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Show 1836- 1837] Fogg's Far West 65 The latter is the most considerable place of the three, notwithstanding imposing titles. It is situated upon a green romantic spot, the summit of a precipitous pile of rocks some hundred feet in height, from which sweeps off a level region of country in . the rear. Here terminates that series of beautiful bluffs commencing at the confluence of the mountain-streams, and of which so much has been said. A new geological formation commences of a bolder character than any before; and the face of the country gradually assumes those features which are found near the mouth of the river. Passing Green River with its emerald waters,* 1 its " Diamond Island," n the largest in the Ohio, and said to be haunted, and very many thriving villages, among which was Hender-sonville," for some time the residence of Audubon, 14 the ornithologist, we found ourselves near midday at the mouth of the smiling Wabash, its high bluffs crowned with groves of the walnut and pecan, the carya olivceformis of Nuttal, and its deep- died surface reflecting the yet deeper tints * Green River, rising in central Kentucky, flows west through the coal fields to its junction with the Big Barren; thence it turns north, and empties into the Ohio nine miles above Evansville, Indiana. Beginning with 1808 the state legislature expended large sums of money for improving navigation on Green River. As a consequence small steamboats may ascend it to a distance of more than a hundred and fifty miles. The length of the stream is estimated at three hundred and fifty miles.- ED. 9 Diamond Island, densely wooded, is located thirty- six miles below the mouth of Green River, and seven miles above Mount Vernon. Its name is perhaps derived from its shape, being five miles long and one and a half wide.- ED. " For note on Henderaonville, see Cuming's Tour, in our volume iv, p. 367, note 175.- ED. * John J. Audubon, born in Louisiana ( 1780), was a son of a wealthy French naval officer; his mother was a Spanish Creole. Educated in France, he returned to America ( 1798) and settled near Philadelphia, devoting his time to the study of birds. In 1808 he went west and until 1824 made fruitless attempts to establish himself in business in Kentucky and I^ ouisiana. He issued in London ( 1827- 58) his noted publication on the Birds of America, which was completed in eighty-seven parts. During 1832- 59 he published five volumes entitled Ornithological Biographies. Audubon died in 1851. See M. R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals ( New York, 1897).- ED. |