The Locust. 



BOURGH, in Pennsylvania, it being from that spot that I have 

 always received my seed; and that part of Pennsylvania being 

 the most famous in the whole continent for this sort of 

 timber. Harrisbourgh is situated on one of the banks of 

 the Sus(|uehannah River, and there, by the bye, is a suspen- 

 sion bridge, built principally of Locust wood, stretching 

 across a river more than a mile wide, and under which, ves- 

 sels of no very contemptible size pass without lo\vering 

 their masts. 



326. The outward appearance of this tree, its beautiful 

 leaves and flowers, are pretty well known in most parts of 

 England; but it remained for me to make known the pro- 

 perties of the wood. These properties, too, are in part 

 mentioned by Miller ; and its surprising powers, when 

 constituting parts of ships, are mentioned at full length in 

 Hunter's edition of Evelyn's Sylva. Notwithstanding 

 this, we never heard of a man in England that ever planted 

 this tree, until I took the matter in hand, except as a thing 

 of mere ornament, in which respect it certainly surpasses 

 any other in the world, but as such I should not have 

 deemed it worthy of notice. I have, at different times, 

 written and published upon this subject, through the chan- 

 nel of the Register, in "which I began by producing certi- 

 ficates relative to the durability of the wood. 1 shall, by 

 and by, publish those certificates, which I collected, or, at 

 least, 1 paved the way for collecting, while I was in Long 

 Island, from the month of May, 1817, to the month of 

 October, 1819; a space of time that I was in voluntary 

 banishment, for the purpose of avoiding those dungeons 

 into which such numbers of the public-spirited and vir- 

 tuous reformers were put, deprived of the use of pen, ink, 

 and paper, and from which they were finally released (those 

 of them who survived their suflerings) without any charge 



