In order to give a more distinct conception of the country or region under consideration, it may be regarded as divisible into the following sections: viz. 1st, the country situated between the Ohio river and the Alleghany mountains; 2d, the country situated between the Ohio, Mississippi, and the Lakes; {199} 3d, the country situated between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers; 4th, the country situated between the Red and Missouri rivers, west of the Mississippi and east of the meridian of the Council Bluff; and 5th, the country between the proposed meridian and the Rocky Mountains.
Of the country situated between the Ohio river and the Alleghany mountains
The country on the south side of the Ohio, including the northerly parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee, together with the whole of Kentucky, abounds in hills elevated, in the vicinity of the Ohio, from four to eight hundred or a thousand feet above the water-table of the river, and rising many hundred feet higher in the neighbourhood of the Alleghany mountains. This section is watered by many streams of considerable magnitude tributary to the Ohio, the most important of which are the Monongahela, Kenhawa, Great Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, Salt, Green, Cumberland, and Tennessee. These rivers are all navigable for keel-boats, and many of them for steam-boats, some hundreds of miles, during the boating season, which generally commences about the 20th February and terminates early in June. Occasional freshets contribute to render them navigable during short portions of the other months of the year; but no reliance can be placed in periodical returns of freshets, excepting those of the spring season. Upon these rivers are extensive and valuable tracts of bottom land covered with deep and heavy forests, and possessed of a soil adapted to the cultivation of all the variety of vegetable products common to the various climates in which they are situated. The highlands, back of the bottoms, although variegated with hills and vallies alternating with each other in quick succession, are generally possessed of a surface susceptible of being tilled, and in many instances of a soil equally rich and prolific with that of the bottoms. {200} In many parts of the country, however, the hills are abrupt and stony to such a degree as renders them unfit for tillage. The average produce per acre, upon the farming lands of this section, may be estimated at the following rates: viz. Indian corn or maize, forty bushels; wheat, twenty-two; rye, twenty-six; oats, thirty-five; barley, thirty; tobacco, from twelve to fifteen cwt., and cotton from five to seven cwt. In regard to the products last mentioned, viz. cotton and tobacco, it should be observed, that they are cultivated only in the south-westerly parts of this section, and that oats and barley are seldom cultivated except in the upper or north-easterly parts.
Of the population of this section, if we except the towns and villages and their immediate vicinities, as also a large portion of country surrounding Lexington, Kentucky, and another of considerable extent, including Nashville, Tennessee, it is yet but thinly inhabited, affording room for a population far more numerous and more widely diffused. There are extensive tracts of country between the Alleghany mountains and the Ohio as yet almost entirely destitute of inhabitants, the most considerable of which are situated in the vicinity of the mountains, also the country generally between Tennessee river and the Mississippi. As this section of country is pretty generally well known, the foregoing outline of its topography will suffice.
Of the country situated between the Ohio, Mississippi, and the Lakes
The section of country next in the order proposed is situated north of the Ohio river, and comprehends the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. This section may be subdivided into three orders or varieties of country, which merit a separate consideration, viz. the hilly, the plain or rolling, and the valley country.
{201} The hilly country, like that south of the Ohio, exhibits a very uneven surface, variegated with hills and dales irregularly distributed, and occupying about one third part of the section under consideration. This portion of the country is of an oblong shape, bounded on the south-east by the Ohio river, and on the north-west by an imaginary line, commencing on the Mississippi near the grand tower, and running in a direction nearly E.N.E., till it approaches the easterly part of Lake Erie. On the east it mingles with the hilly country, comprehending the back parts of Pennsylvania and New York. In short, the whole region situated between the Alleghany mountains and the imaginary line above specified, or in other words, the country through which the Ohio and its tributaries, except the Wabash, have their courses, may be arranged under this head. The hills throughout the whole are very similar in respect to their altitudes, multiplicity and conformation.
Although the hilly country north of the Ohio is in many places rugged and broken, yet a large proportion of it is susceptible of cultivation. No high mountains are to be seen; the hills usually rise from six to eight hundred feet above the common level, or about one thousand feet above the water-tables of the principal rivers, and invariably present rounded summits. Interspersed among the hills are numerous fine tracts of arable land, which may in general be alleged of the valleys of the numerous rivers and creeks by which the country is watered. The soil upon the hills is generally productive, except where the surface is rocky and the declivities abrupt, which is more particularly the case in the vicinity of rivers, where the high lands are divided into numerous knobs, being cut by deep ravines with abrupt and precipitous banks.
The hilly country, having been generally esteemed more healthy than either of the other varieties above mentioned, has acquired a more numerous population {202} than the latter. As yet, however, no part of this section has its full complement of inhabitants, if we except, as before, the numerous towns and villages and their immediate neighbourhoods. In regard to the products of agriculture, the same remarks that have been made concerning the section south of the Ohio are equally applicable to the country under consideration, with the exception that cotton is cultivated only in the south-westerly extreme of this section, and tobacco is raised for domestic uses only.