Geography of Ohio 
181 
lachian mountains. Cincinnati, therefore, started early to manu- 
facture the things demanded by the nearby farming industries. 
Thus the first manufacturing town west of the Allegheny s was 
created by home demands. More money came into circulation, 
and banking was shortly an important and necessary business. As 
a result of this early prosperity, a great amount of capital was 
available, and Cincinnati became an important center of long- 
distance business, in the first place by boat even to Europe, and 
later, when the canals were constructed, by the transportation 
of goods from the Ohio river to Lake Erie, via the Erie canal, 
to New York. Several factors gave Cincinnati an advantage 
over any other town of the state; the concentration of trans-Ap- 
palachian exchange through Cincinnati’s banks for many decades 
is a matter to which we may not assign proper value. Banking 
business is generally conservative. Several old established banks 
of the Atlantic cities, which commenced early last century to place 
all their western exchange through Cincinnati, still continue to 
do so. 
Chillicothe. In the early days of last century, one traveling 
overland from Cincinnati toward the sea, would probably have 
passed through Chillicothe. For several decades, Chillicothe was 
a very important place; agriculturally, it is more advantageously 
located than is Portsmouth, which is at the mouth of the Scioto 
river. The area of the lowland farming section increases from 
Portsmouth northward. The Scioto is a very recent stream geo- 
logically; for a long time antedating the glacial period, a great 
river, which had its origin in the Appalachian slopes of Kentucky 
and West Virginia, flowed northward, following in part of its 
course, what is now the Scioto valley, but in a reverse direction. 
Chillicothe lies in a mature part of that old valley, and the area 
of the good farmland decreases southward from Chillicothe. 
Cambridge. Cambridge also, during the early decades, was a 
center of importance. It was located on Zane’s Trace, the east- 
ern part of which later became the National Road. During the 
stage-coach days, Cambridge was the first town of consequence to 
be met west of the Ohio. But when railways took the place of the 
slower methods of travel, Cambridge was not so favored; the 
through lines did not pass its way, and the advantages it had 
enjoyed in consequence of the former stage-coach traffic and the 
fairly good agricultural surroundings became relatively less and 
less important. 
