PASSENGER TURTLE. 183 



viduals. From right to left, as far as the eye could 

 reach, the breadth of this vast procession extended, 

 seeming every where equally crowded. Curious to 

 determine how long this appearance would continue, 

 I took out my watch to note the time, and sat down 

 to observe them. It was then half-past one ; I sat 

 for more than an hour, but instead of a diminution 

 of this prodigious procession, it seemed rather to in- 

 crease, both in numbers and rapidity ; and anxious 

 to reach Frankfort before night, I rose and went on. 

 About four o'clock in the afternoon I crossed Ken- 

 tucky River, at the town of Frankfort, at which time 

 the living torrent above my head seemed as numerous 

 and as extensive as ever. Long after this, I observed 

 them in large bodies, that continued to pass for six or 

 eight minutes, and these again were followed by other 

 detached bodies, all moving in the same south-east 

 direction, till after six o'clock in the evening. The 

 great breadth of front which this mighty multitude 

 preserved would seem to intimate a corresponding 

 breadth of their breeding-place, which, by several 

 gentlemen who had lately passed through part of it, 

 was stated to me at several miles." 



After a few additional observations, our author 

 proceeds to give a rough estimate of the numbers of 

 the above mentioned mighty flock, and the quantity 

 of food necessary for its daily support. " If," he 

 says, " we suppose this column to have been one 

 mile in breadth (and I believe it to have been much 

 more), and that it moved at the rate of one mile in 



