54 EXPEDITION TO THE 



lands,* and the constant impulse to an emigration further 

 to the west, have prevented many settlements being made, 

 remote from the streams. Wild and unimproved land may 

 be had, in most places, at two dollars per acre, and there is 

 still some public land, belonging to the United States, 

 which may be purchased at one dollar and a quarter per 

 acre. The surface of the country presents some slight un- 

 dulations. The only stream of any consequence which we 

 met between the Scioto and the Miami, was Mad river, a 

 tributary of the latter. The name which it bears was 

 given to it on account of the wildness of its scenery, and of 

 the agitation of its waters, resulting from the roughness of 

 its bed. This is one of the most romantic streams which 

 the western country presents. Instead of the wide, and 

 frequently bare bed, in which the other streams run with 

 a slow and lazy pace. Mad river descends in many parts 

 of its course through a narrow and contracted channel, 

 with the rapidity of a torrent. Notwithstanding the un- 

 cultivated and uninhabited state of the country, we saw 

 but little game ; this consisted of a few deer and wild tur- 

 keys, which however kept so far from our course as to pre- 

 vent our firing at any. 



The town of Urbanna is small, but neatly laid out. We 

 met here with a family of emigrants lately removed from 

 New Jersey, for the purpose of raising the Palma Christi, 

 and manufacturing from it Castor oil, which they pro- 

 pose sending to the eastern cities, by the way of New Or- 



* Besides the ague and intermittent fevers, we were informed that 

 a very fatal disease had prev.iiled during the last summer ; it is well 

 known to the west under the name of the sick stomach, or milk sick- 

 ness, and is supposed to be produced by drinking milk, which has be- 

 come unwholesome from some cause or other ; many persons died of 

 it last year. 



