42 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



its mouth in the Bay, a distance of 90 miles, but the 

 total length of the river is some 200 miles. At this 

 place it is perhaps half a mile wide, and at its mouth 

 not more than 4 miles wide. However, ships of heavy 

 burthen cannot come all the way up to Fredericksburg. 



Fredericksburg. This town of middling size stands 

 partly on the low bank of the river, and partly on the 

 heights immediately behind, which once composed the 

 bed of the stream. The public buildings of the town, 

 churches, market-house, court-house, lie at this time in 

 ruins, and for no other reason than that during the 

 war there was no use for them and they were neg- 

 lected ; for no hostile troops came this way, who might 

 have destroyed them. The tobacco-warehouses here 

 had a great store on hands. Here and at Alexandria 

 the price of tobacco at the time was only 25 shillings 

 Virgin. Current the hundredweight. The European 

 ships were all out, the time when people must pay their 

 taxes was at hand, and the merchants were using the 

 opportunity to offer the lowest prices. 



Above Falmouth, near the falls of the Rappahannock, 

 is one of the finest and most considerable iron-works in 

 North America. + More than 6-800 tons are worked 

 there yearly, it is said. Mr. Hunter is the owner. These 

 works are distinguished besides by a rolling and a slit- 

 ting-mill, and of this sort there are only two or three 

 in America, the former British government having pro- 

 hibited the setting up of mechanisms of that kind. The 

 rolling-mill is adapted for drawing iron-plate, that is to 

 say, the machine is such that between two smooth, steel 

 cylinders the plate is drawn with more rapidity, more 

 easily, and with greater uniformity than it is possible to 

 do under hammers. The slitting-mill is another in- 



