Second, There are no positions on the Mississippi, except the Iron and Chalk Banks, for a great distance below the Ohio, secure from inundation. The bottom directly opposite the mouth of the Ohio, on the west side of the Mississippi is elevated a little above high water; but as it is an alluvial shore, having no permanent foundation, and the banks often falling in, it affords no conveniences or security as a place of business.
Third, No places of anchorage for boats of heavy burden are to be found, except in the main channel of the river, where they would be exposed to drift-wood, great quantities of which are brought down in times of freshet; and when borne along with the rapid current of the river, occasion serious danger to boats lying in its way.
The town of America is almost entirely exempt from any of these objections;--although it has not a rocky foundation, (which may be said of most of the towns on the Ohio,) the current of the river is so gentle, that no such guard against the undermining and wasting away of the banks is required. In case of an excessive flood, or an unusual quantity of floating ice (which may possibly be apprehended in remarkably cold seasons), the mouth of Cash river, five miles below the town, is a harbour in which boats may lie in perfect security.[053]
We would not encourage the idea, that the site { 37} now fixed upon as a town is exclusively the point where business is to be done; but that the town will eventually extend along on that side of the river about four miles, to the Big Chain above described.
In view of the great extent of inland navigation centring at this place, and the incalculable amount of products to be realized, at no distant period, from the cultivation of the rich vallies 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.
In the afternoon of the 30th we arrived at the mouth of the Ohio.
This beautiful river has a course of one thousand and thirty-three miles, through a country surpassed in fertility of soil by none in the United States. Except in high floods, its water is transparent, its current gentle, and nearly uniform. For more than half of its course its banks are high, and its bed gravelly. With the exception of about two miles at the rapids, at Louisville, it has sufficient depth of water, for a part of the year, to float vessels of 300 tons burthen to Cincinnati. The country which it washes may, with propriety, be considered under two divisions. The first, extending from its head at Pittsburgh to the little town of Rockport,[054] about 150 miles below the falls or rapids at Louisville, is hilly. This district forms a portion of one of the sides of that great formation of secondary rocks, which occupies the basin of the Mississippi and its tributaries. This formation, like others of the same period, is rough, with small elevations, which are most considerable on its borders, and diminish in proportion as we approach nearer its central parts.