300 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



The lead mines mentioned, and others, were worked 

 formerly. But their remoteness from the markets, 

 where the refined lead could be sold, heightened the 

 cost of labor and carriage, and afforded no profit. 

 This will not be the case when the interior parts are 

 once settled ; then this metal may be had cheaper from 

 their own mines than it can be brought from the coast, 

 as has been done hitherto. 



A man who lives on the Ohio recounted how once 

 his father, hunting with a neighbor in the Kentucky 

 region, came upon a place in the woods quite clear of 

 trees and so uncommonly warm that they felt the 

 heat through their shoes. Curiosity led them to dig 

 down several feet, but they found nothing remarkable. 

 In this eastern part of North America there are found 

 no traces whatever of volcanoes or of what might be 

 otherwise regarded as the effects of any former sub- 

 terranean conflagration. I saw nothing anywhere 

 which could be so regarded. Long since there were 

 sundry questions in this matter sent over from France 

 to the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, and by it 

 were laid before the elder Bartram for elucidation, his 

 repeated journeys through the mountains and the 

 frontier regions assuring the most thorough informa- 

 tion. But his answer likewise was that he had seen 

 nothing * of the things described in the questions. 



* Thus America on the whole has been so far spared earth- 

 quakes. Kalm mentions one which was felt in Canada during 

 the last century. In the middle colonies none could be remem- 

 bered before the winter of 1757. A faint earth-quake was 

 observed some six or seven years ago; and very recently a 

 few shivers in the night of December 2 nd 1783, chiefly felt at 

 Philadelphia, and remarked also by the ships lying at anchor 



