The country round us is not well watered but very healthy. The creeks in the woods and prairies dry up in a dry season, {163} except a few deep holes that are shaded by trees; nor are there many of the wells that possess good springs. As the weather has been very dry ever since the first of April, water is now (August the sixth) extremely low in most of the wells and creeks; but there are some wells that still afford a good supply; and some of the large holes in the creeks have plenty of water in them. The soil found in digging wells, is, first, a vegetable mould, next loamy clay, then sand-stone, and lastly clay-slate, through which no one has yet penetrated, though some have dug 50 or 60 feet without finding water. Many are of an opinion, that, if the clay-slate was once dug through, water would be found in great abundance underneath; others, that pit-coal lies below the clay-slate. I am rather of the latter opinion, and my reason for so thinking is, that very thin veins of coal have frequently been found in the clay-slate; and on the bank of the Little Wabash, where the country is considerably lower, there are {164} large mines of coal. The water that is found in the wells, mostly rises between the sand-stone rocks, but often in too small quantities to be of much service for domestic uses. I have dug two; one at Wanborough, the other at Birks' Prairie; the first is 11 feet deep, it has but little water: the latter is quite without, though 23 feet down to the slate-rock. As most of the wells dug out in Birks' Prairie have produced water, I have begun another, at some distance from the cabin, that promises to afford a good supply: the two I have finished cost me about 15 pounds. I have stopped a creek at Wanborough that has supplied us with water for many uses. Our well, though very short of water, has been very convenient; we let meat down in the bucket, it prevents the flies getting at it, and keeps it much better than any safe in this hot climate.
The clay-slate lies from 5 to 30 feet below the surface of the earth. No lime-stone near us; a little free and soap {165} stone; but sand-stone is the prevailing stone for many miles round us. A well at Birks' Prairie is strongly tinctured with glauber salts, and another with sulphur. And there are several salt-licks: a salt-lick is a place where the earth is strongly impregnated with salt; horses, cattle, and pigs often frequent them, and the earth is worn away in a great degree by their licking it. It is supposed by some, that salt-water might be obtained by digging at these places, from which salt might be made, but no one has yet attempted it. These places were first used by the buffaloes, that some years ago used to frequent the prairies: a man, who resides at Birks' Prairie, informed me, that eight or nine years since, he often visited the Prairies, as he was then employed, with many others, during a war with the Indians, to be on the look-out for them, and then he often saw both elks and buffaloes, but they were not numerous. As the country became settled, they moved off to the large prairies, to the {166} north and west. Deer at that time were in vast quantities, and in these expeditions they lived mostly on venison; sometimes for a fortnight or three weeks at a time without any bread. And I have been told, by the first English settlers, that deer were much more numerous in 1818, than they now are 1820.
The buildings round us being chiefly of logs, I will give the best description in my power of a log-cabin; as I could form no idea of it till I saw one, that was at all like it. They are of various widths, lengths, and heights, but generally only one story high. The usual shape a long square, some are made of round, and others of hewn logs. In building a cabin, suppose 30 feet long and 20 wide; first, two logs, 30 feet long, are placed on the ground on a level, and about 18 feet from each other, these two logs are then notched in, near their ends, for a few inches; and then two more logs of 20 feet long, having their undersides also notched, are laid on the two first, forming {167} a long square of the following figure, about 26 feet long, and 16 feet wide on the inside. One square being thus formed, they next proceed to place on two more of the longest logs on the sides, notched as before, and then two of the shortest, as before; this they continue till the building is nine or ten logs high on each side, when the two last cross-logs are laid on three or four feet longer than the other cross ones; this is to form a sort of eaves to drip the logs; two more of the longest logs are then laid on, and this completes the upright of the building. Two cross-logs, cut slanting at the ends, are next placed on, just the length of the width of the building, and then two more of the side-logs on the cross-logs, but not to the end of them by some distance; then two more, cut slanting at the ends, are placed just to reach to the last side-logs; thus drawing in the sides, till the side-logs meet in a point at the top of the building. {168} A cleft piece of a tree is next placed on the outer end of the long cross-logs, and pegged on to prevent the cleft boards from sliding off, this is done on each side of the building. The whole is then covered with cleft-boards, (here called clap-boards;) they are about four feet long and six inches wide, laid on nearly double, so as to cover the joints; the boards at the top of the cabin on one side come a little over those on the other. When the roof is thus covered, some poles are laid along the building to keep the boards on; these poles are kept at about three feet distance from each other, by some short pieces of wood placed on the boards, to keep up the weight-poles as they are called. When they have done thus far, they call the cabin "raised." But no door-place, window, fire-place, floor, or ceiling is yet made, nor is the house very close on the sides, but looks something like a bird-cage. Next a door-place, of the usual size, is cut through the logs, and two pieces of wood are nailed or pegged up to the ends of the sawed logs, to keep them in {169} their places, and to serve for door-posts; frequently two doors are made opposite to each other. The windows are made in the same manner as the door-places. The chimney is generally placed at the end of the building, and is made as follows: first, four or five logs are cut out the same as for a door-place, of what width people chuse, and then some logs are cleft and placed in the following form on the outside,
so that the ends of them are let in between the ends of the end-logs of the cabin that were sawed. The cleft-logs are thus continued, till they rise as high as the logs that were sawed out. The chimney is then carried up thus,
exactly in the form of the cabin, but of much smaller logs, till it rises above the roof of the building; it is drawn in and made smaller from the bottom to the top. It is then chunked, that is, cleft pieces of wood are driven in between the logs, to fill up the open places. The next thing to be done, is to mud the cabin on the outside {170} between the logs; that is, it is plastered with loam or clay: this is sometimes done on the inside also, but more frequently cleft boards are pegged on to cover the joints on the inside. A few pieces of timber are next laid to lay the floor on, which is most commonly made of cleft-logs, hewn smooth on one side, and notched a little on the under side to lie level on the sleepers or joists. A ceiling is then made; some small saplings are cut and put in between the side-logs of the building, just under the roof, about three feet apart; and these ceiling joists are then covered with cleft boards, beginning at one end of the cabin, and laying a line across the end on the two joists, and then another row with their ends just resting on the first; and this is continued till the whole is covered. Most times the chimney is walled up several feet on the inside, the stones are laid in loam or clay instead of mortar; and above the wall it is plastered on the inside, and sometimes on the outside to the top of the chimney. The hearth is {171} made of stone or clay. The doors are generally made of cleft boards, nailed or pegged on some ledges, with wooden hinges, made in the following manner. A piece in the back part of the door is left longer than the door, and enters a hole in the sill; and at the top of the door a piece is also left to rest against the top of the door-place, which is covered with a piece of wood, either nailed or pegged over it. The windows are always sash ones; the usual size of the glass is eight inches by ten; the windows are sometimes made to open with hinges, and others to slide backwards and forwards, while others take out and in. When the doors are made of sawed boards they have eight or ten panes of glass in them, and then it is seldom there is any other window in the cabin. A porch is often made before the cabin, the whole length of it, and covered with cleft boards; which cost seventy-five cents a hundred, cutting the trees and cleaving out; they are always made from large trees, mostly the black {172} oak. Cabins are frequently made double; that is, two are built from 10 to 20 feet a-part, with a roof laid over the space between them. A shelter like this is very convenient, and, in the summer, it is more comfortable than a close room in so warm a country.
Many cabins, belonging to the Americans, have no ceiling nor windows, and some of them have no floor, nothing but the bare earth; and some are not mudded, but open on all sides. Locks to doors are nearly unknown, but wooden bolts are common with the English: many of the American houses have only a latch, and some have not even that.
A double cabin, with a 20-feet porch between, with floor and ceiling, finished as above described, may be built for the sum of 150 dollars, 33l. 15s., or something less. But with ceiling, floor, and doors, made of sawed boards, will come, I suppose, to near 50l. Sawing comes very high, being 9s. per hundred feet; but the sawyers cut {173} down the trees and go with the horses that draw them to the pit.