PASSENGER TURTLE. 
183 
viduals. From right to left, as far as the eye could 
reach, the breadth of this vast procession extended, 
seeming every where equally crowded. Curious to 
determine how long this appearance would continue, 
I took out my watch to note the time, and sat down 
to observe them. It was then half-past one ; I sat 
for more than an hour, hut instead of a diminution 
of this prodigious procession, it seemed rather to in- 
crease, both in numbers and rapidity ; and anxious 
to reach Frankfort before night, I rose and went on. 
About four o’clock in the afternoon 1 crossed Ken- 
tucky River, at the town of Frankfort, at which time 
tlie living torrent above my head seemed as numerous 
and as extensive as ever. Long after this, I observed 
them in large bodies, that continued to pass for six or 
eight minutes, and these again were followed by other 
detached bodies, all moving in the same south-east 
direction, till after six o’clock in the evening. The 
great breadth of front which this mighty multitude 
preserved would seem to intimate a corresponding 
breadth of their breeding-place, which, by several 
gentlemen who had lately passed through part of it, 
was stated to me at several miles.” 
After a few additional observations, our author 
proceeds to give a rough estimate of the numbers of 
the above mentioned mighty flock, and the quantity 
of food necessary for its daily support. “ If,” he 
says, “ we suppose this column to have been one 
mile in breadth (and I believe it to have been much 
more), and that it moved at the rate of one mile in 
