250 Ten Days in Ohio. 
ably from the action of oxygen on the iron.* On the eastern branch- 
es of Brush Creek the country is hilly and broken; and as the slate 
decomposes, these globes of pyrites tumble out aut roll to the bot- 
tom of the hills where they can be picked up of all sizes. Consid- 
erable quantities of native alum and copperas are found in the crevi- 
ces of the slate and are used by the neighboring inhabitants in coloring 
their domestic cloths. In the same neighborhood are found in great 
abundance, both clay and bog iron ore, and the latter is extensively . 
manufactured into pigs and castings—a few miles east of Brush 
reek, above the mouth of the Scioto, large beds of iron ore are 
found, lying over limestone, containing immense quantities of fossil 
shells imbeded in the ore; embracing many distinct species of Pec- 
ten, Productus, &e. with phauhered univalves—some of them are fine- 
ly preserved shewing the most minute workings and the hinge mar- 
gin having some resemblance to the head and beaks of a bird; the 
country people call them “ Paroquets petrified.” We qetaraed to 
Circleville in the evening, afier a day spent very pleasantly. 
TO CHILICOTHE.— Canal Boats. 
May 29.—Morning cool—Ther. 45° day fine. Rose at an ear- 
ly hour and went on board a canal boat, in company with a number 
of ladies and gentlemen on a trip to Chilicothe. The boat moved at 
the rate of four miles per hour, by the aid of two horses, which were 
changed but once in the distance of twenty three miles. These boats 
are fitted up with great neatness, and afford every necessary comfort 
to the traveller. The canal passes along back of the Scioto bottor, 
near the base of the uplands, which here as well as all over the Sci- 
oto valley are composed of gravel, clay, and water worn pebbles and 
* A part of the summer of the year 1830, was excessively dry in the S. W. por- 
tion of Ohio. Scioto Brush Creek, is a small western brahch emptying its waters 
into the Scioto river a few miles above Portsmouth. It heads in the same slaty hills 
king the earth violently for some distance. The inhabitants living near its borders 
became much alarmed, thinking a voleano was breaking out. On examining the 
spot, large pieces of iron pyrites were found mixed with the slate stone. The wa- 
ter, which had heretofore protectéd the pyrités from the atmosphere, being all evap- 
orated, the oxygen found its way through the crevices of the slate to these beds, and 
acting chemically upon them, new combinations took place, foes up the superin- 
cumbent strata with great violence and néise—when thé water again eovered the 
bed of the creek, the explosions ceased. I have one or two tare pens of the 
pyrites, given me by an intelligent friend who visited the spot at the tim 
