204 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
the commonalty; and therefore inconsistent with our Republi- 
can institutions! By the same mode of reasoning, which I did 
not dispute, I undertook to prove him a greater culprit than 
myself, in erecting a large elegant three story Brick house, 
so much more beyond the reach of the Commonalty as he called 
them, and therefore grossly contrary to our Republican insti- 
tutions. I harangued this Solomon of the Bench more seri- 
ously afterwards, pointing out to him the great influence of 
Science on a young rising Nation like ours, till he began to 
show such symptons of intellect, as to seem ashamed of what 
he had said. 
At Pittsburgh Wilson met Audubon’s old employer 
and relative by marriage, Benjamin Bakewell. The 
picture which he then drew? of that growing hive of 
industry will be read with interest: 
On arriving at the town, which stands on a low flat, and 
looks like a collection of Blacksmith shops, Glass houses, Brew- 
eries, Forges, and Furnaces, the Monongahela opened to the 
view on the left running along the bottom of a range of hills 
so high that the sun at this season sets to the town of Pitts- 
burgh at a little past four. This range continues along the 
Ohio as far as the view reaches. The ice had just begun to 
give way in Monongahela, and came down in vast bodies for the 
three following days. It has now begun in the Alleghany, and 
at the moment I write it is one white Mass of rushing ice. The 
country beyond the Ohio to the west appears a mountainous 
and hilly region. The Monongahela is lined with Arks, usually 
called Kentucky Boats, waiting for the rising of the river, & 
the absence of ice, to descend. <A perspective view of the town 
of Pittsburgh at this season, with the numerous arks and cov- 
ered keel boats preparing to descend the Ohio, the grandeur 
of its hills, and the interesting circumstance of its three great 
rivers—the pillars of smoke rising from its Furnaces Glass 
27See Elliott Coues, loc. cit. 
