GRAVEL TERRACES. [CHAP. XXXVII. 



There was a Pennsylvania!! farmer on board who told me that, 

 having a large family to provide for, he had resolved to settle in 

 Indiana, and was returning from that state, after making a pur 

 chase of land in &quot;the rolling prairies.&quot; He had paid the usual 

 government price of 11 dollar, or about 5s. Qd. an acre ; whereas 

 he could sell his own property in Pennsylvania, which had a house 

 on it, at the rate of 60 dollars an acre. He had been much con 

 cerned at finding a strong war party in the west, who were 

 eager to have a brush with the English. &quot; It was a short-sighted 

 policy,&quot; he remarked, &quot; in your country, to exert so little energy 

 and put forth so small a part of her strength in the last war with 

 the United States. It will one day involve both you and us in 

 serious mischief.&quot; 



At a point about twenty-four miles below Wheeling, we came 

 to the largest of the Indian mounds on the Ohio, of which I have 

 spoken in my former &quot;Travels.&quot;^ It is between 60 and 70 

 feet high, rising from a flat terrace of loam, and a very striking 

 object, reminding one, by its shape, of the pyramidal Teocallis of 

 the ancient Mexicans, of which Humboldt has given figures, and 

 which are so well described by Prescott, in his &quot; History of Cor 

 tes.&quot; As we approached Wheeling, the valley of the Ohio be 

 came narrower, and the hills, composed of strata of the coal form 

 ation, sensibly higher. The State of Ohio was on our left hand, 

 or the northern bank of the river, and that of Virginia on our 

 right. The flat terrace of loam and gravel, extending every 

 where from the base of the hills to the river s bank, forms a pic 

 turesque contrast to the steep slope of the boundary hills, clothed 

 partly with ancient timber, and partly with a second growth of 

 trees of less height, which has sprung up where clearings have 

 been made. It is worthy of remark, that the materials of the 

 great terrace of loam and gravel become more and more coarse 

 as we approach nearer the mountains between Wheeling and 

 Pittsburg, and at the same time the terrace itself is more and 

 more elevated above the level of the river. It appeared to be 

 about 60 feet high near the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and 

 about 80 feet high at Georgetown, 40 miles below Pittsburg, 

 * Vol. ii. p. 32. 



