Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/291

 (edition printed in 1818, p. 29,) in the following words: — "There is one of these huge trees in Sciota county, Ohio, on the land of a Mr. Abraham Miller, into whose hollow thirteen men rode on horseback, June 6, 1808; the fourteenth did not enter, his horse being skittish, and too fearful to advance into so curious an apartment, but there was room enough for two more." [140]

There is perhaps no vegetable in this country that strikes the mind with greater surprise than the wild vine. I have seen one with a stem nine inches in diameter, and heard of others measuring eleven inches. Some detached trees have their tops closely wreathed with the vines in a manner that forms an elegant and umbrageous canopy, into which the eye cannot penetrate. In the woods they overtop the tallest trees, and from thence hang their pendulous twigs almost to the ground, or pass their ramifications from the branches of one tree to others, overshadowing a considerable space. In many instances their roots are at the distance of several feet from any tree, and their tops attached to branches at the height of sixty or eighty feet, without coming into contact with the trunks of trees, or any other intermediate support. To make the case plain, I have only to say, that the positions of some of these vines have a near resemblance to the stays, and some other ropes of a ship. The question, how they have erected themselves in this manner? is frequently put. Boats that descend the {260} Ohio are often moored without any other cable than a small vine.