13 



and extends as far as the Mississippi, being from Six to twenty 

 miles wide and bounded by hills one hundred feet high on an 

 average, and with very few stones. 



Basin. The basin of a river, must not be mistaken for its 

 valley, since it includes the whole regions watered by the 

 streams flowing into it. The basin of Ohio is very extensive, 

 including the greater share of the states of Kentucky, Tennes- 

 see, Ohio, and Indiana, with parts of Pennsylvania, New-York, 

 Virginia, Alabama and Illinois, and a small corner of North 

 Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi, watering therefore twelve 

 states of the Union. It occupies eight degrees of latitude from 

 the thirty-fourth to the forty-second degrees, and about twenty- 

 six degrees of longitude. Its whole surface includes at least 

 half a million of square miles, and three hundred and twenty 

 millions of square acres. 



Islands. The Ohio has a great many, about one 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, arc 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 experience 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 

 behind the banks are sometimes lower than the. edge of the 



