named, with other officers and members of the party, appear to have cooperated with each other, toward promoting the common object, with singular harmony and zeal. The labors of Dr Baldwin, however, were unhappily brought to a close by consumption in the progress of the expedition; and the extracts from his botanical journal are sufficient proof of the loss, which the party suffered by this misfortune.

The expedition was embarked on board the Western Engineer, a steam boat, destined to be the first, which should proceed a considerable distance up the Missouri, and which accomplished the trip to the Council Bluff, the station of the military post of the United States in that quarter.

On the third of May, the expedition departed from Pittsburgh, and arrived the next day at Wheeling, where the great national road from Cumberland meets the road from Zanesville, Columbus, and Cincinnati. One hundred and

forty miles of this road from Cumberland to Wheeling cost the United States one million eight hundred thousand dollars, being an average of less than thirteen thousand dollars a mile. The Newburyport turnpike, built in a part of the country where we should have supposed work could be done as economically as in any portion of it, cost at the rate of at least thirteen thousand dollars a mile. In this estimation, however, is included the compensation made to the owners of the lands traversed by the turnpike, which we presume to have been much greater between Boston and Newburyport, than between Cumberland and Wheeling. The bridges and other works of masonry on the western portions of this great national road, are built of a compact argillaceous sandstone, of a light grey or yellowish white color, less durable than the stone used in the middle and eastern parts of the road, which is the blue metalliferous limestone, one of the most beautiful and imperishable materials for building, which our country affords.

On the eighth, the party passed, at the mouth of the Kenhawa, the little village of Mount Pleasant, situated on the spot, where in 1774 a battle was fought between the Indians on one side, and the Virginian troops on the other, in which Logan, the Mingo chief, avenged himself for the murder of his family. The eloquent speech, which he afterwards delivered, has owed perhaps as much to its reporter, as lord Chatham's did to the pen of Johnson.-Having arrived at Cincinnati, on the

ninth, the party was detained there till the eighteenth, by the declining health of Dr Baldwin. On the night of the eighteenth they passed in the river the boats containing the sixth regiment of the United States army, destined, like themselves, to the Missouri, and they arrived on the morning of the nineteenth at Louisville. Having passed the rapids in safety at Louisville, they proceeded down the river at the rate of ten miles an hour, with a pressure of steam equal to one hundred pounds on the square inch. A little below the rapids is an island thus described:

'A small island in the Ohio, about twenty-three miles below the rapids, is called Flint island, from the great numbers of fragments of flints, broken arrow points, and various instruments of stone, heretofore used by the Indians, which are found there on turning up the soil. This island has probably been the favorite residence of some tribe, particularly expert in the manufacture of those rude implements, with which the wants of the aboriginal Americans were supplied. The stone employed in these manufactures appears to have been, in most instances, that compact flint, which occurs in nodular masses, in the secondary limestones. In one instance, we met with a triangular prism, of a very hard and compact aggregate of feldspar and hornblende, unlike any rock we have seen in the valley of the Mississippi. This prism was about five inches long, with faces of about an inch in width, and was perforated, from end to end, forming a complete tube, with an orifice about half an inch in diameter, and smoothly polished, both within and without. We were never able to discover to what use this implement could have been applied; nor do we recollect to have met with accounts of any thing analogous to it, except, perhaps, those "tubes of a very hard stone," mentioned by the Jesuit Venegas, as used by the natives of California, in their treatment of the sick. That it may have passed, by means of the intercourse of various tribes of Indians, from the primitive mountains of California to the rapids of the Ohio, is not perhaps improbable. Indirect methods of communication may have conveyed the productions of one part of the continent to another, very remote from it. The savages of the Missouri receive an intoxicating bean from their neighbours on the south and west; these, again, must probably procure it from other tribes inhabiting, or occasionally visiting, the tropical regions.' pp. 30, 31.

On the twenty-ninth of May our travellers passed the mouths of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, the two largest tributaries to the Ohio, and on the thirtieth arrived at a point

above the mouth of the Cash river, where a town has been laid out, called America. It is on the north bank of the Ohio, about eleven miles above the Mississippi, and for reasons, which our authors have given in detail, it seems likely that this spot, or some one near it, will become the depôt of a very extensive trade. They even go so far as to say, that' in view of the great extent of inland navigation centering at this place, and the incalculable amount of products to be realized at no distant period, from the cultivation of the rich valleys and fertile plains of the West, a great proportion of which must find a market here, no doubt can be entertained, that it will eventually become a place of as great wealth and importance, as almost any in the United States.'

On the thirtieth, our travellers reached the mouth of the Ohio, having descended that beautiful river, from its head at Pittsburgh to its junction with the Mississippi, a distance of thirteen hundred and thirty-three miles, through a country surpassed in fertility by no part of the United States. Their course was henceforward to be more slowly made against the powerful current of the Mississippi and the Missouri. They passed several steam-boats ascending with stores for the troops of the United States; and affording the spectacle of the last and most powerful improvements in machinery thus pushed forward into the wilderness, scarcely as yet embraced within the compass of our geography. On the third of June, they passed the insular rock in the middle of the Mississippi, called the Grand Tower. It is about one hundred and fifty feet high, and two hundred and fifty in diameter. Between this rock and the right bank of the river, is a channel of about one hundred and fifty yards wide, with a deep and rapid current. Our authors are of opinion that a bridge might here be constructed, for which this rock might serve as a pier.

Having given a character of the fertility of the soil in the 'great American bottom,' above the mouth of the Kaskaskia river on the eastern side of the Mississippi, and having also observed, that the lands on the opposite bank, though less fertile than the American bottom, are yet highly valuable, and have long been objects of scandalous speculation, our authors subjoin the following anecdote, in justification of this remark:

'Among a variety of stratagems practised in this part of the country to obtain titles to lands, was one which will be best exNew Series, No. 14. 32

plained by the following anecdote, related to us by a respectable citizen of St Genevieve. Preparatory to taking possession of Louisiana in 1805, the legislature passed a law, authorizing a claim to one section of land, in favor of any person, who should have actually made improvements in any part of the same, previous to the year 1804. Commissioners were appointed to settle all claims of this description, more commonly known by the name of Improvement Rights. A person, somewhere in the county of Cape Girardeau, being desirous of establishing a claim of this kind to a tract of land, adopted the following method :-The time having expired for the establishment of a right, agreeably to the spirit of the law, he took with him two witnesses to the favorite spot, on which he wished to establish his claim, and in their presence marked two trees, standing on opposite sides of a spring, one with the figures 1803, the other 1804, and placed a stalk of growing corn in the spring. He then brought the witnesses before the commissioners, who, upon their declaration that they had seen corn growing at the place specified, in the spring between 1803 and 1804, admitted the claim of the applicant, and gave him a title to the land.' vol. i. p. 51.

On the ninth, the party arrived at St Louis, and some very interesting notices are given of prints of human feet in the limestone in the neighborhood, and of the Indian tumuli, which exist there in considerable numbers. Our limits do not permit us to enlarge our quotations in this part of the abstract we are attempting of their voyage. One very important fact, however, deserves to be recorded. By occasion of the account of the excavations made in one of these tumuli, our authors mention, that Dr Drake, the highly respected naturalist of Cincinnati, had exhibited to them, in his cabinet, two large marine shells, that had been dug out of ancient Indian tumuli in Ohio, one of which appears to be a cassis cornutus. All the authorities, except Linnæus, regard the cassis cornutus as an Asiatic shell; and Bruguiere, say our authors, has maintained that Linnæus was mistaken, in referring it to America. The circumstance, that a shell of Asiatic origin has been found in an Indian tumulus in Ohio, would seem to establish an intercourse at least between the Indians of North America and those of Asia. Our authors justly adduce this discovery as a confirmation of the theory of the Asiatic origin of our native tribes; a theory, which, since the researches of M. de Humboldt, has been very extensively adopted.

Having alluded to the probability of a connexion between our native population and that of the Asiatic isles, we beg leave to digress a moment, with respect to the latter. The newly establiseed Society of Geography' at Paris, which, under the most favorable auspices, and combining the efforts of some of the most respectable naturalists, travellers, men of science, and philosophers in France, has been instituted for the promotion of the study of geography, has assigned as a prize question, for which the dissertations are to be delivered to the society in February 1824, the following subject, viz. 'to investigate the origin of the different nations scattered among the islands of the Pacific ocean to the southeast of the continent of Asia, examining the points of resemblance or dissimilarity between them severally and other nations, in respect to configuration, physical constitution, manners, customs, civil and religious institutions, traditions, and monuments; with a comparison of the elements of their languages, in relation to the analogy of words, and grammatical forms; and taking into consideration the means of communication, as affected by geographical position, prevailing winds, currents, and the state of navigation.' We could wish that the credit of producing the successful essay on this subject might belong to an American. The subject is evidently identified with American antiquities; as no one now doubts that these islands are a link in the chain of humanity, which connects the natives of America with those of Asia. All the printed documents on the subject are as accessible on this side of the water as on the other. Monuments and specimens of the arts of the South Sea islanders abound more in this country, than in any other, and we presume we might challenge all the cabinets in Europe to produce as many of them, as are to be found in the single museum at Salem. The school at Cornwall in Connecticut furnishes the means, we believe, of more exact investigation of some of the dialects of those islands, than it can be in the power of any European scholar to institute; and we cannot but wish that the possession of these facilities might awaken the industry and enterprize of our geographers. The prize to be awarded to the successful essay is twelve hundred francs.

But we return to Major Long's expedition. On the twentyfirst of June they passed, in this truly magnificent navigation from river to river, into the Missouri; and after various ad