REPRINT OF ORIGINAL TEXT 51 



matter dissolved in it, and -whicli are not easily- 

 deposited, unless at higli water, when mud and 

 earth become mixed with them. 



[I. 311] [jjj Valley. The Ohio flows in a narrow 

 valley as far as Utica, above Louisville. This valley 

 averages about one mile in breadth, and about three 

 hundred feet in depth, but in some parts it is nearly 

 five hundred feet deep. There are evident proofs 

 that the river has formerly filled it. The sides are 

 formed by steep cliffs and hills of sandstone as far 

 as Vanceburg and the knobs below the mouth of the 

 Scioto ; beyond which all the strata are of limestone. 

 Beyond those cliffs the country is broken, but much 

 raised above the bottom of the Ohio Valley. The 

 river meanders through it, leaving on each side, or 

 only on one side, a level tract of alluvial and deep 

 soil, which are called bottoms and were once the bed 

 of the river. The cliffs correspond together, keep- 

 ing at an equal distance, and every salient angle or 

 elbow has an opposite bend. Below Utica and as 

 far as Otter creek below Salt river begins the site of 

 an ancient Lake, forming now a plain, which is about 

 twenty- five miles long and ten miles broad ; the falls 

 are situated in the iniddle of it : the silver hills bound 

 it to the west, the knobby hills to the east and the 

 barren hills to the south. Immediately below it are 

 the narrows of Otter creek, where the valley begins 

 a,gain ; but is not larger than at Pittsburgh, being 

 hardly half a mile wide and the river is less than one 

 thousand feet across. They both expand gradually 

 until they reach the rocky narrows above Troy, where 

 the valley, after being contracted to three fourths of 

 a mile, while the river is nearly half a mile broad, 

 expands at once into a low country or broad valley, 



