Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/80

 floors of bar-rooms in the taverns. For this kind of lodging they usually pay twenty-five cents a family.

The dollar is the integer of money in the United States, as universal as the pound is in Britain. In the former country, cents or hundredth parts of a dollar are the lowest fractional parts in use. Rating the dollar at four shillings and sixpence sterling, the cent of America is eight per cent, more than the halfpenny of Britain. The fractional divisions of the dollar, are 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16, or 50 cents, 25 cents, 12-1/2 cents, and 6-1/4 cents. Silver coins representing all these quantities are in circulation. The peculiarity in the convenience of quantities {51} derived from continual bisection, is known to all who are acquainted with the theory of numbers.

It is impossible to say whether it is cheaper to travel with a family, by purchasing a waggon and horses at Philadelphia, or by hiring one of the waggons that pass regularly to Pittsburg. This depends on the price paid for carriage at the particular time, and also on that to be paid for waggon and horses at Philadelphia. In the one case, the waggoner is paid for the weight of the goods, and for that of the persons who ride; and in the other case, the waggon and horses may be expected to sell at, or under, half the price paid for them at the sea-port. The great number of family waggons now on the road, amounts to a presumption that this mode of travelling is now thought to be the cheaper.

Crossed the Juniata once more. The bridge is a new stone erection of bad workmanship. We are told that it fell down repeatedly. To insure its standing, a step is left on the head of each abutment, on these the wooden centres rest. They are not withdrawn, so that the beams must give way, before it can be ascertained whether the effective