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hundred and thirty; they are commonly long and 

 narrow. Some sand-bars, lying in the middle of the 

 river, are gradually becoming islands ; most of them 

 are overflowed at the high waters. There are very 

 few ancient islands, forming now insulated hills ; I 

 have detected however half a dozen, the first of 

 which lies just below Pittsburgh on the right bank. 



Bars. They are very common, are generally sand 

 bars, and lie on one side or round the islands, very 

 few stretch across the river: they produce ripples or 

 a broken current. Some of them have hardly six 

 inches of water, at the low stage of the river. 



Channels. The current of the Ohio is digging 

 another bed, deeper than the actual one, which forms 

 the real channel of navigation. It does not experi- 

 ence many changes; sometimes it happens to be 

 very crooked, particularly near islands and bars. It 

 generally follows and grazes the highest cliffs or 

 banks, and sometimes becomes double round some 

 islands. 



Banks. The actual banks are all alluvial and of 

 a deep and rich soil, seldom quite sandy or muddy. 

 There are in many bottoms a second and even a third 

 bank, all very steep and from ten to forty feet high. 

 The first bank is almost every where overflowed at 

 high waters, the second never. The platforms be- 

 hind the banks are sometimes lower than the edge 

 of the [I. 313] [jj] bank. Many banks sink or are 

 washed away in inundations, when the channel sets 

 against them. 



Rapids. Many ripples become rapids at low water, 

 and all the rapids disappear at high water, even 

 those called the falls, which lay below Louisville. 

 They are several passages of the river between rocky 



