of the
Mississippi river, by Father Lewis Hennepin,--M. Tonti's Account of M.
De La Salle's Expedition,--La Harpe's Journal, &c.

CHAPTER VII.

WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA.

The portion of Pennsylvania lying west of the Alleghany ridge, contains
the counties of Washington, Greene, Fayette, Westmoreland, Alleghany,
Beaver, Butler, Armstrong, Mercer, Venango, Crawford, Erie, Warren,
McKean, Jefferson, Indiana, Somerset, and a part of Cambria.

_Face of the Country._--Somerset, and parts of Fayette, Westmoreland,
Cambria, Indiana, Jefferson, and McKean are mountainous, with
intervening vallies of rich, arable land. The hilly portions of
Washington, and portions of Fayette, Westmoreland, and Alleghany
counties are fertile, with narrow vales of rich land intervening. The
hills are of various shapes and heights, and the ridges are not uniform,
but pursue various and different directions. North of Pittsburg, the
country is hilly and broken, but not mountainous, and the bottom lands
on the water courses are wider and more fertile. On French creek, and
other branches of the Alleghany river there are extensive tracts of
rich bottom, or intervale lands, covered with beech, birch, sugar maple,
pine, hemlock, and other trees common to that portion of the United
States. The pine forests in Pennsylvania and New York, about the heads
of the Alleghany river, produce vast quantities of lumber, which are
sent annually to all the towns along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It
is computed that not less than thirty million feet of lumber are
annually sent down the Ohio from this source.

_Soil, Agriculture, &c._--Portions of the country are excellent for
farming. The _glade_ lands, as they are called, in Greene and other
counties, produce oats, grass, &c., but are not so good for wheat and
corn. Those counties which lie towards lake Erie are better adapted to
grazing. Great numbers of cattle are raised here. Washington and other
counties south of Pittsburg produce great quantities of wool. The
Monongahela has been famous for its whiskey, but it is gratifying to
learn that it is greatly on the decline, and that its manufacture begins
to be regarded as it should be,--ruinous to society. A large proportion
of the distilleries are reported to have been abandoned. Bituminous coal
abounds in all the hills around Pittsburg, and over most parts of
Western Pennsylvania. Iron ore is found abundantly in the counties along
the Alleghany, and man