FROM PHILADELPHIA 125 



King of France, but a number of Washingtons and 

 still more numerous Benjamin Franklins the latter 

 makes a particularly alluring sign if everything else is 

 as well kept. 



From Chesnut-hill we came through Flower-town, 

 a very small place, the few scattered houses of which 

 stand in a low situation, but the soil of the region is 

 better than that about Philadelphia, although still of 

 the sandy-reddish description. Iron seems to be every- 

 where abundantly scattered about America; the color 

 of the soil in this region and that of the sandstone is 

 due to iron or its constituents. As far as this we have 

 found many good solid stone houses, the roofs of which 

 hereabouts are made of shingles, for the most part 

 after the German manner the shingles of one thick- 

 ness throughout and laid touching each other merely 

 at the sides. The English custom is to make the 

 shingles thinner at one 'edge, so that the edge of one 

 overlaps that of the next. From the exterior appear- 

 ance, especially the plan of the chimneys, it could be 

 pretty certainly guessed whether the house was that of 

 a German or of an English family if of one chimney 

 only, placed in the middle, the house should be a Ger- 

 man's and furnished with stoves, the smoke from each 

 led into one flue and so taken off ; if of two chimneys, 

 one at each gable end there should be fire places, after 

 the English plan. Beyond the region of Whitemarsh 

 the true Jersey red soil appears again for the first time, 

 perceptible only here and there on the slopes of the 

 hills, but towards the ridges overlaid again with the 

 common sandy soil and rock fragments. It was to be 

 remarked, as we proceeded West, that this red soil 

 showed itself very generally on the east side of the hills 



