lower Blue Springs, on Licking river, from fome of which, it is said, iffue ftreams of brinish water-the Big-bone lick, Drennon's lick, and Bullet's lick, at Saltsburgh. The laft of thefe licks, though in low order, has fupplied this country and Cumberland with falt at twenty fhillings the bufhel, Virginia currency; and fome is exported to the Illinois country. The method of procuring water from these licks is by finking wells from thirty to forty feet deep. The water drawn from these wells is more strongly impregnated with falt than the water from the sea.

The Nob lick, and many others, do not produce water, but confist of clay mixed with falt particles: to these the cattle repair, and reduce high hills rather to valleys than plains. The amazing herds of buffalo which refort thither, by their fize and number, fill the traveller with amazement and terror, especially when he beholds the prodigious roads they have made from all quarters, as if leading to fome populous city; the vaft space of land around these springs, de folated as if by a ravaging enemy, and hills reduced to plains, for the land near those springs are chiefly hilly: these are truly curiofities, and the eye can scarcely be fatisfied with admiring them.

A medicinal fpring is found near the Great-bone lick, which has per fectly cured the itch by once bathing; and experience in time may dif cover in it other virtues. There is another of like nature near Drinnon's lick.

The western waters produce plenty of fifh and fowl. The fill, common to the waters of the Ohio, are a buffalo fish, of a large fize, and the cat fish, fometimes exceeding one hundred weight. Trout have been taken in the Kentucky weighing thirty pounds. The mullet, rock, perch, gar fish, and eel, are here in plenty. Suckers, fun fish, and other hook fish, are abundant; but no fhad or herrings. On these waters, and efpecially on the Ohio, the geefe and ducks are amazingly numerous.

The land fowls are turkeys, which are very frequent, pheasants and partridges. The parroquet, a bird every way refembling a parrot, but much fmaller; the ivory bil woodcock, of a whitish colour, with a white plume, flies fcreaming exceeding fharp. It is afferted, that the bill of this bird is pure ivory, a circumftance very fingular in the plumy tribe. The great owl refembles its fpecies in other parts, but is remarkably different in its vociferation, sometimes making a strange surprising noife, like a man in the most extreme danger and difficulty.

Serpents are not numerous, and are fuch as are to be found in other parts of the continent, except the bull, the horned, and the

mockafo:

mockafon fnakes. Swamps are rare, and confequently frogs and other reptiles, common to fuch places. There are no fwarms of bees, except fuch as have been introduced by the prefent inhabitants; these have increased and extended themselves in an almost unparalleled manner of late years.

Among the native animals are the urus, or bifon, called improperly a buffalo; hunters have afferted that they have seen above one thousand of these animals at the Blue licks at once; fo numerous were they before the first fettlers had wantonly sported away their lives. There still remains a great number in the exterior parts of the settlement. They feed upon cane and grafs, as other cattle, and are innocent harmless

creatures.

There are still to be found many deer, elks, and bears, within the fettlement, and many more on the borders of it. There are also panthers, wild cats, and wolves.

The waters have plenty of beavers, otters, minks, and musk rats: nor are the animals common to other parts wanting, such as foxes, rabbits, fquirrels, racoons, ground hogs, pole cats, and opoffums. Most of the fpecies of the domestic quadrupeds have been introduced fince the fettlement, fuch as horfes, cows, fheep and hogs, which are prodigioufly multiplied, fuffered to run in the woods without a keeper, and only brought home when wanted.

CURIOSITIES.

Amongst the natural curiofities of this country, the winding banks, or rather precipices of the Kentucky, and Dick's river, deferve the first place. The astonished eye there beholds almost every where three or four hundred feet of a folid perpendicular lime-ftone rock; in fome parts a fine white marble, either curiously arched, pillared, or blocked up into fine building ftones. Thefe precipices, as was obferved before, are like the fides of a deep trench or canal; the land above being level, except where creeks fet in, and crowned with fine groves of red cedar. It is only at particular places that this river can be croffed, one of which is worthy of admiration; this is a great large road enough for waggons made by the buffalo, floping with an eaty defcent from the top to the bottom of a very large steep hill, at or near the river above Lees-town.

Caves are found in this country amazingly large; in fome of which you may travel several miles under a fine lime-stone rock, fupported by curious arches and pillars: in most of them runs a stream of water.

Near

Near the head of Salt river a subterraneous lake or large pond has Lately been difcovered. Colonel Bowman says, that he and a compa❤ nion travelled in one four hours, till he luckily came to the mouth again. The fame gentleman mentions another which operates like an air furnace, and contains much fulphur. An adventurer in any of thefe will have a perfect idea of primeval darkness.

Near Lexington are to be feen curious fepulchres, full of human keletons, which are thus fabricated. First on the ground are laid large broad ftones, on thefe are placed the bodies, feparated from each other by broad ftones, covered with others which ferve as a bafis for the next arrangement of bodies. In this order they are built, without mortar, growing ftill narrower to the height of a man. This method of burying appears to be totally different from that now practifed by the Indians.

At a falt fpring near Ohio river, very large bones are found, far furpaffing the fize of any species of animals now in America The head appears to have been about three feet long, the ribs feven, and the thigh bones about four; one of which is repofited in the library in Philadelphia, and faid to weigh seventy-eight pounds. The tufks are above a foot in length, the grinders about five inches fquare, and eight inches long. These bones have attracted the attention of philofophers; fpecimens of them have been fent both to France and England, where they have been examined with the greateft diligence, and found upon comparison to be the remains of the fame fpecies of animals that produced those other foffil bones which have been difcovered in Tartary, Chili, and feveral other places, both of the old and new continent. What animal this is, and by what means its ruins are found in regions fo widely different, and where none fuch exifts at prefent, is a queftion of more difficult decifion. The ignorant and fuperftitious Tartars attribute them to a creature whom they call Maimon, who, they fay, ufually refides at the bottom of the rivers, and of whom they relate many marvellous stories; but as this is an afsertion totally divested of proof, and even of probability, it has justly been rejected by the learned; and on the other hand it is. certain, that no fuch amphibious quadruped exifts in the American waters. The bones themfelves bear a great refemblance to thofe of the elephant. There is no other terreftrial animal now known large enough to produce them. The tufks with which they are both furnished, equally produce true ivory. These external refemblances have geperally made fuperficial obfervers conclude, that they could belong : VOL. III.

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