" Hanging Rock." 139 



4 



Sandy and Tyger creek, and extend south to the heads of the Little 

 Sandy. Its prolongation in this direction, is without doubt inuch 

 more extensive, as I learn from travellers that it is abundant on the 

 heads of the Cumberland river, at the foot of the mountains. The 

 face of the country, through this region, is hilly, broken and sterile; 

 bearing all the characteristic features of a mineral district. The op- 

 erations of smelting are at present conducted altogether with char- 

 coal ; but the time is not distant when the forests will fail to afford 

 an adequate supply for the w^ants of the numerous manufactures* 

 When that period arrives, the beds of bituminous coal, that now lie 

 neglected or unknown, will be sought for and brought into use. 

 If those on the surface are not suiEciently pure, beds of much great- 

 er thickness and purity will be found, by sinking shafts; as has al- 

 ready been proved in several instances, by persons boring for salt 

 water. West of the base of the Cumberland range, in Adair coun- 

 ty, Ky., a bed of coal, forty five feet in thickness, was passed by a 

 person in sinking a salt well. This material when coaked or depriv- 

 ed of its bituminous and sulphureous portions, by roasting, answers 

 very well for the furnace ; and all the iron manufactured in England, 

 is extracted by the aid of coaked coal. Indeed, without her coal 

 beds, that country would become comparatively an impoverished 

 kingdom ; while with them, she commands the trade, and the wealth, 

 of the world. 



," Hanging Rock J ^ 



Four miles above the mouth of the Little Sandy, on the Ohio 

 side or ri^-ht bank of the Ohio river, and in the midst of the iron re- 

 gion, is a celebrated cliff of sandstone, called the *' Hanging Rock." 

 The upper portion of the cliff, which is nearly four hundred feet 

 high, projects over the mural face of the rock, like the cornice of a 

 house. It is extended also for some distance up a small creek, 

 which here puts into the river. The Ohio flows close to its base, 

 while beneath, and under its projecting walls is erected a forge, for 

 the refining of iron ; the blasts of its immense bellows, and the thun- 

 dering noise of its tremendous hammer, weighing more than a ton, 

 echoing and reverberating under the walls of the cliff, afford no un- 

 apt emblem of the labors of the Cyclops, under the caverns of Mount 

 ^tna. An abundance of iron ore is found in the vicinity, and a 



anvils 



iEtna," furnishes 

 Bar iron of an 



a^ 



