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Show 1836- 1837! Fogg's Far West 51 sary to fill up a scene for a limner. 7 And our steamer swept onward [ 21] over the rapids, and threaded their maze of beautiful islands, and passed along the little villages at their foot and the splendid steamers along their shore, till twilight had faded, and the dusky mantle of departed day was flung over forest and stream. Ohio River. The discovery of this valuable limestone has enabled the canal company to construct their masonry more solidly than any other known in the United States. A manufactory of this hydraulic cement or water- lime is now established on the bank of the canal, on a scale capable of supplying the United States with this much- valued material for all works in contact with water or exposed to moisture; the nature of this cement being to harden in the water; the grout used on the locks of the canal is already harder than the stone used in their construction. After passing through the stratum which was commonly called the water-lime, about ten feet in thickness, the workmen came to a more compact mass of primitive gray limestone, which, however, was not penetrated to any great depth. In many parts of the excavation masses of a bluish white flint and horn-stone were found enclosed in or incrusting the fetid limestone. And from the large quantities of arrow- heads and other rude formations of this flint stone, it is evident that it was made much use of by the Indians in forming their weapons for war and hunting; in one place a magazine of arrow- heads was discovered, containing many hundreds of these rude implements, carefully packed together and buried below the surface of the ground. The existence of iron ore in considerable quantities was exhibited in the progress of the excavation of the canal, by numerous highly- charged chalybeate springs that gushed out, and continued to flow during the time that the rock was exposed, chiefly in the upper strata of limestone.- Louisville Directory for 1835.- FLAGG. 1A circumstance, too, which adds not a little of interest to the spot, is the old Indian tradition that here was fought the last battle between their race and the former dwellers in Kentucky- the white mound- builders- in which the latter were exterminated to a man. True or false, vast quantities of human remains have, at low stages of the Ohio, been found upon the shores of Sandy Island, one mile below, and an extensive graveyard once existed in the vicinity of Shipping- port. - FLAOO. |