also abounded, and among them the peach, growing and bearing with the utmost luxuriance. Indeed from Cazenovia onward the appearance of the country differed less from that of the ancient settlements in New-England than from that of the country through which we had lately passed. Still there are intermingled many proofs, that it had been recently settled.

The houses, visible from this road, generally stand on its sides, and have been built within the last fifteen years; most of them, indeed, within ten. The changes, made here during this period, are greater than any person who has not been an eye-witness of them will believe; and greater, I suspect, than any which have taken place in the United States during an equal length of time. I think it may be fairly questioned whether they have ever been paralleled in the world.

As this country differs materially from any other through which I have passed; it will be necessary to exhibit it in a general description; particularly, because an extensive sameness spreads over it, and few of those distinctive features, which divide other tracts into minuter portions, are found here.

The surface from Sullivan to the western limit of Canandagua (beyond which a sensible alteration begins) is made up of hills, vallies, and plains*. In this description I include about twenty miles on each side of the road, so far as that extent was visible on our route. Throughout the whole tract I do not remember a single mountain, except two or three, of a moderate height, at the distance of fifteen or twenty miles on the south. None of the hills are high; nor are they, except in very few instances, of a rapid ascent. Each hill may be conceived of in the following manner. ascend from a valley to the top, you behold a vast plain spread before you, and on both hands, where the view is uninterrupted except by forests. These plains are not indeed without inequalities; but they are such as make little impression on the eye. The traveller passes over them with sensations, differing very little from those, which are excited by a surface absolutely level; and they often extend from six or eight to twelve or fourteen miles. Descending into a valley he finds a long

When you

* Sullivan is immediately north of Cazenovia, and east of Manlius.

continued hollow, reaching in length a great distance, and in its appearance semi-cylindrical, except that it is flattened at the bottom. The heights of the hills on either side are limited by a line nearly horizontal, exactly resemble each other, and stretch many miles north and south of the road. As he passes onward day after day, he will find the streams, the lakes, and the villages, to be almost the only variations from this picture. Not an interval, except in two spots, not an arched or pointed summit, a round or conical hill, a cliff or a precipice, was visible, from Utica to Buffaloe Creek; a distance of two hundred miles; except a small tract of undulating country in Bloomfield and Charleston, to be mentioned hereafter. The traveller can, therefore, find no difficulties presented by the surface; nor the farmer any serious hindrances to his cultivation. But the man of taste will find those varieties wanting, which have delighted his eye in other regions; and the poet and the painter will seek in vain for those objects, which they have been accustomed to behold under the influence of fascination; and to depict with enthusiasm and rapture. The phrase, "beautiful country," as used here, means appropriately, and almost only, lands suited to the purposes of husbandry: and has scarcely a remote reference to beauty of landscape. When we first entered this region, after having escaped from the rude hills, which surround the head-waters of the Chenango, we were not a little gratified; but before we had travelled in it a single day, it became dull and wearisome.

Of the progress, which has been made in settling this country, you may form tolerably correct apprehensions from the following account. There are a few instances, in which the forests extend on the road four, five, and six miles. On the Seneca river we found one spreading perhaps seven or eight. Frequently they occupy small distances. The settlements are either villages, hamlets, or long continued lines of farmhouses, distant from each other an eighth, a fourth, a half, and sometimes three-fourths of a mile. The villages are few; the hamlets are more numerous; but the extent is chiefly occupied by these lines of farm-houses. There is nothing, which can be called a town, except Geneva and Canandagua.

The houses throughout this tract are almost universally of wood; many of one, and many of two stories. A great num

ber of them are decent buildings; many are neat; and some are handsome. Taken together, they exceeded my most sanguine expectations.

On the borders of a mill-stream, and around the mill erected upon it, there is regularly a small cluster of houses. Three such streams water the township of Manlius. The road is lined with farms and houses throughout. The soil is good, and the fields are in a good state of cultivation.

Manlius was incorporated in 1794, and is the first township in this quarter belonging to the county of Onondaga; and in this quarter, also, the first of those called the military townships. These, composing the three counties of Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, contain a million and a half of acres ; and were given, after the close of the revolutionary war, to the officers and soldiers belonging to the state of New-York. The number of these townships is twenty-five, and each contains sixty thousand acres. Within them, however, are two considerable reservations: one belonging to the Onondaga, and the other to the Cayuga Indians. This tract, generally considered, is one of the best in the western country.

There is something singular, and I think ludicrous, in the names given to townships in different parts of this country. In the tract under consideration, they are chiefly derived from ancient heroes. This may be considered as characteristical of the nature of the grant, and the spirit of those to whom it was made. To exhibit their love of learning and wisdom, they have added to these the names of Solon, Tully, Locke, Cato, Cicero, and Galen; and, to evince their taste for poetry, they have annexed those of Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Milton, and Dryden. In the county of Tioga, which lies directly south of the military tract, we are presented with a new set of names; such as Oghquaga, Chenango, Tioga, Owego, Chemung, &c. In the county of Oneida we find the names of Arcadia, Hybla, Penelope, Lucretia, Pomona, Flora, and Rurabella; and in the county of Herkimer, immediately east of that, we have Unanimity, Frugality, Perseverance, Sobriety, Enterprise, Industry, Economy, and Regularity. In the county of St. Lawrence, north of these, we find another set: Kilkenny, Killarney, Kildare, Ballybeen, Ennis, St. Patrick, and Crumack. In another spot, still, we have the following

cluster: Coeyman's, Guilderlandt, Watervliet, Boght, Coxsackie, Cobbleshill, and Schoharie. I think you will agree with me, that all these could not have come together by any common means, nor in the exercise of that ingenuity which falls to the share of ordinary men.

Manlius contained, in the year 1800, 989 inhabitants; and, in 1810, 3,821.

The township of Onondaga is composed of a remarkable valley, called Onondaga Hollow, and the flat hills on both sides. On the eastern elevation the soil is inferior to that of Manlius; and, what we had not seen since we left Unadilla, is covered with a forest of oaks.

Onondaga Hollow is a deep valley, or, to describe it more exactly, a plain, sunk far below the level of the bordering country. The limit, at the base of the hills on each side, is almost absolutely straight, and therefore remote from beauty. The bottom is a level, nearly perfect; and was originally a lean, shrub oak plain. Its breadth is more than three-fourths of a mile. On the south it has a boundary of distant hills; on the north it is unlimited. Through the middle of it runs Onondaga creek, which empties its waters into a lake bearing the same name, and is here crossed on a good bridge. What is singular in this country, it is bordered for a considerable distance by two narrow, ribbon-like intervals.

Within this township are the celebrated springs, called the Onondaga salt springs; scarcely rivalled in the world, if they are at all rivalled, in their utility to mankind. These springs rise in a marsh at the head of Onondaga lake, sometimes called from them the Salt lake. This piece of water is about seven miles long, and, where widest, three broad. It is very deep. The water on the surface is perfectly fresh, but at a moderate distance beneath is salt. The cause of this fact is obvious: the lake receives its waters from both fresh and salt sources; and the salt water, being specifically heavier, subsides. According to Dr. De Witt's estimate, taking the specific gravity of rain water at 1, that of these springs is from

This account of the salt springs I have derived from a memoir of Benjamin De Witt, Esq. M.D., and from the verbal information of Mr. Byington, of the company of Wood and Byington, principal occupants of the salt works at this time (1804).

1.078 to 1.110. The temperature is from 50° to 53°; and that of the lightest and the heaviest was the same.

The water of these springs is remarkably impregnated with salt. Fifty gallons yield, by boiling, a bushel of salt, weighing fifty-six pounds. It contains a considerable quantity of lime.

The head of the lake is surrounded for some distance by marshy ground, interspersed with a few trees and bushes, and abounding in flags and wild grass. The salt-springs issue chiefly from the marsh, near the banks by which it is enclosed, and at various distances from the waters of the lake. The principal springs, which are most highly impregnated with salt, and which supply the greater number of the manufactories at present established, issue from the marsh in a group, at the foot of the declivity commonly called the Salt Point, near the spot where the Onondaga creek joins the lake. this point is built the village of Salina. There are many other salt springs in different parts of the marsh, some along the shores of the lake, several miles farther down, and others at a considerable distance up the creek. All these are not, however, equally replenished with this mineral.

These springs issue perpendicularly from the marsh through small orifices. The water is conveyed into cisterns, and thence into potash kettles, containing generally about eighty gallons, and placed over furnaces. When they are filled they are made to boil briskly, until the lime is deposited and removed. The salt then begins to crystallize, and the boiling is suffered to proceed gently, until the water is chiefly evaporated. The salt is then taken out, and drained dry.

Dr. De Witt obtained, from half a pint of this water, 14 oz. avoirdupois of salt, and 26 gr. of calcareous earth. A gallon of the water, therefore, contains 8,816 gr., or 20 oz. and 76 gr. of salt, and 416 gr. of calcareous earth. According to this experiment, this water contains more than one-sixth of its own weight in salt. It also includes carbonic acid gas, and a small quantity of the sulphuric acid.

Mr. Byington informed me, that the customary estimate of the salt, actually obtained in the works, was fifty-six pounds of salt from fifty gallons of water. This is believed to be the strongest natural brine hitherto found in the world. Dr. De