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from " Notes on Virginia" written by
Thomas Jefferson in answer to inquiries propounded
to him by the Marquis de Barbe-Marbois, then Secretary of the French
Legation
in Philadelphia. Jefferson had 200 copies privately printed in Paris
in 1784
(dated l782) for distribution among his friends in Europe and
America. |
| The
Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth: Its current gentle,
waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a
single instance only excepted. It is one-quarter of a mile wide at
Fort Pitt, five hundred yards at the mouth of the Great Kanhaway,
one mile and twenty-five poles at Louisville, one quarter of a mile
on the rapids three or four miles below Louisville, half a mile
where the low country begins, which is twenty miles above Green
river, a mile and a quarter at the receipt of the Tennessee, and a
mile wide at the mouth. ... |
| The
Great Kanhaway is a river of considerable note for the fertility of
its lands, and still more, as leading towards the head waters of
James river. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether its great and
numerous rapids will admit a navigation, but at an expense to which
it will require ages to render its inhabitants equal. The great
obstacles begin at what are called the Great Falls, ninety miles
above the mouth, below which are only five or six rapids, and these
passable, with some difficulty, even at low water.
... |
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1796 Ohio River Map -- Collot, George Henri Victor ;
Tardieu, P.F. |
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