Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/315

 water. If my olfactory organs did not deceive me, the air was somewhat tainted.

At Munro, a small branch of Huron River, I had some difficulty in procuring breakfast. All the family in the tavern were either sick, or so much emaciated by recent disease, that they were scarcely able to do any thing. Every person in the town, old and young, had been attacked, two individuals being only excepted. For two years past, the place has been more unhealthy than formerly; and the people believe that the change has been occasioned by the erection of a mill-dam in the creek. The surmise is probably just, as the dam is now dry, and both the mud and vegetable matters are exposed to the heat and consequent decomposition, evolving hydrogen gas, which is understood to be deleterious.

At the distance of about fourteen miles from Portland, the road enters the great prairie that stretches along the south side of the lake. It is covered with coarse grass, of a luxuriant growth, and an immense variety of weeds. Some slight eminences are wooded, and resemble islands or {283} peninsulas in the plain. In passing along, I perceived openings which seemed to extend to the distance of twelve or fourteen miles.

For several miles the road is over a ridge, sixty or eighty feet in breadth, about eight feet higher than the plain, and five or six feet higher than the flat ground immediately to the southward. This ridge or step runs in a winding line, forming a convexity towards the lake, where it crosses the higher parts of the prairie, and recedes to the southward, forming a concave curve round hollows in the ground, thus preserving a horizontal position. A doubt of this having been once the margin of the lake can scarcely be entertained.