Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/72

 charged with vapours, which appear like smoke, and sometimes accumulate so as to obscure the land.

I was detained at Louisville until the 7th of December, {36} trying various means of descending the river. The lowness of the water prevented the descent of the steamboats, and the price of passage to Natchez was now no less than 50 dollars. Wearied by delay, I at length concluded to purchase a flat-boat, and freighted it nearly at my own cost, which, for an inexperienced traveller, was certainly an act of imprudence, as the destruction of the boat, which frequently happens, would probably have plunged me into penury and distress.

The wealth and population of Louisville[40] are evidently on the increase, and a canal is now proposed, to obviate the difficulty of navigating by the Falls.

I perceive no material variation in the soil or river scenery. The surface is deeply undulated, fertile, and much sunk into circular depressions or water-swallows. The rock is all calcareous, but destitute of coal, or indeed any kind of overlaying stratum in this neighbourhood.

The Falls, at this stage of the water, roar in terrific grandeur; the descending surges resemble the foaming billows of the sea, and do not now admit the passage of vessels drawing more than 12 inches of water, though at other seasons there is a sufficiency for the largest boats on either side of the island which divides the falls. The calcareous ledge over which the water thus pours is nearly as horizontal as a floor, and filled with the reliquiæ of terebra-*