224 Ten Days in Ohio. 



cent country are found; the horizon being extended to the distance 

 of ten or fifteen miles, a favor seldom afforded the traveller in this 

 part of the state. The surrounding region is generally settled ; and 

 farms and recent " clearings," appear in every direction. From the 

 passage of Meigs's Creek at Stevens', not even the smallest branch 

 crosses the road, until we reach the vs^aters of Salt Creek, a distance 

 of twenty miles. The road being slippery from the rain on the ar- 

 gillaceous soil, we did not reach Chandlers, a distance of seventeen 

 miles, until 12 o'clock A. M. In the valley of Salt Creek, at the 

 foot of this long ridge, is situated a pleasant little village, called 

 Chandlersville. 



Muskingum Mining Company — Fruitless Exploration for Silver. 



It is also a memorable spot as the scene of the operations of the 

 " Muskingum Mining Company ;" occasioning " day dreams" of 

 wealth ; and a thirst for speculation equal in intensity, though not 

 in extent, to the celebrated South Sea project, got up many years ago 

 in London by John Law and associates. Our Ohio bubble, howev- 

 er, was not so disastrous in its explosion ; the loss falling generally 

 on those who were able to bear it without much injury. 



While our dinner is preparing, I will narrate the principal facts, as I 

 think I have a right so to do, having been one of the original Stockhold- 

 ers. Early in December, A. D. 1819, an intelligent physician, 

 who then lived at the mouth of Cat's Creek, a stream we cros- 

 sed yesterday, in journeying to Zanesville, passed the night at^Mr. 

 Chandlers, the owner of a salt well then in operation, near the foot of 

 the long ridge, on a small branch of Salt Creek. The doctor having 

 some taste for Mineralogy and Chemistry, was enquiring of Mr. Chan- 

 dler, as they sat conversing together by the fire in the evening, how 

 many different kinds of rock he had passed in boring his well. It was 

 about four hundred feet in depth ; and among other strata passed, he 

 said there was one at one hundred and twenty feet of intense hard- 

 ness, so much so, that they could bore only an inch, or even less 

 in a day. While passing through this rock, a distance of six or eight 

 feet, the pump brought up several small pieces and particles of a me- 

 tallic substance, so pure as to be malleable, flattening under the ham- 

 mer. They had tried to melt it in an iron ladle, but could not. Al- 

 though several years had passed, he thought that by searching he 

 could still find some small bits in the earth that had been brought 

 up and emptied out near the well. In the morning they visited 

 the spot, and were so fortunate or rather unfortunate, as to find 



