CHAPTER XIX 



THE OHIO DISTRICT 



IT is not part of the plan of this work to give a geo- 

 graphic description of Ohio or any other of the United 

 States ; but having wandered through the basin of the 

 great lakes on the Northern or Canadian side, we have 

 now a similar journey to describe on the Southern or 

 States side, or rather the results of a series of wanderings 

 in this district. It is here impossible for me to present a 

 detailed and consecutive narrative of journeys for several 

 reasons, the chief of which are, that I do not undertake 

 to give a description of long settled and thickly inhabited 

 country, but confine my attention to wilds and wilder- 

 nesses only ; and secondly, these observations were not all 

 made at one time, but at several periods, with long inter- 

 vals of time between them. 



Eoughly speaking, Ohio appears to me to have 

 originally presented to the eye three marked descriptions 

 of ground prairie, mountain, and swamp. The moun- 

 tains are to the eastward, being part of the northern 

 continuation of the Alleghany range. The prairie, in my 

 time, was a succession of forests and savannahs, differing 

 from the prairies of the Mississippi Valley, and was, I 

 think, before the meddlesome hand of man interfered, an 

 unbroken forest. I am much mistaken if those openings, 

 now called prairies, were not caused by extensive forest 

 fires, and, if left to Nature, I am sure the forest would 

 again gradually cover them. Beech timber predominates 

 in these forests, and the mast is invaluable for feeding 

 hogs, of which animal there are enormous numbers in the 



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