32 TRAVELS THROUGH NORTH AMERICA : 
neat country houses; but it has a bare appear¬ 
ance, being totally stripped of the trees, which 
have been cut down without mercy for firing, 
and to make way for the plough; neither 
are there any hedges, an idea prevailing that 
they impoverish the land wherever they are 
planted. The fences are all of the common 
post and rail, or of the angular kind. These 
last are made of rails about eight or nine feet 
long, roughly split out of trees, and placed 
horizontally above one another, as the bars' 
of a gate; but each tier of rails,, or gate as 
it were, instead of being on a straight line with 
the one next to it, is put in a different direc¬ 
tion, so as to form an angle sufficient to per¬ 
mit the ends of the rails of one tier to rest 
steady on those of the next. As these fences, 
from their serpentine course, occupy at least 
six times as much ground as a common post 
and rail fence, and require also a great deal 
more wood, they are mostly laid aside when¬ 
ever land and timber become objects of im¬ 
portance, as they soon do in the neighbour¬ 
hood of large towns. 
The road to Baltimore is over the lowest of 
three floating bridges, which have been thrown 
across the river Schuylkill, in the neighbour¬ 
hood of Philadelphia. The view on passing 
this liver, which is about two hundred and 
fifty yards wide, is beautiful, The hanks on 
