JOURNAL 



place, who treated us in the most friendly and hospitable manner, 

 to see the new national road from Washington city to this town. 

 It is covered with a very thick layer of nicely broken stones, or 

 stone, rather, laid on with great exactness both as to depth and 

 width, and then rolled down with an iron roller, which reduces all 

 to one solid mass. This is a road made for ever ; not like the 

 flint roads in England, rough, nor soft or dirty, like the gravel 

 roads ; but, smooth and hard. When a road is made in America 

 it is well made. An American always plots against labour, and, 

 in this instance, he takes the most effectual course to circumvent 

 it. Mr. Graham took us likewise to see the fine coal mines near 

 this place and the beds of limestone and freestone, none of which 

 I had time to examine as we passed Wheeling in our ark. All 

 these treasures lie very convenient to the river. The coals are 

 principally in one long ridge, about 10 feet wide ; much the same 

 as they are at Pittsburgh, in point of quality and situation. They 

 cost 3 cents per bushel to be got out from the mine. This price, 

 as nearly as I can calculate, enables the American collier to earn, 

 upon an average, double the number of cents for the same labour 

 that the collier in England can earn ; so that, as the American 

 collier can, upon an average, buy his flour for one third of the 

 price that the English collier pays for his flour, he receives six 

 times the quantity of flour for the same labour. Here is a country 

 for the ingenious paupers of England to come to ! They find food 

 and materials, and nothing wanting but their mouths and hands 

 to consume and work them. I should like to see the old toast of 

 the Boroughmongers brought out again ; when they were in the 

 height of their impudence their myrmidons used to din in our 

 ears, &quot; Old England for ever, and those that do not like her let 

 &quot; them leave her.&quot; Let them renew this swaggering toast, and 

 I would very willingly for my part, give another to the same 

 effect for the United States of America. But, no, no ! they 

 know better now. They know that they would be taken at their 

 word ; and, like the tyrants of Egypt, having got their slaves fast, 

 will (if they can) keep them so. Let them beware, lest something 

 worse than the Red Sea overwhelm them ! Like Pharaoh and 

 his Boroughmongers they will not yield to the voice of the people, 

 and, surely, something like, or worse than, their fate shall befall 

 them ! 



956. They are building a steam-boat at Wheeling, which is to 

 go, they say, 1800 miles up the Missouri river. The wheels are 

 made to work in the stern of the boat, so as not to come in contact 

 with the floating trees, snaggs, planters,* &c., obstructions most 

 likely very numerous in that river. But, the placing the wheels 

 behind only saves them : it is no protection against the boat s 

 sinking in case of being pierced by a planter or sawyer. f Observing 

 this, I will suggest a plan which has occurred to me, and which, 



* Trees tumbled head-long and fixed in the river, 

 t The same as a planter, only waving up and down. 

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