in 



in many places, add much to the beauty of the ap« 

 pearance, but embarras the navigation, particularly 

 in low water ; as they occasion shoals and sand bars. 

 The extent of some of them is considerable. The 

 soil of which they are formed is very rich, and they 

 are covered with a fine growth of trees* 



In common Winter and Spring floods, the river 

 affords thirty or forty feet of water, from the Mis* 

 sissippi to Louisville ; twenty-five or thirty feet, to 

 La Tarte's rapids ; forty, above the mouth of the 

 great Kanhaway ; and a sufficiency, at all times, for 

 fiat bottomed boats and canoes.* 



The greatest impediment in the navigation of the 

 Ohio river, is the rapids, which are situated in 38 

 deg. 8 min. north lat. they are occasioned by a ledge 

 of rocks, which stretch across the river from one 

 side to the other, in some places projecting so much 

 as to be visible when the water is not high, and in 

 most places when the w^ter is extremely low. On 

 levelling the descent, it has been found to be twenty- 

 tvvo and a half feet in two miles. The rock which 

 forms the bed of the river is divided into three 

 branches, which are vulgarly called the main Chute, 

 the middle Chute, and the town Chute. ...The main 

 Chute is passable for biitteaux and Hat-bottomed 

 boats, drawing from one and a half to two and a half 

 feet water, at least nine months in the year ; the mid* 

 die Chute, the bottom of which is even and unob- 

 structed by detatched pieces of rocks, which is not 

 the case in the main Chute, is only passable during 

 «wells in the river, though it has never less than four 



* Harris's Tour to Ohio. 



