OCR Text |
Show 1836- 1837] Fbgg's Far West 171 out; a season when you are at peace with yourself, and at peace with every object, animate, inanimate, or vegetable, about you. Our party consisted of eight precious souls, and " all agog to dash through thick and thin," if essential to a jovial jaunt. And now fain would I enumerate those worthy individuals, together with their several peculiarities and dispositions, good and bad, did not a certain delicacy forbid. [ 144] Suffice it to say, the excursion was devised in honour, and for the especial benefit, of a young and recently- married couple from " the city of monuments and fountains,' 9 who were enjoying their honey- moon in a trip to the Far West. Passing through the narrow streets and among the ancient edifices of the old city, we came to that section called South St Louis. This is destined to become the district of manufactures; large quantities of bituminous coal, little inferior to that of the AUeghanies, is here found; and railroads to the celebrated Iron Mountain, sixty miles distant, and to the coal- banks of the Illinois bluffs, as well as to the northern section of the city, are projected. The landing is good, the shore being composed of limestone and marble, of two different species, both of which admit a high degree of polish. There is also quarried in this vicinity a kind of freestone, which, when fresh from the bed, is soft, but, on exposure to the atmosphere, becomes dense and hard. We passed a number of commodious farmhouses as we ambled along; and now and then, at intervals through the trees, was caught a glimpse of the flashing sheen of the river gliding along upon our left. At a short distance from the road were to be seen the ruins of the " Eagle Powder- works," destroyed by fire in the spring of ' 36. They had been in operation only three years previous to their explosion, and their daily manufacture was three hundred pounds of superior powder. The report and concussion of the explosion was perceived miles around the country, and the loss sustained by the |