Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/164

 them in the place, as the noise was incessant, like that of wind amongst trees, or the fall of water over a distant cascade.

A contrary wind forced us to run ashore at a part where the limestone ridge is within thirty yards of the beach. The rock is of the siliceous kind, and the narrow bottom is strewed with large blocks that have tumbled from the steep. In the evening there was much rain and thunder, the wind continuing contrary and violent.

10. Early in the morning we heard the howling of wolves in the woods. Scarcely a single patch of cleared ground is to be seen for several miles.

Louisville is situated at the south-western extremity {133} of a stretch of the river that passes in a straight line for six miles, so that the town terminates a beautiful water prospect.[79] The river is here half a mile in breadth.

The towns passed on the Kentucky side of the river, are, Port-William, and West-Port. Those on the Indiana side, are, Laurenceburg, the Rising Sun, Vevay, and Madison, all places of recent erection and thriving.

The Pittsburg Navigator enumerates sixty islands in Ohio above the falls. They are so uniform in their character, that a description of one of them will give a general idea of all the rest. The upper end is broad, and intercepts part of the gravel that is moved downward during floods, forming a wide bar which acts as a partial dam that divides the stream into two parts, deflecting each of them toward the shores of the mainland, as represented by the figure.

The two currents are then deflected from the shores