Page:Leaves of Knowledge.djvu/169

 CHAPTER XX.

Historic Scenes on the Potomac.

From St. Louis I take the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, crossing the Mississippi river, pass through southern Illinois, Indiana, and stop at Cincinnati, Ohio, the great manufacturing city on the Ohio river and the metropolis of that valley. I cross the Ohio river, at Parkersburg, West Virginia, where this railroad figured prominently, from here to Washington, during the civil war, and was in a practical state of seige [sic] for nearly four years.

I pass through the numerous oil and coal fields in the northern part of the State of West Virginia, with a stop at Cumberland, Maryland, the largest city in the Alleghany Mountains. Cumberland is built on the site of Fort