Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/137

 the places of their nativity. A considerable proportion of the little specie to be seen is of what is called cut money.—Dollars cut into two, four, eight, or sixteen pieces. This practice prevents such money from being received in banks, or sent out of the country in the character of coin, and would be highly commendable were it not for the frauds committed by those who clip the pieces in reserving a part of the metal for themselves.

November 28. To-day I have crossed several flooded creeks: one by a tree which has accidentally fallen across it, and one has a tree that has been felled intentionally for a bridge; one I crossed on an accumulated heap of driftwood; and once by a horse, where a farmer allows a Negro boy to derive a perquisite from carrying over travellers.—Goods are now carried from Limestone to Lexington for a dollar per hundred pounds weight.—This is somewhat lower than the usual rate. Waggoners are occasionally interrupted by flooded streams.

Between the river Ohio and Lexington, limestone is the only rock which I have observed. Like that noticed in Ohio State, it is crowded with organic remains. The variety of the surface, in this part of the country, is pleasant. The eminences are gentle swells rather than hills, and the intervals between them are smooth, rich, and dry {107} ground. Marshy land is scarcely to be seen.—These are convincing marks of the excellence of the subsoil.