the manner of wheel carriages, and that the actual velocity through still water was seven miles per hour. This gives a very good measure of the vis inertiæ of the fluid.
We did not arrive at Cincinnati till the 15th, being obliged to stop during the night, as it was impossible to keep in the proper channel in the dark, at the present low stage of the river. The vessel returned downward nearly empty, to be laid up till the next rise of water.
The hills in the neighbourhood of Cincinnati, which were beautifully verdant in June last, are now withered to whiteness, by the scorching drought.[143]
The trade of Cincinnati continues to be dull. Two of the banks have given up business altogether, and two others are struggling for existence. Their money is 33½ and 60 per cent under par. One of these establishments has been in the habit of giving in exchange for its own notes, those of another paper shop at a considerable distance; when the paper so obtained is presented at the second, it is taken in exchange for the money of a third bank still farther off. At the third, the bills are exchanged for the money of the first. This is in reality making banks "equally solvent with their neighbouring institutions." Some of the stockholders, {272} who are themselves the debtors of the banks, procure a part of the money, which is either much depreciated, or entirely sunk to satisfy for the same debts.
Females of a certain description are not to be seen in the streets of Cincinnati after dusk. This is attributed, not so much to police regulations, as to the boys, whose practice it is to chase them.
