, finish two thirds of a very fine panorama. The town and surrounding forests form the other third.

Louisville consists of one principal and very handsome street, about half a mile long, tolerably compactly built, and the houses generally superiour to any I have seen in the western country with the exception of Lexington. Most are of handsome brick, and some are three stories, with a parapet wall on the top in the modern European taste, which in front gives them the appearance of having flat roofs.

I had thought Cincinnati one of the most beautiful towns I had seen in America, but Louisville, which is almost as large, equals it in beauty, and in the opinion of many excels it. It was considered as unhealthy which impeded its progress, until three or four years ago, when probably in