even a faint idea of the picture; and the effect on my mind was, not to estimate them as I ought, but to feed my deluded imagination with the belief that we should find on the [19] Missouri, and on the Rocky Mountains, and Columbia river, object as much finer than the Ohio afforded, as this matchless river exceeded our Merrimac or Kennebeck: and so it is with the youth of both sexes; not satisfied with the present gifts of nature, they pant after the untried scene, which imagination is continually bodying forth, and time as constantly dissipating.
The distance from Pittsburg to the Mississippi is about one thousand miles. Hutchins estimated it at one thousand one hundred and eighty-eight,—Dr. Drake at only nine hundred and forty-nine.[1] Wheeling is a town of some importance. Here the great national road into the interior from the city of Washington, meets that of Zanesville, Chillicothè, Columbus, and Cincinnati.[2] It is the best point to aim at in very low stages of the water, and from thence boats may go at all seasons of the year. We passed Mariette, distinguished for its remarkable remains of mounds, and works, resembling modern fortifications, but doubtless the labor of the ancient aboriginals, of whom there is now no existing account; but by these works, and articles found near them, they must have belonged to a race of men
- ↑ Thomas Hutchins (1730-89), born in New Jersey, entered the British army at an early age. He served in the French and Indian War, and later as assistant engineer under Bouquet (1764), for whom he prepared a map. In 1779 he was arrested in London, on a charge of sympathizing with the American cause. Escaping to Paris, he finally joined the continental army at Charleston, South Carolina, and was made geographer general by General Greene. The estimate here referred to is in his Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina (London, 1778), p. 5. For Dr. Daniel Drake, see Flint's Letters in our volume ix, p. 121, note 61. The length of the Ohio from Pittsburg is estimated by the map of the U.S. corps of engineers, published in 1881, as 967 miles.—Ed
- ↑ For Wheeling and the National Road, see A. Michaux's Travels, in our volume iii, p. 33, note 15, and Flint's Letters, in our volume ix, p. 105, notes 51, 52.—Ed.
