EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE 235 
counter erected, shawls, muslins,” and the like, “dis- 
played, and everything ready for transacting business. 
On approaching a settlement they blew a tin trumpet, 
which announced to the inhabitants their arrival.” These 
“arks,” he added, descended from all parts of the Ohio 
and its tributary streams, but in greatest numbers in 
the spring months. Although they cost originally about 
$1.50 per foot of length, when arrived at their destina- 
tion they would seldom bring more than one-sixth of 
that amount. From forty to fifty days were commonly 
required to cover the entire distance of two thousand 
miles from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. 
Another means of conveyance on the river, frequently 
used by Audubon, was the keel boat or barge, which, 
in some cases, was also roofed and would hold about 
two hundred barrels of flour.". When assisted by oars in 
the bow, it could reduce the time of a journey to New 
Orleans by ten or fifteen days. These barges were 
pushed up stream with the aid of setting poles at an 
average rate of about twenty miles a day, or, if loaded, 
they were laboriously “cordelled,” or drawn by the hands 
of men who trudged along the banks pulling at the cor- 
delle. 
The chief pleasures which Audubon’s business ven- 
tures in the West seem to have afforded him were his 
leisurely journey by river and long horseback rides to 
Philadelphia to buy goods, when he could roam through 
his “beautiful and darling forests of Kentucky, Ohio, 
and Pennsylvania,” which gave him grand opportunities 
to make observations upon birds and animal life of 
every sort. He would seldom hesitate to swerve from 
his course to study his favorites, and has related how 
on one occasion, when driving before him several horses 
1Vincent Nolte, Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres (Bibl. No. 176). 
