GENESEE RIVER. 
329 
The flats bordering upon the Genesee River 
are amongst the richest lands that are to be 
met with in North America* to the east of the 
Ohio* Wheat* as I told you in a former let¬ 
ter, will not grow upon them; and it is not 
found that the soil is impoverished by the suc¬ 
cessive crops of Indian corn and hemp that are 
raised upon them year after year. The great 
fertility of these flats is to be ascribed to the 
regular annual overflowing of the Genesee 
River, whose waters are extremely muddy, and 
leave no small quantity of slime behind them 
before they return to their natural channel* 
That river empties itself into Lake Ontario: 
it is somewhat more than one hundred miles 
in length, but only navigable for the last forty 
miles of its course, except at the time of the 
inundations; and even then the navigation is 
not uninterrupted the whole way down to the 
lake, there being three considerable falls in the 
river about ten miles above its mouth: the 
greatest of these falls is said to be ninety feet in 
perpendicular height. The high lands in the 
neighbourhood of the Genesee River are stony, 
and are not distinguished for their fertility, but 
the valleys are all extremely fruitful, and abound 
with rich timber. 
• 1 . 
The summers in this part of the country are 
by no means so hot as towards the Atlantic, 
and the winters are moderate: it is seldom* 
i 
