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Show MERRiMACK RIVER----JEFFERSON BARRACKS-ST. LOUIS. 101 projecting ledges and lofty cones ; sometimes they are so rounded as to represent a row of perpendicular towers,, &c. On many of the rocks shot towers have been erected, the whole country, as is well known, abounding in lead. We passed by the settlement of Selma, and the village of Herculaneum ; the latter consisting of about thirty houses, the immediate vicinity of which is remarkable for a perforated limestone rock. The distance from hence to Genevieve is twenty-one miles, and to St. Louis, thirty. After passing round the point of Little Rock, which is about forty feet high-beyond which the small Platteen Creek falls into the river-we soon reached the mouth of the Merrimack River, where we saw large flocks of ducks and sea-gulls. About Robert's Island the country becomes flat and uninteresting. Towards evening we reached Jefferson barracks, on the left bank, where the 6th regiment of regular infantry was in garrison, and the flag of the United States was hoisted. These barracks were interesting at this time, because the celebrated Indian chief, Black Hawk, was imprisoned in them. Before night, we passed the French settlement of Vide-Poche, or Carondelet, founded about 100 years ago, a large scattered village, the inhabitants of which are reported to be not very industrious. The neighbouring hills are covered with low oak bushes. We passed the night nearly opposite Kahokia, and on the morning of the 24th of March, to our great joy, beheld the town of St. Louis. Its first appearance is not prepossessing, as it has no high steeples. The mass of houses, however, unfolds itself as you approach; the environs are low and monotonous. We landed about nine o'clock in the morning, in a cold high wind. The people whom we first saw were mostly negroes, or labourers. St. Louis is a rapidly increasing town, with 6,000 or 8,000 inhabitants, on the western bank of the Mississippi, about 1,200 miles from New Orleans, and 1,134 miles from Pittsburg. It is built on a rather bare, gently rising, and not very elevated part of the banks; forms two streets parallel to the river, besides many houses lying on the summit in the prairie, where building seemed to be proceeding rapidly. On this upper part there are churches and other considerable buildings, of which the town has many of different kinds; and the highly-favourable situation, in the centre, of the trade of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri, will soon make it one of the most important places in the west. St. Louis was originally founded by the French ; at first there was only a fort, and it was not till 1764 that the building of the town commenced, which in 1816 contained about 2,0C0 inhabitants. Persons were still living-for instance, M. Chouteau-who had the wood felled on the spot where the buildings of the town now stand. The principal streets are full of handsome shops; numerous steam-boats come and go, daily, to and from New Orleans, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, Prairie du Chien, &c; and a very brisk trade employs the motley population of many nations. Most of the merchants have their warehouses, which are mostly built of solid stone, on the bank of the Mississippi. The greater part of the workmen in the port, and all the servants in St. Louis, are negroes and their descendants, who, as in the State |