We arrived in the evening at Buffalo, or New Amsterdam, and put up at Landon’s tavern, where we were indifferently accommodated in every respect. The young gentlemen had preceded us, and enjoyed the best accommodations.

August 5^th, Sunday. Buffalo village contains from thirty to forty houses, the court-house of Niagara County, built by the Holland Land Company, several stores and taverns, and a Post office. It is place of great resort. All persons that travel to the Western States and Ohio, from the Eastern States, and all that visit the Falls of Niagara, come this way. A half-acre lot sells from $100 to $250. Buffalo Creek runs in from the East, between the village and the lake. It is a deep stream, about ten rods wide, and has a large bar at its mouth. It is navigable about five miles.

Large oil stones are found at the Indian saw mill, twelve miles up the Buffalo Creek, strongly impregnated with Seneca oil; also large petrified clam shells, on the eighteen mile creek. There are five lawyers and no church in this village.

The great desideratum in the land of the Holland Company, is the want of water. We saw on the ridge several dry mills. Windmills must be used for grain. The population of their lands doubled in a year.

The chief seat of the Seneca’s is about four miles from Buffalo.

Lake Erie abounds with excellent and various fish:

1. White Fish. – The head and mouth exactly like our shad, and so is the fish generally. It is superior in flavor.

2. Herring. – Thicker through the body, and nearly the same length as those on the sea-coast. Much like the Nova Scotia herring.

3. Sheep’s Head. – Like ours, but no teeth; a hard, dry fish.

4. Black or Oswego Bass. – Like our black fish. Bass is a Dutch word, and signifies perch.

5. Rock Bass. – Like our sea bass.

6. White Bass. – In shape like our white perch, but rather longer. The tail resembles that of the streaked bass, and it has stripes on its sides.

7. Sturgeon, – is the largest fish in the lake. They have no dorsal fin, and are not so large as those in the Hudson. In respect to shape they are rather similar, and have the same habit of vaulting.

At the time the French possessed Niagara, the commander of that fort took four live sturgeon from Ontario Lake, and put them in lake Erie. Lake Erie before had none; now it and all the upper lakes have plenty of them. This was told Mr. Wigton by the captain of a sloop that sails on lake Eire.

8. Sunfish.

9. Muscalunga, or pickerel; a fine fish.

10. Pike.

11. Very large snapping turtle.

No shad go up the Mississippi. Now and then a meagre herring is caught at Pittsburgh, which has struggled 2,200 miles against a strong current. The streaked bass or rock fish go above Albany after the sturgeon’s spawn, and subsist principally on it. The superior flavor and excellence of Atlantic sheeps-head may be owing to its delicious food of clams and muscles, on the coast. The sturgeon of the lake have no scales.

At the Niagara Falls, eels have ascended the rocks forty or fifty feet, but cannot get up, and are not to be found above, or in lake Erie. Eels have communication with the sea, and perhaps generate there. In a pond above the Passaic Falls, no eels have been seen until within a few years, and they have found a communication round the Falls. In the fall, eel-weirs are placed with their mouths up against the current, and in the spring the reverse. In the fall they go to the sea, and in the spring return. The only small fish in lake Erie, are the muscle and cray fish. Dr. Mitchell’s notice, that sea-fish, such as sturgeon, are shut by the falls from the ocean, and have become naturalized to fresh water, is ridiculous;

1. They can escape by vaulting over the falls.

2. By the Illinois in the spring, down the Mississippi.

3. The above story explains how they came into the lake.

We rode on the beach of the lake, from Buffalo to Black Rock. There is an upper and a lower landing here, about a mile apart. At the latter is the village, the ground of which belongs to the State; and it has been laid out in lots, which have not been as yet sold. A ferry and tavern are kept at the upper landing, by F. Miller, and a store by Porter, Bartow & Co.

Bird Island is a mile above the upper landing; the channel runs on each side of it; it derives its name from the number of birds which formerly crowded on it. It is nothing but a collection of large calcarious and silicious rocks. A store built on it by Porter, Bartow & Co., was swept off by the ice. A block has been sunk here by them, on the North side of the island, (by which it is protected from the ice), to receive and lade vessels, and it will answer for any burthen. It cost $2,000. Vessels can come up the Rapids to it, with 100 barrels of salt, but have to leave the remainder of their lading for another trip. A vessel with salt can push up against the current, from Fort Schlosser to Black Rock, twenty miles, in one day. To remedy the communication here, it is proposed to cut a canal round the Rapids, from Bird Island to the lower landing. Mr. Geddes says that the Rapid in one place here is six and three quarters miles an hour, as tested by actual observation. In one place it is five miles; and the boatmen say in one place seven miles, and that the general current is three miles per hour.

Lake Erie is four feet seven inches above the level of Niagara River, below these rapids.

The following statement was furnished to me by Judge Porter;

The price of transporting a barrel of salt from Oswego to Lewiston is five shillings, payable in salt at Oswego, at twenty-four shillings per barrel.

From Lewiston to Black Rock, six shillings per barrel, payable in salt at Black Rock, at forty-eight shillings per barrel.

From Presque Isle to Pittsburgh, fourteen shillings, payable in salt at Presque Isle, at fifty-four shillings per barrel.

The following are the cash prices of salt at the above places: At Oswego $2.50; Lewiston, $3.50; Black Rock, $4.50; Presquille, $5.50, per barrel.

Seneca grass grows near Buffalo Creek, and is sold by the Indians in small bunches. It is fragrant, and useful as the bean in perfuming segars.

The Commissioners gave the name of Grand Niagara to the village where Judge Porter resides. Grand is prefixed, to distinguish it from British Niagara, and the American fort, and on account of its vicinity to the Falls.

We visited the Adams, a brig of 150 tons and four guns, belonging to the United States, commanded by Commodore Brevoort, who appears to be a worthy officer. This is the only vessel we have on the lakes, and she is employed in transporting military stores. She can make a voyage to Fort Dearborn, upwards of 1000 miles, on lake Michigan, and return, in two months. The British have two armed vessels on this lake, one pierced for sixteen, and the other for twelve guns, and a fort to the south-west of Black Rock, called Fort Erie, and garrisoned by a Lieutenant and twenty men.

Commodore Brevoort says vessels drawing seven feet water, can at some seasons go from Fort Dearborn or Chaquagy, (Chicago) up a creek of that name, and to the Illinois River, whose waters in freshets meet, and so down the Mississippi; he thinks he can effect it in his brig, which draws but six feet when lightened. A brig of 150 tons, sailing from Black Rock to Hudson, would seem incredible.

On a commanding eminence at Black Rock, Gen. Wilkinson has designated a proper site for a fort.

Black Rock was crowded to-day with people from all quarters; it looked like an assembly for divine services. We saw Erastus Granger, Le Latteaux, a French gentleman, Andross, and others, and dined at Miller’s tavern, whose sign is surmounted with masonic emblems. Here we left Mr. Geddes to commence his surveys, and parted from Col. Porter with a great regret, who, on every occasion, exhibited himself in an amiable and respectable manner, and whose countenance brightened with a benignant smile, whenever he could contribute to our comfort or pleasure. We left the young gentlemen here, to follow, and after dinner proceeded, with our two carriages, three servants, and baggage-wagon, eight miles, to Ransom’s tavern, in the town of Buffalo, where we lodged, and which is a bad house. Three miles from Black Rock, there is a manufactory of red earthen ware. The country is well cultivated and settled.

August 6^th, Monday. We departed from Ransom’s at half-past five. Seven years ago he purchased this farm of 330 acres, at $3.50 an acre, amounting to $1,113; and last May he sold it for $5,650, being about $17 an acre. It has 300 fruit trees, 110 cleared acres, good out-buildings, and a small frame house. Land produces twenty bushels of wheat to an acre. The general price is eight shillings per bushel; now it sells for twelve shillings at the door. This is owing to the influx of settlers.

We observed from here to Vandewater’s, uniform oak plains, without any underwood, only one hill and one mill creek, called the Eleven Mile Creek. It is a lime-stone country.

Six miles at Harris’ tavern, we observed a considerable collection of people. A man of the name of Woodward was under examination on a charge of rape, committed on his wife’s daughter, a girl of sixteen. The crime was twice perpetrated, and the mother connived at it, as was alleged.

We passed a store with three inscriptions on its sign, in English, French, and German. Store, in English; Boutique, in French. This indicates the settlers in its vicinity. We breakfasted at Vandewater’s tavern, in the town of Clarence, fourteen miles from Ransom’s, after a ride of three hours.

Vandewater gave twenty-two shillings an acre, for 400 or 500 acres, seven or eight years ago; he now says it is worth $20 per acre. He has a tolerable frame house.

Two hundred yards south of his house, is a slope, or perpendicular descent, which he says extends from the Genesee River to Black Rock. Between it and the stone ridge or slope, which runs from the Genesee River to Lewiston, there is an immense valley, twenty miles across, called Tonnewanta Valley. The precipice at this slope is from 100 to 200 feet, composed principally of lime-stone and flint, combined like those on Bird Island, and bearing every mark of the lashing and wearing of the waves; the rocks are, indeed, scooped and hollowed out by water. On digging a cellar here, a great stratum of lake sand, and another of gravel, were found. The opinion here is, that Lake Erie formerly covered the Tonnewanta Valley, forming an immense bay, when the Niagara Falls were at Queenstown; and that on the receding of the cascade, Lake Erie receded from the valley, leaving the Tonnewanta Creek; and perhaps the stone ridge was the boundary between Lakes Erie and Ontario. Some suppose that Lake Erie formerly discharged itself by the Tonnewanta Valley into the Genesee River.

Between the house and the slope we collected some fossil shells and petrifactions, which are not to be found in the lakes, as well as of snakes and horns, imbedded in lime-stone. We also saw flint or silex, in calcareous or lime-stone, as at Bird Island. The same appearances exist at Cherry Valley, which country, like this, experiences a dearth of water. In the village of Buffalo, the whole village is supplied by hogsheads from a great spring, as tea water was formerly distributed from New York.

Vandewater supposes that the canal from Lake Erie ought to be on the south side of this precipice, not on the north side by the Tonnewanta Creek. Lobelia cardinalis, the cardinal flower, grows in marshy ground, a beautiful scarlet flower, on a plant about two feet high, the flower on the top of a conical form.

The road from here to Batavia, eighteen miles, is bad; it runs through swampy ground, and is sand with bogs. A dead level country, stagnant water, no appearance of stone, and every indication of an alluvial country. There is no free circulation of air, and the country must be insalubrious, although at Richardson’s tavern, seven miles from Vandewater’s, where we stopped to bait, they say they have lived in good health five years. The country abounds with meadow larks, robins, blue jays, and various kinds of woodpeckers.

Five miles from Vandewater’s we crossed Murder or Sulphur Creek, a small stream with a saw-mill. It is so called from sulphur springs, and from the circumstance of a crazy man, who had gone from the United States to Canada, being sent back under the care of some Indians, who tomahawked him here in his crazy fits. The county line of Genesee commences three miles west of Genesee. Richardson lives in the town of Batavia.

We arrived at Batavia about six o’clock, eleven miles from Richardson’s, having traveled thirty-two miles today. We put up at Keyes’ tavern, a good house, and in the evening we were visited by Joseph Ellicott, Stevens, Brisban, Col. Rumsey, and Judge Jones.

The latitude of Batavia is 43°. It contains a Court-house, built by the Holland Land Company for $10,000; a Post-office, and fifty houses, and several stores and taverns. A republican newspaper, called the Cornucopia, is published here. Tonnewanta Creek runs in front of the town, and has on its waters an excellent grist and saw-mill. We crossed this stream by a bridge, four miles back. It is a considerable turn, and as wide as Canandaigua outlet, at its confluence with Mud Creek. The office of the Holland Land Company is kept here, and three attornies already occupy this village. The situation of this village, with a mill dam in front, and surrounded by marshes, must be unhealthy, although the inhabitants deny the fact. This is invariably the case; the commodore asked an old woman on the miasmatic banks of the Seneca River, whether the place was healthy. "Very much so," says she, "we have only a disease called typhus."

The ridge, properly speaking, is the ground where the Ridge Road runs. The elevation back of it, and the elevation north of Vandewater’s, are not ridges, but slopes, because Mr. Ellicott says there is a descent only on one side. But a slope contains a gradual descent like an inclined plane, and here the descent is perpendicular, and precipitous in many places. The face of the country is a flat plain, and when you descend from the slope or ridge at Vandewater’s you stand on another plain, which runs across the Tonnewanta Valley, until you come to the ridge or slope back of the Ridge Road; and then you again descend on a plain, until you come to the ridge on which the ground is inclined gently to Lake Ontario. The level country is the cause of the scarcity of water, together with the great quantity of calcareous stone, the fissures of which absorb the water. Mr. Ellicott ways that the Oak Orchard Creek is the most considerable stream in the country. The upper slope that passes by Vandewater’s tavern, forms the falls of the Genesee River. (See its course traced on the map by Benjamin Ellicott.) The distance between the slopes varies from 12 to 20 miles. North of the Ridge Road, he says, there are no fortifications; between it and the lower slope there are several, and in other parts of the country they are numerous. Two important inferences may be drawn from this striking fact: --

1. That the ridge was the ancient boundary of Lake Ontario.

2. The great antiquity of the fortifications. They must have been erected before the retreat of the Lake.

The outlet of Lake Ontario ought to be examined, in order to ascertain the breaking of the waters by the St. Lawrence. The Thousand Islands there must have been then formed. The bay of Lake Erie which run up into the Tonnewanta Valley, covered, of course, the country between the slopes, and formed the Genesee Flats.

As the antiquity and great population of the Aborigines are undoubted, Gen. North inquires whether the sudden retreat of the lakes may not have produced a wide-spreading pestilence, which may have depopulated this country.

If, as Volney fancifully suggests, Lake Ontario was the crater of a volcano, all these speculations are visionary; but they are probably better founded than his. I saw no traces of basalt on the borders of the lake -- nothing to indicate the existence of a volcano.

In the tavern there was an advertisement of William Wadsworth, dated Geneseo. He proposes to let out half-blooded merino rams, to be delivered on the first of September, each ram to be put to fifty ewes, and no more, before the 1^st of October, and to be returned on the 1^st of June, unsheared. All the ram progeny to be returned, and he is to have all the ewe lambs except two (from each ram), for each of which he is to pay eight shillings cash, on the 1^st September, 1811. He charges nothing for the use of the rams.

August 7^th. After breakfast we visited Mr. Ellicott, who keeps the office of the Holland Land Company. He has five clerks, a salary of $2,000, and a commission of five per cent. on his sales. The management and method of his office are admirable. He has a large map in which is laid down every lot, and a memorandum book giving the character and value of it, to which he can refer instantly. The whole bespeaks great intelligence and talents for business. The sales of the Company are made by contracts only, on credit of ten years, -- two without interest.

In Ellicott’s garden there grew capers and cammomile, and the largest poppies I ever saw. We examined, at his house, a clock made by his father, Joseph Ellicott, a self-taught man, who was brought up a mill-wright. On one side was a clock which designated the second, the minute, the day, the month, and the year. on another an orrery, working out the revolutions of the planets and their satellites. On another a musical machinery, which can play twenty-four tunes. The mechanical execution was admirable, and so were the mahogany case and the painting of the faces of the machine, and strange to tell, they were both made by persons who took up the business without any previous instruction.

The Court-house erected by the Company is, perhaps, the best in the Western District. The Court-room has a gallery for the audience, and the building also contains an hotel.

A quarter of an acre lot in the best part of the village sells for $160, and lots of forty acres, in more retired parts, for $600.

Who has the preemptive right to the Indian reservations in the Holland Land Company’s territories? Mr. Ellicott says the Company, not the State.

Six miles from Batavia we passed Allen’s Creek, a considerable stream, which runs into the Genesee River; on it are mills. In the bottom of this stream is found a black inflammable stone, of which I have a specimen. Is this black stone connected with a coal mine? Is it not schistic or slate?

We took a collation at Ganson’s tavern, twelve miles from Batavia, in the town of Caledonia, which is divided from Batavia by the transit line, which runs a little to the east of Marvin’s tavern. The roads so far, except four miles, are good, and the country well settled.

The usual passage of small fish is down a river to the sea. Young eels are seen at Albany going up the river in swarms. Probably they are produced in the ocean. They have no visible organs of generation, nor has their spawn ever been observed. Why are there not eels in Lake Erie? If they cannot ascend the falls, cannot they get into the lakes by the Illinois River and Chequaga Creek? Are they ever seen at the head of those streams?

At Cameron’s tavern, five miles east from Ganson’s, we saw perennial springs, which rise out of the ground and immediately fill a mill pond.

Pedlars from Connecticut sell wooden clocks all over this country, for $20, and they answer very well. We met tin pedlars in all directions, dickering (a Yankee word for barter) for feathers.

From [Original text has "Brom"] Buffalo Creek eastward, we perceived streaks of corn-fields on the low land blighted by the frost of the 18^th of July. The high grounds escaped.

On the west side of the Genesee River there is an extensive oak forest, with no underwood, but various shrubbery, and on the Genesee Flats, the prairies or savannah appear. Within two miles of this river, on the west side, the country from being an apparent flat level, descends towards the river, and from Avon you can see the upper slope running up and down the west side of the river.

We crossed a bridge over this river. It contains but a small body of water, about two feet deep. The banks are fifty feet high. Sullivan approached with his army as far as this river. As you approach the bridge you pass Caughnawaga reservation, a mile square. The land is fine, and it was filled with horses, neat cattle, and hogs.

We slept at Avon, on the east side of the river, in Ontario County, at Maria Berry’s tavern, a good house. This place is laid out for a village, by Mr. James Wadsworth. He sells his lots for $50 an acre. It contains a few houses.

We got a young Indian here to shoot at a silver piece, by blowing through a reed of six feet long, a small arrow surmounted with hair. He hit the mark with great exactness, ten paces, and in this way they kill small birds.

August 8^th. We set out at six, and breakfasted at Frost’s (formerly Warner’s) tavern, in Lima, eight miles from Avon. At this place there is a Post-office, store, and two or three houses.

The country has departed from the flat level on the west side; is better watered, and is varied by hill and dale -- fertile and populous.

Frost had reaped thirty acres of wheat, so extraordinarily productive, that he estimates it at forty bushels an acre. But he says, that in consequence of the heavy rains after it was cut, and before it was gathered, it had grown in the sheaf, and cannot be manufactured into flour, but that he can make more of it by converting it into whiskey. He rents seventy acres of Warner’s farm (which consists of 400) and the tavern, for $300 a-year.

Two miles from here to Honeyoe Creek, a handsome stream which proceeds from the lake of that name, and four miles farther, we entered West Bloomfield, which contains a brick Presbyterian church, post-office, stores, and several houses. General Hull resides here, in an humble house, and since he has become a member of the Council of Appointment, has abandoned tavern-keeping.

From the high hills here, ranges of high land are to be seen, running south and south-east at the distance of ten miles, as far as the eye can reach, forming spurs of the Alleghany mountains, from whence proceed, in opposite directions, the Genesee, Tioga, and Alleghany rivers; probably the upper slope or ridge territories in these high lands.

Bloomfield is a succession of hills and valleys, and is a populous and fertile country.

In East Bloomfield there is a handsome frame Presbyterian church, with a high steeple, and surrounded by sheds, for the accommodation of horses and carriages; also a Post-office, stores, and a few houses. This fertile country is stored with fruit trees.

Five miles from Canandaigua we passed Mud Creek, a low, small stream.

We arrived in that village between one and two, where we found the young gentlemen, Rees, the Sheriff, Bates, and Spencer. We dined there.

One mile south of Canandaigua, on a hill, there is a fort, larger than the one before described. Twenty or thirty rods from it there is a burying ground, where, for the sake of the things found, great numbers of graves have been dug up, and gun barrels, copper kettles, and wampum found.

Morris gave $150 here for a horse, seeing him accidentally as he rode along, for which the proprietor would have willingly have taken $70. This affair made a great noise here, and the dealers in horses declare that he has ruined the market.

After the commodore had hired and dismissed two wagons, in order to carry us to Geneva, and after a scene of great confusion we left Canandaigua in an extra stage, two servants coming on in a baggage wagon (one being dismissed here), and the young gentlemen to join us in the morning. We traveled on the Seneca turnpike, which extends from this place to Utica, 112 miles; and then the Mohawk and Schenectady turnpike extends ninety-six miles to Albany. A great concourse of travellers on this road.

The distance from Canandaigua to Geneva is sixteen miles. Half way we passed over Flint Creek, a fine stream that empties into Canandaigua outlet, as all creeks or rivers proceeding from lakes are denominated in this country.

We arrived at Geneva in the evening, where we supped and slept. The house was full, and a dancing school was at work. We, however, made out as well as we had a right to expect. The inns at such a place as this will always be crowded at this season. A tour to Niagara, like one to Ballston Spa, is now common, and considered a mere pleasurable experience.

August 9^th. The Rev. Mr. Chapman called on me with a subscription for the Presbyterian church, erecting here. I subscribed $20. I also purchased a pamphlet relative to Jemima Wilkinson, and one describing this country, by Mr. Munn.

A glass manufactory is erecting about two miles from this village. It was incorporated last winter, and a little village is already rising up around it.

Here we separated. North and S. Osgood were to proceed in the stage to-morrow. The commodore and son were to join us at Auburn, and Mr. De Witt, myself, and a servant set out after dinner, at three o’clock, with a view of going to the head of the lakes, passing Ithaca, and returning on the east side of the Cayuga Lake to Auburn, to which place we sent the heavy baggage wagon, under the care of a servant. We proceeded fourteen miles to John Dey’s, in Apple Town, where we lodged, and were hospitably received.

Our road lay between the lakes on the East side of the Seneca Lake, which runs north and south, and much resembles the Hudson in its appearance. Its Indian name was Canadisaga, a beautiful name, which it ought to have retained.

Sullivan’s army, after defeating the Indians at Newtown who were 2,500 strong, one section of it having formed a junction with the main body by the damming of the Otsego Lake, passed through the country between the lakes. The marks of an old road are still to be seen at Apple Town; pack horses and light field pieces were all that were brought, and no wagons were used. The first traces of white clover in this country were exhibited on this road, which shows that it does not grow naturally, but was introduced by the pack horses. There was a great village of the Senecas at Apple Town, named Conadagh. Here was an Indian orchard, which was cut down by Sullivan. This has eventually turned out for the benefit of the orchard. Those cut down have grown up and make a fine orchard of eighty trees, while those that were passed over are antiquated and good for nothing. They generally grow irregularly. In one place, on a hill, they appear as if regularly planted out. The Indians had plenty of peach trees. Great heaps of the stones have been found, the shell in good condition, but the nucleus dead. Sullivan’s army also destroyed an Indian village, a mile or two from Geneva and the before-mentioned Canadesaga, where there were a number of fruit trees. When it approached Canandaigua, where several settlements were also destroyed, the Indians concealed their families on a small island in the lake, which is now, from the circumstance, denominated Squaw Island. The men concealed themselves armed in the woods.

On our way we saw an eagle, cranes, and several ravens, as black, and at least twice as large as crows, of which latter there are none in this country.

We halted at Benjamin Day’s, in Fayette, eight miles from Geneva. He is an old bachelor, with an estate here of 2400 acres. He says that eight acres of his land has produced this year fifty bushels of wheat each. The Seneca wheat is the best in the State. The average produce is thirty bushels an acre. Mynderse’s Mills, which manufacture the best flour in the State, owe their celebrity, in a great degree, to the excellence of this wheat. Two miles farther is a tavern, kept by John Sayre. Our driver left at it a letter, directed "To the Honorable John Sayre, Romulus."

The road to Apple Town was tolerable, near the lake, and in a beautiful fertile country ascending gently from the lake. Apple Town is in Romulus, in which town wild lands sell from $5 to $20, and improved land from $20 to $30 per acre. Apple Town was formerly owned by Elkanah Watson, 200 acres of which was reserved by him for a town, which he called New Plymouth. It is now all owned by Day, who gave $13 an acre for it eight years ago. The lakes here are only seven miles distant. Day’s place is in the same latitude as Albany, and much warmer. Seneca Lake does not freeze. The people on the margin sometimes complain of cold in the winter, but it is owing to the humidity acquired by the wind in passing over the lakes. The water is always warmer than the air, and in passing over the water, the severity of the air is mitigated. This lake is very deep. The frost of the 18^th July did not injure the corn within two or three miles, and snow does not continue long within that distance. It is a vulgar prejudice that the great lakes are the source of cold. Canandaigua Lake freezes; Cayuga, only fourteen miles up. May not one reason of Erie’s freezing, and not Ontario, be, that the former is more in the line of the north-west wind, which comes from the frozen deserts beyond Lake Superior? The scarcity of fish in the Seneca Lake is attributable to the obstructions at the outlet, and perhaps to the transparency of the waters, and the paucity of weeds to conceal them. This lake is remarkably healthy.

A copper medal was dug up here from an Indian grave, and was accompanied by wampum. Mr. Davis gave it to me for the Historical Society.

On one side is the sun with a cross in the center, shining on an altar, and an Indian and European with hands united at the altar; and on the other the Virgin Mary, with this inscription on the edge, and filling the exterior part of the medal, which is circular: "B. virgo sine para originali concepta." There is a hole for a ribbon to pass through, and to suspend this medal round the neck. The Indian in whose grave it was interred was probably a Roman Catholic. There are five brothers of the name of Day, who migrated from Paterson’s Falls, in New Jersey, and are settled here near each other. J. Day is lame, as is his son, from a slight cut in the knee-pan, who is a fine young man, studying law with Mr. Howell, of Canandaigua. The family were very kind, and Mr. Day would be much more estimable, if he did not apologize too often for working, which ought to be his pride.

There is a cranberry marsh a few miles from here, which contains 700 acres. A considerable stream runs from it into the Seneca outlet. It has the indications of being an ancient lake, and may be converted into hemp land. The Messrs. Porters bought 1000 acres on the ridge road, a few miles from Lewiston, for twelve shillings an acre, from the Holland Land Company, for that purpose, and are now draining it with great facility.

It is said that there is near here a quarry of oil-stone, and also a salt spring, formerly worked by the Indians.

August 10^th. After breakfast, we left Mr. Day’s at seven o’clock, and passed by Bailey Town two miles, where the road leaves the Seneca, and turns off to the Cayuga Lake. This place has about twenty houses, two taverns, and a store. The Seneca Lake is four and a-half miles wide at Apple Town.

It is six miles from the Day’s to the Court-house, in Ovid. This is built on the central part of the land between the lakes, and is the most elevated. We ascended the steeple, and had a fair view of the two lakes, and the villages of Aurora and Geneva. The Court-house is a mean building. Three buildings have the appearance of Attornies’ offices, a tavern, and a few houses, compose the village, in which quarter-acres lots sell for from $20 to $30. Seneca county extends from the head of the lakes to Lake Ontario, and in some places is not more than seven miles wide. Mr. Halsey, the chief agitator for this long and narrow country, lives a few miles from the court, and has secured the office of clerk for himself, and of surrogate for his son-in-law. Near this place, saw a field of common thistles in blossom, which looked like red clover. Mandrakes, pennyroyal, Oswego bitters, and thistles, in great plenty along the road. Of birds we saw quails, robins, bluejays, woodpeckers of several kinds, and numbers of the smaller birds.

Three miles from the Court-house, went half-a-mile out of our way, to visit No. 29 Ovid, on the same ridge of highland as the Court-house, where we saw an old fort six miles from each lake. Mr. Bandowine, the owner, has several flourishing nurseries of peach and apple trees. His house is in the fort, the shape of which appears to be an irregular ellipsis, and it contains about two acres. The place where the south gate or passage was, we could observe directly, and by the compass it stood directly south. The ditch was around the fort, and in some places nearly choked up, and the breastwork was sunk within about three feet from its top to the bottom of the ditch.

Bandowine says, that there is another in Romulus fourteen miles distant, in which has been dug up a chalky substance, supposed to be calcined bones. Another in Ulysses twelve miles, at Jonathan Owen’s; and another four miles from the last, in the same town. He says that he has discovered on his farm of three hundred acres six different places in which, by digging three feet, he found stones that had the appearance of having been caved in; burnt ashes and coal at the bottom, and sand. He supposes them to have been Indian potteries, or places for culinary purposes. In some of these ancient forts trees 200 years old have been seen, and also trees dead with age. It is said that there is a chain of these ancient forts, from Geneva to the Genesee River, and from thence to Lake Erie. A person told me that those about Canandaigua were circular and had four gates, corresponding to the four cardinal points of the compass. Robert Munro in his description of the Genesee country, published in 1804, says, "There are many remains of ancient fortifications, a chain of which appears to extend from the lower end of Lake Ontario, to the west of the Ohio River. These forts afford much speculation concerning their origin; but the most probable conclusion is, that they were erected by the French upon their first settlement of America, about 200 years ago." I quote this writer for the facts, not for the opinion, which I believe to be incorrect.

We dined at Tremain’s Village, so called from the soldier who owns the lot for military services. He resides here, and is proprietor of the mills, and in good circumstances. The village has several houses, three taverns, and two or three stores, and mills in a ravine or hollow, formed by a creek which runs through it. It is in the town of Ulysses, and was formerly called Shin Hollow, by some drunken fellows, who, on the first settlement, frequented a log-tavern here, and on their way home broke their shins on the bad roads. Dr. Comstock and another physician reside here. The contemplated turnpike, from Ithaca to Geneva, will pass through this place. We dined here at Crandall’s tavern.

Ten miles north of Tremain’s village, we passed a Presbyterian Church with a small wooden frame, and two miles north an uncommonly fine nursery of fruit-trees, principally peach.

From here to Ithaca it is eleven miles, and the road is extremely bad, except four miles from the former village. We passed through an uncommonly fine wood of pine-trees. The road in several places appeared to be diverted recently, either by new settlers, in order that it might pass by their houses, or for the purpose of avoiding sloughs and fallen trees. On descending to the head of the lake, we had a beautiful view of a large fall of water, of thirty feet, on the east side of the lake, which appeared in perspective, like a superb [original text has "surperb"] white house. This fall is on Fall Creek. We also perceived the lake and the village of Ithaca in a valley. We arrived there about sun-down, and put up at Gere’s tavern.

Some of the new settlers clear the lands by beginning at the tops of the trees, and cutting the limbs. The upper ones break off the lower, and they soon strip the loftiest hemlock. We saw some of those trees trimmed in that way. Others prefer making a road where the trees have not been cut down, as they can root them up, and the weight of the trees in falling will remove the roots, which cannot be got rid of in cutting.

The distance from Ithaca to Newburgh, by turnpike-roads nearly completed, is 166 miles. To Kingston, about the same. To Albany 210; but if a road is opened by Sherburne, the distance will be reduced to 165. Sixty-five of it is now so bad, that it can only be traveled on horseback. To New York, via Powles’s Hook, when the contemplated roads are finished, 200. To Philadelphia, the same distance. The road in both cases will go as far as Milford, on the Delaware, which is about twelve miles from Sussex court-house. To Baltimore about 300 miles. The navigation is good from Owego to Wilkesbarre (Wyoming), 118 miles, at which the Philadelphians intend to divert the trade from Baltimore, by a good turnpike-road to Philadelphia, and by establishing houses there to purchase the produce that goes down the Susquehannah. From Ithaca to Owego, twenty-eight miles, a good turnpike-road will be finished this fall.

The price of a barrel of salt at Ithaca is twenty shillings; conveyance to Owego by land, six shillings; from Owego to Baltimore, by water, eight shillings. Allowing a profit of six shillings on a barrel, salt can be sent from here to Baltimore, for one dollar per bushel. Packing-salt sold there last spring for six shillings. Each 100 lbs. carried by water from Ithaca to Schenectady, cost $1.26; by land, $1.50. A barrel of potash will cost, to carry to Schenectady, $6.50, and from thence to Albany fifty cents. To New York via Albany, storage, commission, and all other expenses, $7.75.

Salt is taken down the country from this place by water, as far as Northumberland, Pennsylvania, 150 miles from Owego. It is 120 miles from here to the head-waters of the Alleghany. There is no road but a sleigh-road, in winter, by which salt is conveyed in small quantities; 3,500 barrels will be distributed from Ithaca this season.

Flour will be sent from this place to Montreal, via Oswego, or to Baltimore via Owego. There is no great difference in the expense of transportation. It will probably seek Montreal as the most certain market.

A boat carrying from 100 to 140 barrels, will go to and return from Schenectady in six weeks. An ark carrying 250 barrels, costs $75 at Owego. It can go down the river to Baltimore, in eight, ten, or twelve days, and when there, it will sell for half the original price. The owner, after vending his produce, returns home by land with his money, or goes to New York by water, where, as at Albany, he lays out his money in goods. The rapids of the Susquehannah are fatal to ascending navigation.

Cattle are sent in droves to Philadelphia. Seneca County, it is estimated, will send 2000 head this year. Upwards of 200 barrels of beef and pork were sent from this place last spring, by arks, to Baltimore from Owego, by Buell and Gere, and sold to advantage.

We were told here, that the deep well which was digging at Montezuma, when we were there, is finished, and that when the workmen had penetrated to the depth of 105 feet, they struck something hard, supposed to be the fossil salt, and the water ascended with such rapidity, that they were compelled to escape as soon as possible. That it now overflows the well, is stronger than any other, and that fifty gallons will make a bushel.

Ithaca contains a post office, two taverns, stores, tannery, mills, etc., and near fifty houses. It is one and a-half miles from the Cayuga Lake. Boats can come up, about one quarter of a mile from the compact part of the village, in an inlet, which is dead water. It is in a valley, is surrounded by hills on three sides, and on the north by the lake and its marshes. A creek runs through Ithaca, that turns a mill, supplies a tannery, etc., and contains good trout. The situation of this place, at the head of Cayuga Lake, and a short distance from the descending waters to the Atlantic, and about 120 miles to the descending waters to the Mississippi, must render it a place of great importance.

The cucumber and coffee-trees, and plenty of pitch-pine, grow in the adjacent country. One hundred barrels of tar are brought here yearly, at $4 cash.

The proprietor of this village is the Surveyor-General. He has a merino ram of the 15/16, who has by thirty-three common ewes, forty-four lambs this year, twenty-eight of which are rams, and sixteen ewes. He intends to sell the rams at $10 a piece; to purchase 100 ewes at nineteen or twenty shillings a piece; and as he has procured a full-blooded ram from the Clermont breed, his stock will then consist of the two rams and 150 ewes. He has selected a beautiful and very elevated spot, on the east hill, for a house, on which there is a small grove of the white pine, from which you have a grand view of the lake and country. On the north of this mount, you see below you a precipice of 100 feet, at the foot of which there passes through the fissures of the rock a considerable stream. The remains of the first mill in this country are there visible. It is not much larger than a large hog-pen and the stones were the size of the largest grind-stones; a trough led the water to the wheel. It ground about forty or fifty bushels a-day; was the first mill in this country, erected by one Hancock, a squatter, and was resorted to by people at a distance of thirty miles. From the western side of the mount, a spring of water issues, that can supply the house by aqueducts.

August 11^th. We spent this day at Ithaca. It rained heavily in the night, and was showery in the morning, after which it became very close and warm. It felt as if divested of oxygen, and destitute of a vital principle. The sun shone in the afternoon, and you could not sit in a room without perspiration. It was undoubtedly the hottest day of the season.

I saw here Abraham Johnson, formerly a sergeant in Gen. Clinton’s brigade, and who wrote a song on the storming of Fort Montgomery, which was afterwards printed. He lives near here and is doing well.

Salmon frequented this lake the latter end of August, and continued until cold weather. Last year, since the erection of Baldwin’s mill dam across the Seneca River, they did not appear until October, and then not in the usual number. Some have always continued over the winter, and are caught by openings in the ice, with a hook and a bait of pork or white worm. Shad come up the Susquehannah, and are caught at Owego, and week-fish at Tioga Point.

Baldwin’s dam, it is said here, does not promote the navigation. Boats are frequently detained there several days, and are often forced to take out part of their lading. At the last court, a boatman recovered $100 in damages against him for detention. The boatmen and people interested in the navigation were prevailed on by him to petition in favor of the dam, in consequence of which the law was passed, and they now bitterly regret it.

The Surveyor-General has sold out many lots, not quite a quarter of an acre each, for $25 or $30, but has stopped the sales, to see whether the conditions of improvement will be fulfilled. Four years ago there were but two or three houses, and when the contemplated canal into the center of the village is completed, it must increase with great rapidity.

A republican newspaper called "The American Farmer," is printed at Owego, Tioga county, by Stephen Mack. There is a fine tree in this country called the Balsam Poplar, which is the same as our Balm of Gilead. The botanic name of the Button-wood, is the plane tree; it is falsely called the Sycamore, which does not exist in this country. The Bass is a Dutch name, its true name is Linden.

There are in the western woods five or six different kinds of plum and the crab-apple, which in blossom emit a fragrant smell, and the fruit makes good sweetmeats. I saw here a species of wild balm and of wild mint. The Oswego bitters or tea grow all over this country, and has a flower at the extremity somewhat resembling a poppy.

It is said that there are salt lakes in this country, and one near this place, formerly much frequented by deer, who were in great plenty when the country was first settled, and on being pursued by dogs, immediately took to the lakes, in which they were easily shot. About twelve miles south-west of the great bend of the Susquehannah in Pennsylvania, there is a salt spring to which the Indians formerly resorted. This is probably a link in the chain of fossil salt, extending from Salina to Louisiana, like the main range of the Alleghany mountains.

There is said to be iron ore near Utica. About 200 yards from Gere’s tavern, a gun barrel and kettle were dug up from a supposed Indian grave.

It was pleasing to see all over the country advertisements of machines for carding wool.

Mr. Gere has finished, for $2,300 in stock of the Ithaca and Owego Turnpike Company, three miles of that turnpike, from the 10^th of April to the 10^th of July, with eight men, four yoke of oxen, and two teams of horses. Scrapers are a powerful engine in making roads. He is also building an elegant frame hotel, three stories high, and 50 by 40 feet, with suitable out-buildings and garden. The carpenters’ work was contracted for at $1,500; the whole will not cost more that $6,000. Travelers from New York, Philadelphia, etc., will find this a much nearer route to Geneva, Genesee, the Lakes and Upper Canada, than by Albany, and the road very accommodating when the Ithaca and Geneva turnpike is made. Gere is a very enterprising man, and vastly superior to his brother-in-law and partner, Judge B., who appears to have exhausted his genius, in giving his children eccentric names, as Don Carlos, Julius Octavius, Joanna Almeria.

Fourteen miles from Ithaca, in the town of Spencer, Tioga county, is a settlement of Virginians called Speed; they are all Federalists. An old man of the name of Hyde belonging to it, spent at least five hours in the tavern to-day, and went off so drunk that he could hardly balance himself on his horse. Behind him was a bag, containing on each side a keg of liquor, and his pockets were loaded with bottles. In the bar-room he abused Jefferson, Madison, and a number of other leading Republicans.

Does it make any essential difference to the community where its produce is sold, if sold to profit? If a bushel of wheat can be carried to Baltimore for six shillings less than the expense to Albany, ought not this to be encouraged? Here the profit to the farmer competes with that of the merchant. But the importing merchant is not injured; the money is carried to New York and expended in merchandize, and more is expended in consequence of the increased price of the commodity. How does this doctrine bear on the Montreal trade? This idea deserves further reflection.

About Ithaca there is more pine than in any other part of the western country. Several hundred barrels of tar are made of the pitch pine. The best land is denoted by the presence of the black walnut and beach; oak, maple, and bass come next, and the last in order are hemlock and pine.

August 12^th, Sunday. We left Ithaca at five. The house was good and the bill moderate. We were accommodated with the family sitting-room, as a mark of respect, but we were not a little surprised to find it occupied at the same time by a sewing girl, and we were frequently disturbed by noisy debates on politics, from the adjacent bar-room.

We passed Fall Creek, and had a near view of its fall, before described. A large volume of water tumbles perpendicularly over a precipice of fifty feet. After seeing the Falls of Niagara, every object of this kind loses its interest and its grasp on the attention.

About six miles we were overtaken by a shower, and sheltered ourselves for a few minutes in a farmer’s house, in Geneva, formerly Milton. He lives on No. 91 Milton, and has lived there four years. He brought sixty acres for $8, thirty for $17, and ten for $20.

Nine miles from Ithaca we passed Salmon Creek, a considerable stream, on which are mills, built by one Ludlow; and a mile farther we ascended a very elevated hill, from which we had a prospect of Ithaca, the lake, and a great part of Seneca county. Here are some houses, and a Post-Office.

Sixteen miles from Ithaca we breakfasted at Conklin’s tavern, at nine o’clock. Here a road leads along the Poplar Ridge, the Seneca turnpike, and another to Aurora, by the lake. The country so far is well settled, and the houses good.

Conklin was formerly overseer of Gen. Van Cortland, and lives on 42 Milton. He says that no land in this vicinity can be purchased by the 100 acres, under $20 per acre.

The whole morning we had light showers, blowing up to the head of the lake. We took the Poplar Ridge road, as the nearest and best. The country is well settled; we could see houses intermixed in all the stages of improvement, from the rough cabin to the elegant villa, and stumps and fruit-trees in the same field -- spectacles not to be seen in any other country. In the first stage of cultivation, when the trees are cut down a cabin is erected. In the second stage a neat log-house, with sometimes two stories. The third erects a frame house; and the fourth, a large painted or brick house. A Yankee lays out his money on his house, the inside of which he never finishes -- a Dutchman on his barn. The former always builds on roads, the latter on flats, or in vallies. We found the road good, and lined with May-weed. Thistles, and uncommonly large sumach, hollyhocks, and poppies, in every garden, and small sun-flowers wild in the field. We also perceived marsh black-birds in flocks, high-holes, woodpeckers, and bluejays, in great number.

At the distance of every mile we passed cross-roads running to the lake, and at convenient intervals, blacksmith’s shops and school-houses. The corn was excellent, and the harvest-fields of wheat, either in shocks or clean, abundant. We passed a handsome Presbyterian church, four miles from Conklin’s, where we saw twelve covered carriages of different kinds, and a number of plain wagons and horses.

Nine miles from Conklin’s we stopped at Augustus Chidsey’s to rest. This is a well-improved, pleasant place, is in the town of Scipio, and was sold last May to William L. Burling, of New York, for $23.50 an acre, who intends to reside here, and who has purchased a merino ram and ewe.

In various orchards along the road we saw from 100 to 300 apple trees. Seven miles from Chidsey’s, there is an orchard containing upwards of 1000 fruit-trees, planted by Wells, from Vermont, one of the oldest settlers. Half-a-mile from Chidsey’s, at Watkins’s Corner, we passed a Baptist church, and several houses. The Poplar Ridge road is, generally speaking, excellent, and is on an average about four miles from the lake.

We dined at Henry Moore’s tavern, four miles from the Cayuga Lake, fourteen from Musquito Point on the Seneca River, where his son-in-law, Lyons, keeps the tavern; eleven miles from Chidsey’s tavern, and four and a-half from Auburn. He migrated from Southhold, in Suffolk county, to this place, about eighteen years ago, and purchased 500 acres, in 62 Aurelius where he lives, for $150. He now owns upwards of 1000 acres of land, is opulent and respectable. Moore is a Republican, as all emigrants from Suffolk county are. He takes the Albany Register.

About half-a-mile from his house, and three and a-half from the Cayuga Lake, there is on Lot 69 of the Cayuga Reservation, containing 240 acres and owned by him, a ledge of rocks and stones extending a mile in a parallel direction with the lake. The higher stratum is composed of limestone, and the next adjoining one of sandstone embedded with marine substances. There is but one stratum of sandstone, of the thickness of two or three feet, and below and beneath as well as above it, there is limestone. The sandstone contains several marine shells, which appear to be strange, and I should therefore pronounce them oceanic. There are littoral ones also, such as scallops, and in one instance a periwinkle was found and sent to Peale’s Museum in Philadelphia. One strange substance is larger than a scallop, and is like a horse-shoe in miniature. From the propinquity to the limestone, I should suppose that the sand and marine substances were connected by a solution of the calcareous matter. Some of the stones are ejected probably by torrents, from the regular layer. The sandstone is easily broken, and when pounded or burnt is converted into a fine marine sand. This collection of sandstone demonstrates the existence of the ocean here. These sandstones are found singly, all over the field in this place. We have now seen shells and other marine substances in limestone, is sandstone, and in flint, at Mynderse’s Mills. Moore’s cellar is partly dug out of a slate rock, and the walls of it are made of the sandstone. When the women of the family want sand, they reduce the stone by ignition.

The ground adjacent to the road is covered from here to Auburn with May-weed, which is a species of camomile used by old women in medicine. The seed was sown and brought into the country by them. The Oswego bitters is denominated wild balm in this country.

The large wagons carrying forty or fifty hundred weight, go from Geneva to Albany, for $3 a hundred, carrying and returning with a load, which makes about six dollars a day, as they consume twenty days out and home. They make thirteen trips in a year, and find it profitable two-thirds of the time. They generally use five horses; the rims of the wagons are six inches broad, and one has nine inches, and six horses. They have selected taverns by the way, which furnish them with provender nearly at prime cost. From Auburn the charge is twenty-two shillings per cwt., twelve shillings in going and ten in returning, with a load. This mode of transportation is said to be as cheap as water-carriage, and safer.

A mile from Moore’s we entered the great Seneca turnpike. At the junction of these roads there is Presbyterian Church. We arrived at Bostwick’s tavern, in Auburn, where we found the commodore and son, and baggage. The turnpike was not so good as the upper Ridge Road, the ground being sunk and wet.

August 13^th. Here we engaged a coachee and common wagon, owned by Fitch, a tavern-keeper, to convey us to Utica. Here the Surveyor-General learned from a newspaper the burning of some of his out-houses at Albany, and took passage in the stage, in which were O.L. Phelps and wife, and William Ogden of New York, &c.

Auburn derives its name from Goldsmith. It contains three tanneries, three distilleries, one coachmaker, two watchmakers, four taverns, two tailors, six merchants, three shoemakers, two potasheries, two wagon makers, three blacksmiths, two chair-makers, three saddlers, three physicians, a Presbyterian clergyman, and an incorporated library of 220 volumes. It is the county town, and has about ninety houses, three law offices, a Post-office, the Court-house, and the county clerk’s office. It is a fine growing place, and is indebted to its hydraulic works and the Court-house for its prosperity.

There are sixteen lawyers in Cayuga county. Auburn has no church. The Court-house is used for divine worship.

It is situate on the outlet of Owasco Lake, on Nos. 46 and 47 Aurelius; 100 acres of 46 belongs to W. Bostwick, inn-keeper, and the remainder to Robert Dill. The former has asked $150 for half-acre lots, the Court-house being on his land; and the latter has asked $300 for a water-lot on the outlet, which is not navigable. No. 47 belongs to the heirs of John L. Hardenbergh, and covers the best waters of the outlet, and a fine rapid stream. Auburn is eight miles from Cayuga Lake, three from Owasco Lake, and not seventy-five from Utica. Owasco Lake is twelve miles long and one wide. The outlet is fourteen miles long, and on it are the following hydraulic establishments: -- nine saw mills, two carding machines, two turner’s shops, one trip hammer and blacksmith’s shop, two oil mills, five grist mills, three fulling mills, one bark mill, and several tanneries. At the lower falls, Mr. Dill has a furnace, in which he uses old iron, there being no iron ore.

At this place there is a Federal newspaper, published by Pan, the former partner of James Thompson Callender. Pan settled first at Aurora, being allured there by Walter Wood, and being starved out there, he came here, and is principally supported by advertisements of mortgages, which must, if there be a paper in the county where the lands lie, be printed in it, and this is the only one in Cayuga country.

The machine for picking wool is excellent. The carding machine is next used, and turns out the wool in complete rolls. It can card 112 pounds per day, and one man attends both. Four shillings per pound is given for wool. Carding, picking, and greasing wool (the grease furnished by the owner of the wool), is eight pence per pound. There are upwards of twenty carding machines in this county, and great numbers of sheep are driven to the New York market.

The linseed oil mill can express fifteen gallons of oil in a day, and with great effort a barrel. The flax seed is broken by two mill stones, placed perpendicularly, like those of bark mills, and following each other in succession. Seed costs from two to seven shillings per bushel, and each bushel produces three or four quarts. The oil sells at the mile for nine shillings a gallon. Oil is also expressed from the seed of the sunflower. One bushel makes two gallons; it is excellent for burning, and makes no smoke. Oil is also made here from Palma Christi.

At a mill north-west from Auburn, on 37 Aurelius, a spring rises perpendicularly out of the level earth. It produces two hogsheads a minute, and immediately forms a mill stream. A few yards below it is a fulling mill. The water is uncommonly good and cold. I found in it a honeycombed fossil, like those at the Sulphur, at Cherry Valley, and near Geneva. This spring is called the Cold Spring. There are two or three others near it, and the creek formed by them, called Cold Spring Creek, contains excellent trout. About a mile from the cold spring there is a sulphur spring. From the fossil found at the cold spring, and the coldness of the water, it must run over sulphur. There is a sulphur spring on the margin of the Cayuga Lake.

Old Forts. Half a-mile south of Auburn, there is an old fort on very high ground, which is surrounded to a considerable extent with deep ravines and precipitous valleys. A ditch is to be distinctly traced on the outside of the breastwork, on the level ground, but it appears to be lost when it reaches the precipices, where there is no occasion for it. There are large trees in and about the ditches, and some in the fort, dead with age. The North Gate can be distinctly traced. It contains between two and three acres, and covers the most commanding ground in the country. We saw several holes which appeared to have been dug within a few years, by superstitious persons, in search of money.

One mile north from Auburn, and on ground equally elevated, there is a similar work, covering four acres. Pieces of Indian earthenware have been found in it. It has a very high breastwork. It contains a north gate, the entrance of which must have been from the west, and produced by the lapping of the breast-work. A large oak tree, three and a half feet in diameter, was cut down on the breastwork, which, from the circles on it, must have been 260 years old. The whole is surrounded by a ditch.

Eight miles from Auburn, in Camillus, there is another fort, which has a breastwork seven feet high, a ditch four feet deep, and it is twenty-five feet from the extremity of the ditch to the top of the breastwork. It is a perfect ellipsis, and has an east and west gate only. There is an oak tree on the breastwork, which is three feet diameter, and which, from its circles, has been there upwards of 300 years, and its roots show that it was not left standing when the work was erected. Six miles from Auburn, in Scipio, there is another fort with a ditch, and breastwork on one side only. It is situated at the confluence of two streams, and the ditch and breastwork from the base of the triangle. Twenty-five rods from the ditch, and in the interior of the fort there is a trench. In digging into it two or three feet, the remains of bones in a calcined form are found. The remains of stone walls are to be seen along the streams in the inside of the fort, erected there in lieu of breastworks, and the creeks serving as ditches.

Near Vandewenter’s tavern, in Niagara county, the Seneca turnpike runs through an old fort, in which is Mr. Asahel Clark’s house.

A survey and map ought to be taken of these forts before all traces of them are obliterated by the plough.

The idea that these works were erected by the French or any other Europeans is erroneous. First, from their number; second, from their antiquity; and third, from their slope. They are not like European forts -- they have no bastions to clear the ditches. The ditch being on the outside precludes the idea of habitation, although in times of alarm they were doubtless used for that purpose, and they may have served as places of refuge against wild beasts as well as human enemies, or as asylums for their families when they went to war or hunt. The mammoth would alone, if carnivorous, render necessary such erections. The difficulty of reaching the gate in the Auburn Fort, evidently shows that it was intended to annoy and bewilder an enemy with his approaches.

At the Oneida Reservation I saw Louis Dennie, a Frenchman, who was born on the Illinois, and when eighteen came up in the French war with a French officer to fight the Five Nations, and was taken prisoner by the Mohawks, among whom he married. His wife talks Dutch, retains her primitive manners, and is decent and clean. Dennie is upwards of seventy. He appears to be anxious for war, and wishes to engage in it. He is a perfect Indian in dress, manners, and behavior; his color is somewhat whiter. On being asked about the old forts, he says, that from the traditions of old Indians with whom he has conversed, in Canada as well as here, he is of opinion that they were erected by the Spaniards, who first appeared at Oswego, passed into Manlius, and progressed through Onondaga, Pompey, to the lakes, and from thence through the country down the Ohio and disappeared, leaving the country by the Mississippi. That they frightened the Indians by their fire-arms, who being thickly settled, were engaged in continual warfare with them and obliged them to fortify. That their object was searching for the precious metals; that they staid in the country upwards of two years; that the iron instruments of agriculture dug up in various parts of the country, were left by them; that the Indians being afraid of fire-arms made way for them to pass; that the Spaniards were very numerous; that there is a large fort in Onondaga, one in Manlius, another in Pompey; and that they were all over the country. That the first Europeans seen by the Indians were Spaniards; the next French. He farther states, that the Indians say that they erected many of the forts themselves; but he does not see how they could do it without the use of iron tools. Dennie is not very intelligent; he prefers the savage life; his character is good, and what he represents he believes.

Jemima Wilkinson. Mr. Eddy, who visited her at the Crooked Lake, says, that she is about fifty-seven years of age, of Rhode Island, but of what sect he could not learn. That she has about forty or fifty adherents, the principal of whom is Rachel Miller, aged upwards of forty, formerly a Quaker seamstress, of Philadelphia, in whose name the title deeds of the property are held. That she lives in a handsome, plentiful style, and is about completing a very large and elegant house, on a commanding position. That a large tract of land was purchased from Gorham and Phelps for eighteen cents an acre, but what proportion is held by Rachel, for the Friend, as she is called all over the country, he does not know, as some of her followers have receded from her and appropriated part of the land to their exclusive use. That her dress, countenance, and demeanor are masculine in a great degree; and that her conduct is marked by garrulity and vanity; and that when closely questioned she evinces great irritation. That she adopts the Quaker style of preaching; like them she is opposed to oaths and war, and does not prohibit, although she discountenances, marriage. That her discourses, as well set as conversational, are texts of Scripture combined without regularity or connection, but indicative of a retentive memory. That she has no peculiar creed, unless in relation to herself; that in this respect she veils herself in mystery, and does not distinctly say what being she is, although she represents herself as a spirit from heaven, animating the defunct body of Jemima Wilkinson. But what kind or order of divine being, whether the soul of a departed saint, an angel, or a second Christ, she does not communicate to the profane. Her power is founded on the extreme ignorance of her followers, operated on by her impudence and cunning. Vain, ignorant, and talkative, but shrewd to a degree, she will maintain her dominion, notwithstanding, over some of her sect -- a dominion tottering, however, with the decadence of her mind and the failure of her personal charms. When interrogated as to her doctrine, she referred to a book published by Bailey, of Philadelphia, of five or six pages, consisting merely of salutary advice written by her, and full of Scripture quotations, but containing no peculiar creed or dogmas.

We saw Joseph L. Richardson, Peter Hughes, and others, at Auburn, He interrogated me seriously, and with real or affected alarm, about the existence of French influence in our councils. The negative I gave conveyed a severe reproof.

The rage for erecting villages is a perfect mania. It appreciates the value of land, but such establishments will not prosper unless predicated on manufactures.

Mr. Coe, of Scipio, had a full-blooded merino ram, which he sold for $1,000; -- he has a full-blooded ewe. A sheep can be wintered on 400 lb. of hay. The time for putting a ewe to ram is about the 1^st of November. The period of gestation is five months. The sexes must be separated from September to the proper period. It appeared to me that the sheep in the western country are larger, and the hogs worse, than in other parts of the State. It is said that Chancellor Livingston has made $22,000 by the sale of his sheep and wool this year.

David Thomas, a Quaker from Pennsylvania, is settled on a farm in Scipio; he is a poet and great botanist, and careless in his dress. He corresponds with Dr. Barton.

This place is eleven miles from Montezuma: and the landlord contradicts the Ithaca report about the rapid ascension of the salt well, and its overflowing. He says that the water has risen to the level of the river, and is strongly saturated with salt. This shows how the tongue of Rumor will magnify objects. We afterwards heard at Skaneatelas, that the water is four feet above the level of the river; that it is the strongest water yet discovered; and that it will be used next week; -- that one gallon of Montezuma water will make 18 oz. of salt, and one of Salina, 15 oz.

August 14^th. Being detained in Auburn yesterday, by the fitting of our vehicles, we did not leave it until this morning. The commodore and son and myself traveled in the coachee; two servants and the baggage went in the common wagon. We were near two hours in reaching Skeneatelas village, seven miles, owing to the frequent and heavy rains on the Seneca turnpike. The morning was unpleasant and rainy. There is no very extraordinary improvement between Auburn and Skaneatelas; the country is full of hills and swamps.

This village has a handsome Presbyterian church, but no settled minister; three taverns, some stores, and a few houses. It is situated at the outlet of the lake of that name -- a delightful body of water, sixteen miles by one to one and three-quarters. The outlet runs into Seneca River, from which this place is distant twelve miles; there are rapids and falls in the outlet, and it is not navigable. This lake contains trout, salmon trout, and white perch of a delicious kind; they are angled for at the depth of 100 feet.

We breakfasted at S. Giddings’ tavern, a good house. This place, with four acres, sold for $4,000, and rents for $400 per annum. It is in the town of Marcellus.

At Aurora, in Scipio, there is an incorporated academy, to which is attached a boarding school for young ladies, by Mrs. Barnard. Boarding and tuition in the lower branches come to $18 a quarter. Geography, etc., $20.

We stopped at E. Chapman’s six miles from Skeneatelas, at a place called Nine Mile Creek, where there is a small village, containing a Presbyterian church, a Post-office, two taverns, and several houses. We found the road bad, and the country diversified with great hills and valleys. A large valley, which assumes the name of the Onondaga Hollow, at the Court-house, appears to run all through this country, and to form a subject worthy of investigation. Limestone appears to be predominant through here. Almost all the day was showery and disagreeable.

Chapman keeps a book to record the names of travellers to Niagara. There appeared on it but few inconsequential names. He has also printed lists of taverns and distances from Albany to Buffalo, and from Buffalo to Niagara. He has omitted the rival tavern in his own village.

One of our baggage horses failed, and we stopped at Lawrence’s tavern, still in Marcellus, and two miles farther to procure another. The old man, the father of the tavern-keeper, migrated with his sons here in 1795, from Huntington, Long Island, on land purchased for $1.75 an acre, which is now worth $20. The landlady says that her father, of the name of Whippo, was the brother of Mrs. Butler, the mother-in-law of James Desbrosses, and that she is the half-sister of the celebrated Isaac Whippo, and of John Whippo, tavern-keeper in New York. She was ignorant of Desbrosses’ death, and appeared to be proud of the connexion. She has had eight children, seven of whom are alive.

Two miles farther we procured a horse at Leonard’s tavern; Mrs. L. has had four children in two births, two only living. Land on the turnpike is here worth $20 an acre; and back and unimproved, $6 or $7.

Four miles farther we arrived at the Court-house of Onondaga county. >From the West Hill, as it is termed, we had a grand view of Onondaga Lake, the village of Salina, the great valley of Onondaga, and a great expanse of country. We put up at Bronson’s tavern about 5 P.M. The Court-house is a large building, but not painted. A Post-office and several houses compose a little village. The country is very rich, but not so well cultivated as in Milton, Scipio, and Aurelius.

We found a fire comfortable this evening. A new climate commences somewhere about the Onondaga Hills; to the north and east the temperature of the air is colder, and more snow falls than to the south and west. May not the waters of Lake Ontario, which do not freeze, have a mollifying influence on the surrounding country? And may not this influence be lost or counteracted by the passage of air over frozen waters, to the north and east of the above line. May not the progress of the warm wind of the south-west be arrested by this line of hills; or may not its influence here be spent and counteracted by cold winds from the north-east and north-west? In very cold countries some springs do not congeal. The absence of ice in some lakes may be owing to powerful springs, as well as to their great depth.

In several places we saw curious streaks of flint, embedded in limestone and slate, forming in some places a singular appearance, as if the silex was pointed, narrowed, or worn, by an aqueous or igneous power.

The commodore drops the thee in a curious way; Dost know -- Hast heard, like old Briggs, in Cecilia. But the moment a Friend appears, this important pronoun is liberally used; the teazing interrogatories put by him to the Friend must have afforded cause of irritation, particularly when he asked her if she was married.

August 15^th. We sent on the baggage wagon and servants, to meet us at Manlius Square, and deviated from the turnpike, in order to see the great manufactory of salt at Salina, at which place we arrived at eight, having taken the wrong road; we went at least four miles out of our way. The day was fair, the country fertile, but the road very bad. At last we reached the turnpike that runs near Mynderse’s mills, and runs nearly parallel with the Seneca turnpike, for a considerable distance. When we first rose we found a fire again comfortable. The distance from Bronson’s to Salina is five and a half miles; Bronson’s is in the town of Onondaga. Salina is a town as well as a village. We had a sublime view of the Hollow this morning covered with a thick white fog, and looking like a vast lake, which it probably was in ancient times.

From the 14^th June, 1809, to 1^st January, 1810, there were inspected at Salina 128,282 bushels, and the revenue arising to the State was $4,879.44. At different times, thirty-three salt-lots have been laid out under the authority of the State, nineteen at Salina, ten at Liverpool, and four at Geddes. Add to this, that the Superintendents have usurped the authority of granting leases, or of disposing of lands by contracts, by which means they have created such confusion and embarrassment that a law was passed last session, appointing Commissioners to adjust the business.

At those different places, there were in November last eighty-two salt-houses, in which there were 106 blocks of kettles. In the blocks were 807 kettles, generally of three sizes, containing in the whole 61,000 gallons. The wood on the reservation is cut without any regard to economy, and no adequate measures have been taken to prevent this evil, or to provide for the growth of young timber. Considerable land here is reserved by the State, for the purpose of securing the benefit of these great salt-springs to the public.

Before the law of last session, salt was inspected. For each gallon, the lessee was to pay two cents, and the consumer four cents, for every bushel of salt. The salt was inspected by the Superintendent; but this being found useless and nominal, the inspection of salt was abolished by that law, and the manufacturer was made his own inspector. He is to provide a half bushel, to be approved by the Superintendent, and to be used in measuring his salt, and is to brand his name at full length on the head of each barrel put up by him; and also marks on it the tare of the barrel, and the weight of salt, fifty-six pounds of which shall be estimated a bushel. And every future lessee or manufacturer must erect at least two kettles, containing 340 gallons, on each lot leased by him, and shall pay quarterly an annual rent of five cents per gallon, for each kettle employed. Salt cannot be sold by any manufacturer at the springs for more than six and a-half cents per bushel. The Superintendent of the salt-springs is an office of great importance. His salary is respectable. He is appointed by the Legislature, and gives security in the sum of $25,000 for his good behavior in office. The style of his office defines his duties. He is to report within the first ten days of every session, to the Legislature, the names of the possessors of lots; the number of houses on each, the number of blocks of kettles in each house, the number of kettles in each block, the capacity of each kettle, and the quantity of salt manufactured for the year.

Salina is a short distance from the Onondaga Lake. Boats come up to the factories. It contains about eighty houses. Liverpool and Geddes are within three miles.

One man can attend a block of eight or ten kettles. Each block consumes two cords of wood a day, through two fire-places. Each kettle may make three bushels a day. It takes sixty or ninety gallons of the brine to make a bushel of salt. The process of manufacturing is simple. The water is exposed to a hot fire; and when it is sufficiently boiled down, the salt is taken out by a large ladle and put into a basket, from whence the water exudes into the kettles. The ladle is kept, during the whole process, in the kettle, and it is said, collects all the feculent matter, which appears to be a species of gypsum. Most of the brine is forced up by hand pumps, and conveyed by leaders to the kettles. There are two hydraulic machines that pump up the water. One of them is worked by water, conveyed by a small acqueduct that extends two miles. By digging a pit anywhere in the marsh, salt-water is found. This is an unhealthy place. In entering it, we saw an uninclosed burying ground, which indicates great mortality. Three of the Superintendents have died. The people complain already of dysentery; but the sickly season has not yet arrived.

We breakfasted at a large brick hotel, three stories high, kept by E. Roe. It is owned by one Aldest, a salt merchant, and rents for $600 per annum. There is a great resort of strangers to this place, summer as well as winter, to speculate in salt. Here we were much amused at seeing a pretty girl of seventeen smoking segars.

It salt is manufactured on the great Kenhawa, it cannot be conveyed with facility to Pittsburgh, because the river is full of rapids. The information that George Kibbe gave at Oswego, about a great salt establishment there, and that it was agreed to undersell Salina merchants, by vending it at seven dollars per barrel, was considered by Judge Porter, of Grand-Niagara, and Mr. Rees, of Geneva, as fabulous, and as a speculating scheme to prevent competition with him, in the Pittsburgh market, in which he is a dealer in salt.

Mr. Rees is concerned in the Galen Salt Works, and showed us at Geneva a specimen of basket-salt manufactured there, superior to any imported. About a mile from Salina, we crossed the inlet of Onondaga Lake, which is a considerable stream.

Handsome furniture is made in the western country, of curled maple, wild cherry, and black walnut, some of which is superior to mahogany. Some of the furniture is inlaid, or veneered with white wood, in New York.

Besides the usual indications of clean taverns, you may feel confident when you see decent girls neatly dressed.

Yankees here rarely finish the inside of their houses. They almost always have, except in the first stages of settlement, a specious, imposing exterior.

We were pleased with seeing so many houses painted. It adds much to their beauty as well as duration. There is a painter at Skeneatelas.

Five and a-half miles from Salina, Butternut creek, a fine stream flows near a little village in Manlius, without a name, which has a school-house, store, bark-mill and tanneries, and a few houses. B. Booth, the tavern-keeper, who removed from Orange county, purchased 100 acres here last spring, for fourteen dollars an acre. The road we travelled is no turnpike east from Salina, although so delineated in McCalpin’s map. It is good in dry seasons, but is now bad. The country is rich, pretty well settled, and is covered with fine woods of oak.

Eleven miles from Salina we arrived at Trowbridge’s tavern, in Manlius Square, at twelve o’clock. We reached the Seneca turnpike, a little west of the Square, so that we missed a sight of the country on the Seneca turnpike from the Court-house to this place, being twelve miles, and went round seventeen miles by Salina; but having gone four miles astray, we travelled twenty-one miles this day.

We dined at Trowbridge’s tavern, a tolerable house. I saw Perry Childs, Esq., here, who says that the site of the Court-house is fixed at Cazenovia, and that no one is displeased with the position except Peter Smith, the first Judge, who is trying to excite disturbance. Cazenovia is eight miles from this place. Fourteen roads from different quarters run into it. It lies on a beautiful lake, six miles long and one wide. A republican paper, called the Cazenovia Pilot, is printed here. Peter Smith has established a Federal newspaper at Peterborough. The Manlius Times, a Federal paper, is published by Leonard Kellogg, at Manlius Square.

Manlius Square contains around forty houses. A handsome stream runs near it. It is partly on 97 Manlius, and another lot claimed by Capt. Brewster, of the Revenue Cutter, which is now in a course of litigation. The Seneca turnpike; the Great Western turnpike by Cherry Valley and Cazenovia; a road to Oxford, and the road to Salina by which we came, run into this place. Two quarter-acre lots which corner on the Cazenovia and Seneca turnpikes, are worth $500 each.

We set off from this place at four, and arrived at Dr. Stockton’s tavern, fifteen miles in Sullivan, on the verge of the Oneida Reservation, at eight o’clock. We met Asher Moore and Dr. Kemp, of New York, on their way to Niagara, who mentioned the death of the Lieutenant-Governor, on Saturday a-week. Four miles from Manlius Square we entered the town of Sullivan, in Madison county. About five miles we passed the Chittenango Creek, a large fine body of water which unites with the Canaseraga Creek.

Seven miles from the Square is the Canaseraga Hollow, which, like the Onondaga Hollow, is surrounded by very high hills. The creek of that name runs through it, and falls into the Oneida Lake fourteen miles distant. It is not so large as the Chittenango where we passed it. The deep spring is three and a-half miles west from this place on a hill near the road. A great battle was fought near here, during the Revolutionary war, between the Americans and Indians, in which the latter were defeated. The land on the turnpike here sells from $100 to $125 per acre. A farm a mile distant is estimated at $16 an acre. Here are fine flats owned by the heirs of John Dennie, a hybrid, or half-Indian, the son of a Frenchman from Illinois, and a squaw. Cady’s tavern were we stopped to rest, is a good two-story house, and was built by him, and close by is his original log-house. He left a widow and several children.

From this place to Stockton’s we found the country fertile and uncommonly well settled; good houses, taverns, stores, mechanics’ shops, farm-houses, composing in some places a street, and every indication of rising prosperity.

August 16^th. Slept at Stockton’s last night, and breakfasted there this morning. We found it the best tavern on the road. He lives in Lenox, Madison County, and migrated from Princeton, New Jersey. He is styled Doctor. He lives on the borders of the Oneida Reservation, twenty-five miles from Utica, and fourteen miles from Lake Oneida. Opposite to his is the settlement of the Oneida Indians called the Squalone village; and a little west is the Squalone Creek, a handsome stream, which empties into the Canaseraga.

We found the morning chilly, although we set out after seven. The change of climate from the Onondaga Hills is very perceptible. I experienced this kind of weather last summer at Cherry Valley.

The Seneca turnpike passes through the Oneida Reservation, which is five miles from east to west. Oneida Creek is a fine stream, about eight miles from Oneida Lake. Salmon run up it eight miles higher, as far as Stockbridge. At the end of the bridge over it there stood a beautiful Indian girl, offering apples for sale to the persons that passed. The Missionary church, in which Mr. Kirkland formerly preached, and an Indian school-house are here. We saw Indian boys trying to kill birds; others driving cattle over plains. Some Indians plowing with oxen, and at the same time their heads ornamented with white feathers; some driving a wagon, and the women milking and churning; -- all the indications of incipient civilization.

About four miles from Stockton’s we stopped at Skenando’s house. He was formerly the Chief Sachem of all the Oneidas; but since the nation has been split up into Christian and Pagan parties, he is only acknowledged by the former. The Chief of the latter is Capt. Peter, a very sensible man. The morals of the Pagans are better than those of the Christians. The former still practice some of their ancient superstitions. On the first new moon of every new year, they sacrifice a white dog to the Great Spirit, and devote six days to celebrate the commencement of the year. The Christian party are more numerous, by one hundred, than the Pagan. They are entirely separated in their territory, as well as in their God.

Skenando is one hundred and one years old, and his wife is seventy-four. He is weak, and can hardly walk. His face is good and benevolent, and not much wrinkled. He is entirely blind, but his hair is not gray. He smokes; and can converse a little in English. He was highly delighted with an elegant silver pipe, that was given to him by Gov. Tompkins. His wife was afflicted with the bronchocele, or goitre. It is like a wen, promulging from the neck, near the thorax. There were some cases near Utica some years ago. A number of his children and grandchildren were present. His daughter looked so old that at first I took her for his wife. Some of the females were handsome. His house is one hundred yards from the road, situated on the margin of a valley, through which a pleasant stream flows. It is a small frame building, painted red; and adjoining it is a log house. Before the settlement of the country he kept a tavern, like the first Governor of Vermont, for the accommodation of travellers. There were four bedsteads in the room, composed of coarse wooden bunks, so called, and covered by blankets and pillows, instead of beds. A large kettle of corn was boiling, which was the only breakfast the family appeared to have. It was occasionally dipped out from the pot into a basket, from which the children ate. The furniture and farming utensils were coarse, and those of civilized persons.

His eldest son, Thomas, cane in, spruced-up like an Indian beau. The expression of his countenance is very malignant; but his features are handsome. He ate out of the basket. It is said, that on his father’s demise, he will succeed him as Chief Sachem; but if I understand their system right, the office of Sachem is personal, and not hereditary. It is said that Skenando is opulent, for an Indian; and that Thomas has frequently attempted to kill him, with a view of enjoying his property; alledging, too, that his father is not liberal, and that he has lived long enough. Such is the mode of living of the first Chief of an Indian nation. In England he would be recognized as a king -- as were the five Mohawk Chiefs that went there with Col. Schuyler, in the reign of Queen Anne, and who are mentioned in the Spectator.

Abraham Hatfield and his wife (Quakers), have resided here sometime; having been sent by that Society principally with a view to teach the savages agriculture; for which they receive $200 a-year. Hatfield was sick; his wife appeared to be a kind, good woman; well qualified for the duties allotted to her. They are amply provided with oxen and the instruments of agriculture, to administer to the wants and instruction of the Indians. The Oneida’s are much attached to the Quakers. They teach morals -- not dogmas -- agriculture, and the arts of civilized life. Those of England have divided £8,000 among the Friends of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, in order to ameliorate the condition of the Indians. The means adopted by the Quakers are the only competent ones that can be adopted. They indicate a knowledge of human nature; and if the Indians are ever rescued effectually from the evils of savage life, it will be through their instrumentality. The Missionary Societies have been of little use in this nation. The morals of the Christians are worse than those of the Pagans. The clergyman at Stockbridge, of the name of Sergeant, notwithstanding the goodness of his intentions, has not been able to effect very much.

In this village we observed several very old Indian women; and there was an old Indian, named the Blacksmith, recently dead, older than Skenando, who used to say that he was at a treaty with William Penn. There was a boy far gone in a consumption -- which was a prevalent disease among them. Last winter they were severely pressed by famine; and, admonished by experience, they intend to put in considerable wheat -- to which they have hitherto been opposed -- and they now have large crops of corn. They appear to be well provided with neat cattle and hogs. Some of the Indians are very squalid and filthy. I saw several take lice from their heads. They evince great parental fondness, and are much pleased with any attention to their children. An Indian child in Skenando’s house took hold of my cane: to divert him I gave him some small money; the mother appeared much pleased, and immediately offered me apples to eat -- the best thing she had to give.

In passing the Oneida Reservation we saw some white settlers, and it is not a little surprising that they receive any encouragement from the Indians, considering how often they have been coaxed out of their lands by their white brethren. I shall give a few prominent illustrations.

1. Peter Smith, a former clerk of Abraham Herring -- he established a store in their country -- called a son Skenando, after their Chief, and by wheedling the Legislature as well as the Indians, he has succeeded in acquiring an immense body of excellent land at a low price, and he is now very opulent.

2. Michael Wemple, a Dutch blacksmith, sent among them by Gen. Washington.

3. James Dean, formerly a toy-maker, interpreter among them.

4. The Rev. Mr. Kirkland, missionary and interpreter.

Lastly, Angel De Ferriere. He left France in the time of Robespiere. His mother is rich, and has written for him to return to his country; but he declines on account, as he says, of his red wife. He first lived with Mr. Lincklaen, at Cazenovia; and at sometimes exhibited symptoms of mental derangement. He then went to reside among the Oneidas, and married the daughter of Louis Dennie, before-mentioned, by a squaw -- a well-behaved woman of civilized manners and habits, and resembling an Indian in nothing but color. He has by her three children. He has been among the Indians twelve years. Being a man of genteel manners, sensible, and well-informed, he acquired a great influence over them, and has prevailed on them to confer on him donations of valuable land -- which have been sanctioned by the State. At the last session, the Christian party sold for $3,050.02 and an annuity, a part of their Reservation, and in the treaty made with them they appropriated ____ acres for De Ferriere. He owns 1700 acres of the best land -- a great deal of it on the turnpike -- the tavern occupied by Dr. Stockton, a large two-story house, grist mill and saw mill on the creek, and distillery, and is suppose to be worth $50,000. He lives in a log-house about a half mile from Stockton’s; and, I am told, is always involved in law suits. At present, he has no more particular intercourse with the Indians than any other white in their vicinity. His father-in-law, Louis Dennie, is quite proud of his opulent son-in-law. He is a savage in all respects; and says it is hard times with the Indians; the game is all gone -- that he recollects that deer were as thick as leaves in Schoharie before it was settled. That country belonged to the Mohawks. John Dennie, before-mentioned, was Louis’s son. His wife was of the half-blood, and did not treat him well. He was addicted to intemperance, and their children are said to be the worst-tempered of any in the nation.

August 16^th, 1810, continued. After the Oneida Reservation we entered the town of Vernon, in which three glass-houses are in contemplation; one has been in operation some time. It is rather to be regretted that this business is overdone. Besides the glass introduced from Pittsburgh, and from a glass-house in Pennsylvania, on the borders of Orange county, and the glass imported from Europe, there are ten manufactories in the State already, or about to be established -- one in Guilderland, Albany county; one in Rensselaer county; three in Vernon, Oneida county; one in Utica, do.; one in Rome, do.; one in Peterborough, Madison county; one in Geneva, Ontario county; one in Woodstock, Ulster county.

The village of Mount Vernon is eight miles from Stockton’s. It is by a fine creek and celebrated mills of that name, and has a Post-office, several stores, and about twenty houses.

We passed on the road Elias Hicks, a Quaker preacher, Isaac Hicks and another Friend, Mrs. Haydock and another female Friend, on a mission from a yearly meeting of New York, to open a half-yearly meeting in York, Upper Canada.

We dined at Noah Leavins’ tavern, in Westmoreland, twelve miles from Utica. He gave for this house and a farm of 150 acres, last May, $5,000. His house is well kept; but he says he is determined to make it among the best on the road. We advised him to buy a demijohn of the best Madeira wine, $25; two dozen claret, $20; a cask of porter, $15; and half a box of segars, $9; and to have these for select guests, who understood their value, and that his house would soon acquire a great name. That he ought to have his house painted; to establish in ice-house, and to be very particular in having good and clean beds; for that after all a traveler was perhaps more solicitous about good lodging than anything else. His wife, although from Connecticut, in dress looks and appears to be a Dutchwoman. This shows the power of imitation; she resided in a Dutch village for some time.

The country out of the Oneida Reservation to this place is fertile, no bad land, and well settled; the road good, and as populous as a village.

About a mile from Leavins’ we passed a church; a plain framed building, not painted. We saw in some places men pounding limestone, with which to imbed the turnpike, and part of the way this has already been accomplished, and resembles the road between Bristol and Philadelphia. This great turnpike, from Canandaigua to Utica, is the vital principle of the latter place, and yet it has been so recently made, that in some places you can perceive the remains of stumps. Nine miles from Utica we passed the Oriskany Creek, a considerable stream. Six or seven miles from Utica, there is a string of houses extending a considerable distance, forming a village called the Middle Settlement. Three or four miles from Utica is New Hartford, a flourishing and prosperous village; a fine street runs by it, on which are mills, and it contains a Presbyterian church. As you pass to the east end of the village, and look up the valley to the south, you behold a delightful, populous country.

In reflecting on Louis Dennie’s information about the Spanish Expedition, two reflections occurred: --

Are there any Indian Forts north of Oswego, or east of Manlius, or generally speaking out of the line designated by him?

May not the Spaniards have come into Canada, and so on to Oswego, by the way of the Mississippi, up the Fox or Illinois River, and returned by the Ohio, independently of the usual route by the St. Lawrence?

We passed a school taught by a young woman; this is a common practice in the western country.

August 17^th. Utica. The day being rainy we spent it at Utica; we put up at Bellinger’s Inn, but I staid at James S. Kip’s, Esq., who has a very large elegant stone house, that cost $9,000. I saw at this house Walter Bowne, on his way to Niagara; Mr. Hunt, the cashier of the bank; Mr. Arthur Breese, Mr. Bloodgood, Mr. Walker, the printer, Dr. Wolcott, Judge Cooper, and several others. And this day Mr. Kip had to dinner, besides our company, Walker, Breese, Bloodgood, and Brodhead. The report of the quarrel between Jackson and Morris had reached this place much exaggerated; and my slipping into Wood Creek, was represented as a hair-breadth escape. The death of the Lieutenant-Governor was confirmed here: this worthy man took his final departure on the eighth of August, in the fullness of years and honor. He had just engaged his quarters at Albany for the ensuing legislative campaign.

A map of the northern part of this State was published in 1801, by Amos Lay and Arthur J. Stansbury, and said to be compiled from actual survey.

Botany is cultivated in the Western District. A man at Palmyra has established a garden, in which he cultivates poppy, palma Christi, and a number of our native plants.

It is not perhaps too exaggerated to say, that the worst lands in the western country are nearly equal to the best in the Atlantic parts of the State. There appears to be a great deal of alluvial land in the former.

Ashes boiled down in order to be portable, are termed black salts, and are purchased by the country merchants, in order to manufacture into potash.

I amused myself to-day in reading a curious speech, delivered before a proposed Agricultural Society in Whitestown, and published in 1795, by F. Adrian Vanderkemp, an emigrant from Holland, abounding with bad style, but containing some good ideas. He proposes premiums for certain dissertations, and among others, "for the best anatomical or historical account of the moose $50, or for bringing one in alive $60." The moose now exists in the northern parts of the State, as does the elk in the southern.

Dr. Wolcott, the Post-master at Utica, says that out of twelve cases of Spotted fever which came under his cognizance, he has cured eleven by the speedy application of tonics, such as bark and wine; that he considers it a disease rising from specific contagion, and operating by a dissolution of the fluids.

Mr. Kip has a pump which works with amazing facility; the handle is iron, and goes by a lever on the side, instead of the center of the pump. It would be very useful in New York.

Whiskey manufactured from grain, is the purest spirit drank in this country, and when strained through charcoal is freed from empyreumatic oil.

I met Joe Winter here, who is styled Judge Winter when over the brandy bottle with his low companions. He told me that he owns a farm at Springfield, in Otsego county, worth $4,000; that he brought an action of trespass by Seeley, an attorney of Cherry Valley, and was non-prossed, owing to his negligence; and that this farm is advertised to be sold for the costs, on Monday next, which cannot exceed $20; that he has had no notice of it from the Sheriff, with whom he is intimate, or his attorney; and that in all probability the property would have been designedly sacrificed, if it had not been for the zeal of a friend, who gave him notice at Utica.

Part of the capital of Boston has been transferred to Montreal, and particularly two rich commercial houses. Last year 1300 barrels of potash were sent by three merchants from Black River to Utica. This year not one -- it has all gone to Montreal.

August 18^th. We left Utica at six o’clock, in a coachee and baggage wagon, for which we were to pay $50 to Albany, and breakfasted at Maynard’s tavern, an excellent house, fifteen miles from Utica, in the village of Herkimer.

On the north side of the Mohawk we entered the Mohawk and Schenectady turnpike, which reaches seventy-eight miles to Schenectady. The country to Herkimer is pleasant and fertile. You pass along the river. On the south side there is a good free road. The turnpike is inexcusably bad, as there are great quantities of gravel and stone near the road, which leads along elevated ground, to avoid the flats.

Near Herkimer we saw an encampment of Indians, manufacturing brooms and baskets. No other Indians, except the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indians, make brooms. Stockbridge is twenty-five miles off. These Indians are now the gipsies of our country.

Herkimer is a flourishing village, about a mile from the Mohawk. It contains several taverns and large stores, a Post-office, church, the Court-house of the county, and about fifty houses. A lot on the main street can scarcely be purchased at all, but is worth $500. A half-acre lot on the back streets sells for $200. The fine flat or bottom lands sell from $50 to $80 per acre.

The traveling to Niagara is very great. Besides the ordinary stage, we met two extra stages, crowded with travelers. One contained young gentlemen from the South, and an Englishman, recently arrived. The strut of self-consequence, taking notes and observations, and poring over maps, were amusing. They inquired after us, and stared with eagerness.

We passed West Canada Creek, a fine stream, a mile east of Herkimer. East Canada Creek is about as large. The distance between them is thirteen miles.

The pine flats at Herkimer, called the German Flats, contain several thousand acres. After leaving this place we entered on a ridge, more elevated than the Genesee Ridge road. On one side was the Mohawk, on the other a small stream. This peninsular road extends two or three miles.

We entered the Little Falls between the river and canal. Little Falls is seven miles from Herkimer. We dined at Pardee’s, on East Canada Creek, seven miles from Little Falls. At this house we lodged, in ascending the river. The farmers are now cutting their oats.

Oppenheim church is four miles east of Pardee’s, and Palatine church six miles. The latter is a stone building, erected in 1770, and Majors Cochran and Fox reside in its vicinity. Gayoga Creek, a fine stream, enters into the Mohawk at this place. A string of taverns is to be observed all along this road.

The turnpike was hitherto so bad that two gates were thrown open. We met three men with two yoke of oxen, drawing a machine for smoothing the road. It filled up the ruts as rapidly as the oxen could draw it. This, and the scraper, afford great facilities for making and mending roads. The river affords excellent ground for a canal, on one side or the other.

Nine miles from Palatine, we put up at D. Wandaler’s inn, where we had lodged in coming up.

There is a lead mine opposite to this place, on the right or south side of the river, which is said to furnish excellent lead, and to be worked by a company. It was formerly resorted to by Indians, and the old white people knew it, but it had been forgotten until recently discovered.

August 19^th. We saw at this place a young porcupine, which was caught near Lyons, in Ontario county. The quills are very sharp, and seem to be fastened to the hair or bristles of the animal. They cannot be ejaculated. The tail appears to be the principal seat of them. The head is like that of the skunk, and the body is about the size of a ground-hog. The claws are formed for climbing. It was exhibited as a show by an old man who was carrying it to Chester, in Pennsylvania, where he had engaged to sell it for $50. One was caught in a meadow at this place, a few years ago; and at Lewiston a dog was covered with the quills of the animal.

We passed the mountain called the Nose. The country near it is covered with great ant-hills. The rocks are composed of granite and limestone -- the mountains are very steep.

We breakfasted at Major Henry Fonda’s, in Johnstown, eight miles from De Wandaler’s, and four from the village of Johnstown. This road goes along the Mohawk the whole distance. A considerable stream called the Canada Creek, enters the river a little west of Fonda’s. The name of Canada Creek is given to a great number of streams, and it is derived from their running from that quarter.

This is a fine country. It is called Caughnawaga. Fonda was a member of Assembly two years ago, and is brother-in-law to the Veeders. John, who lives near, called to see us. Sammons lives two miles off. Close by Fonda’s are a church, stores, and several houses. We met several people going to church, of a very decent appearance. This place is forty miles from Albany. Taking a barrel of flour from this to that place, by land, costs five shillings.

The Mohawk country is greatly deficient in fruit trees. We saw no peach trees, but wild plum trees in great abundance. The great frost of the 18^th of July was not experienced in this country. Fifty acres of low land, with upland in proportion, are considered a good farm. The low lands are worth $100 per acre. They are somewhat exhausted in some places, and are better for manure in such case, although generally very rich.

Fonda’s windows are hooked by a small bar of iron, gently rising like a spring, and is a good device.

We saw profile likenesses cut in paper all over the country -- even at Magie’s tavern, at Three Rivers Point.

Sir John Johnson came here during the last war by Queensburgh and Lake George, with 500 Tories and Indians, and carried arson and murder in his train. He killed a great many of his old acquaintances, captured Major Fonda’s grandfather and father, and stood near and did not prevent the Indians from tomahawking the former near the house. The Major pointed to the spot with tears in his eyes. Sir John divided his band into two parties, at Johnstown, and went down as far as Tripe’s Hill, carefully avoiding any injury to the tories, and re-assembling at Johnstown. Peter Hansen, an uncle of Major Fonda’s, was taken prisoner on that occasion, and detained in Canada three years. He is eighty-eight years old; can walk well, and does not appear more than sixty. He could, when young, lift a barrel of pork with a finger. Sir John married a Miss Watts, the sister of John. He must have been a great villain in murdering his old neighbors and the friends of his father. Hansen’s brother was scalped on this expedition. Sir John marched with the Indians on foot. All the Tories from this part of the country were with him, disguised like Indians, and they constituted the majority of the party. Since the war, several have returned, and they are Federalists, except one, who was then too young to form fixed principles.

A few miles from Caughnawaga we passed Sir William Johnson’s first elegant house after his greatness, now a tavern. It is a large, double-stone building with two stories, with stone offices. After he erected Johnson Hall, at Johnstown, his son lived here. Johnson Hall was at one period owned by Abraham Morehouse, a complete villain, who was pardoned when under sentence of death. He is now in the Orleans Territory, a member of their Legislature, and worth $200,000. Sir William was a great man; from a small Indian trader he rose to great eminence. He made his way in some measure to the affections of the Indians, through the embraces of the squaws. He kept a sister of the celebrated Brandt. "He asked," said old Mr. Hansen, "my wife how many children she had." She replied, "three. How many have you?" "That is a question," said he, smiling, "that I cannot answer."

Four miles from Fonda’s is Tripe’s Hill, a very elevated eminence, which the road ascends and keeps on for some distance. From this elevation you have a most beautiful prospect of Schoharie Creek and bridge, the Mohawk River, the lowlands and the mountains. About this hill and the adjacent country, there are prodigious ant-hills. There is one two feet high and three feet in diameter.

Seventeen miles from Schenectady we passed the ruins of Col. Claus’s house. It was a stone building, and burnt down during the war. He was a son-in-law of Sir William. A mile farther we passed Guy Park, owned by another son-in-law. Both their estates were confiscated.

Fifteen miles from Schenectady is the village of Amsterdam, consisting of two framed churches, (one large and elegant, the other small and not painted), taverns, stores, and several houses. The road along here exhibited granite, limestone, and freestone. In this place we saw a sign, Benedict Arnold & Co.’s Store, in large characters, and another B. Arnold, who appeared to be a chairmaker. I was informed that the traitor Gen. Arnold, has two sons resident in this country, who behave well.

We halted at Gonsaulis’s tavern in Amsterdam, twelve miles from Schenectady, with this motto on the sign, "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." This place is four miles west of the line of division between Montgomery and Schenectady counties.

We saw here a three-horse team from Albany, loaded with a species of sandstone for a glass-house in Utica. The intelligent driver could not tell us from where it came, nor what it was, nor to what use applied. It is a peculiar kind of sandstone, infusible, obtained in Bolton, Connecticut, and used for the hearths of glass-houses. No other but infusible ones will answer for this purpose. When at Oswego, we saw some stones of a similar description, which it was supposed would resist fire, and were also intended for a glass-house in Oneida county. When on this subject, it may not be irrelevant to add, that a species of asbestos has been found in the highlands in Dutchess county.

There went up the river when we were at this place, a boat from Schenectady laden with bales of cotton. The river now is not much higher than when we ascended. Van Slyck and one other of our ci-devant boatmen were on board.

We stopped at Vedder’s tavern, seven miles from Schenectady. This place was considered a frontier during the war. The Indians burnt and killed in its vicinity.

We arrived at Powell’s tavern in Schenectady, about 5 P.M., where we dined and lodged. The low-lands within three miles of the city, are extensive and fertile. There is a very grand bridge over the Mohawk, a quarter of a-mile in length. The former was blown down.

August 20^th. Albany. We arrived at one o’clock; put up at Judge Spencer’s. The rest of the company went to Gregory’s. The turnpike from this place to Schenectady is excellent. It cost $8,000 a-mile.

The Supreme Court is in session. Had the pleasure of seeing, this day and the next, several friends, Judge Yates, Taylor, Weston, G.A. Worth, R. Skinner, S. Hawkins, Dr. Dewitt, Southwick, F. Bloodgood, M.V. Van Beuren, and Dr. Cooper.

August 21^st. The day was rainy. I dined at Mr. Jenkin’s

August 22^d. Left Albany at half after eight, in the North River Steamboat, and arrived at New York on the 23^d, and half after twelve.

There are already six boats of this description in North America; two from New York to Albany; one from New York to Brunswick, one from Philadelphia to Burlington; one from Whitehall to St. Johns, by Lake Champlain; one from Quebec to Montreal.

In this route, I have become acquainted with the most interesting part of the State. There are four more which I would wish to take, and which would render my knowledge of it complete:

1. From Albany to Black River, and thence down the St. Lawrence, returning through the northern counties by Lake Champlain.

2. By the Great Western Turnpike to Buffalo, and on the south shore of Lake Erie to Pittsburgh, etc.

3. By Cattskill turnpike to Oxford, from thence to Owego and down the Susquehannah.

4. By Delaware and Kingston turnpike in the interior, and returning by the Newburgh turnpike.

Omissions. Vegetable Productions. There are six different kinds of wild plums in the western country, which come to maturity at different times. Some are large and others small; some are very fine.

The Tamerick-tree is the only species of deciduous pine in this country. It is a very fine ornamental-tree.

On the Ridge Road, about sixteen or seventeen miles from Lewiston, we saw a black-walnut, which we estimated to be six feet in diameter.

The cuttings of Nasturtium, put in a bottle of water, luxuriate very handsomely.

Silver-Pine is a fine tree for planting, and so is the white-pine. The former can be procured at Livingston’s Nursery, Westchester county.

It is said that Le Rey de Chaumont, of Jefferson county, has sold 3,000 trees, standing, to the British Government, for five dollars a-piece.

Mineral Productions. Excellent black sand, the principal ingredient of which is iron, can be procured at the Little Falls, and on the shore of Lake Erie.

Seneca oil is procured from a spring at Olean, on the Alleghany River, by dipping a blanket on the surface, which attracts the oil, and then brushing it into a receiver.

Col. Porter says that he saw a single specimen of copper from Lake Superior, weighing twenty pounds. The thunder on the bay of that name, on Lake Huron, is supposed to arise from immense beds of iron.

There is a quarry of gypsum in Camillus. This manure does not answer in argillareous or calcareous soils. It is excellent in sandy soils, in pine-barrens. Two-thirds of the Camillus gypsum is dark gray.

An inexhaustible quarry of gypsum has been discovered in Sullivan, Madison county, but a few feet below the surface. The greater part is of the gray kind; but there are some veins of the transparent.

There is a sulphur-spring in Genesee county.

The celebrated oil-stones are found on Buffalo Creek.