Rocky Mountains. ■ 35 



On the 29th of May we passed the mouths of the Cum- 

 berland and Tennesee, the two largest rivers, tributary to 

 the Ohio- At the mouth of the Cumberland, is a little vil- 

 lage called Smithland, where, for a considerable part of the 

 year, such goods are deposited as are designed for Nashville 

 and other places on the Cumberland. 



The Cumberland and Tennesee rivers are, for many miles, 

 nearly parallel in direction, and at no great distance apart. 

 Between them are some low sandstone hills ; but, we be- 

 lieve, no lofty range of mountains, as has been sometimes 

 represented. About these hills, also, in the low ridges north 

 of the Ohio, we found the sandstone, which appears to be 

 the basis rock, often overlaid with extensive beds of a pud- 

 dingstone, wherein pebbles of white yellow and variously co- 

 loured quartz are united in a cement highly tinged by oxide 

 of iron ; extensive fields of compact limestone also occur in 

 the same connexion. 



About half way between the mouth of the Cumberland 

 and Tennesee, near the old deserted settlement, origninally 

 called Smithland, are several large catalpa trees. They do not, 

 however, appear to be native, nor have we here, or elsewhere, 



abundant water. Inthisdrain,about four feetbelowthe surface of the earth, 

 is a layer of charcoal about six inches deep. The stones in the vicini- 

 tv appear as if they had been burnt. Four miles west of this point, a 

 well has been sunk sixty feet through the following beds. 



First — twenty feet of tenacious blue clay, at the bottom of which they 

 came to a small spring- of salt water. 



Second — another bed of clay, of a similar character, twenty-five feet 

 thick. 



Thirl — abed of quicksand, about ten feet deep; in which they met with 

 a large vein of salt water. 



Bones of the mammoth, and other animals, were found both in the clay 

 and sand. The original reservation at these salines comprised ninety-two 

 thousand one hundred and sixty acres of woodland, and was transfered 

 from the United Mates to the State of Illinois, at the time of the admis- 

 sion of the latter into the union. The rents amount to ten thousand dol- 

 lars per annum. 



Nitrate of Lime is found in the calcareous caverns of Kentucky ; ac- 

 companying nitrate of potash, with which it is intimately blended in the 

 earth, on the floors of the caves : it is also sometimes found in delicate 

 aecicular crystals, shooting up from the walls and floors of the caverns. 



