Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/289

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party spirit, the jargon of ignorance, and the pretended patriotism of villainy, shall have usurped the management of public concerns, and have cypherised the community, it would be the indispensable obligation of the true patriot to tender his services to his country, to discountenance existing systems of political traffic, and thereby to restore to the people their consequence, their security, and their reputation.

After being sometime in Kentucky, I crossed the Ohio and entered Indiana.

This state lies on the river Ohio, from the Great Miami to the Wabash. On the east is the state of Ohio, on the west Illinois; and on the north-west Michigan. The form of Indiana is that of an oblong. The sinuosities of the Ohio, however, render its boundary here very uneven. The length of the state is about 270 miles, and its breadth 130.

The soil, climate, face of the country, and productions of this state resemble those of Ohio. Salt springs, coal pits, lime, free stone, and valuable clays of various kinds abound in Indiana; and on the Wabash, it is said there is a silver mine.

The salt springs of the west generally produce a bushel of salt from about one hundred gallons of the water. This water is frequently obtained by boring, from sixty to two hundred feet, through solid rock. There is, in the west, springs of salt petre; and in Indiana there are very valuable salt springs, which belong to the United States, and which are profitably managed by the government.[125]

The Prairie in Indiana, called Pilkawa, is a high level