by a wooden bridge supported by four piers of hammered limestone, with a transverse sleeper of timber on each which supports the sill. The bridge is seventy-seven yards long, and only wants abutments to be very complete. A wagonner had stopped his wagon on it to measure its proportions. He told me that he had contracted to build a similar bridge over the south fork of Licking at Cynthiana, forty miles from hence, which is larger than the north fork. It may seem strange that a wagonner should be employed as a builder, but it is common throughout the United States, particularly at a distance from the sea coast, for one man to have learned and wrought at two, and even sometimes three or four different mechanical professions, at different periods of his life.
{153} The country still continued fine, but not quite so well improved, to Lee's creek mill, three miles and a half beyond the north fork of Licking. The mill was now stopped for want of water in the creek, which is an inconvenience to which the whole of the western country is liable, the brooks and small rivers generally failing during the summer.
Half a mile further we came to a small post town, called May's-lick, containing only eight or ten houses, irregularly scattered on the side of a hill. We here stopped to feed our horses, and then proceeded four miles through a good natural, but indifferently improved country to Clark's excellent mill on Johnston's fork of Licking, which is a fine mill stream, and falls into Licking river, several miles lower down. The road on each side the fork is very bad, the hills being extremely steep.
After passing Clark's mill, we found the country gradually worse cultivated, less inhabited, and at last a continuation of barren hills, bearing very little besides wild pennyroyal,
