building, called the Hotel. He rents it and ten acres of land from Dominick Lynch, for $250 a-year.

Rome is on the highest land between Lake Ontario and the Hudson, at Troy. It is 390 feet above the latter; sixteen miles by land and twenty-one by water from Utica, and 106 miles by water from Schenectady. It is situated at the head of the Mohawk River and Wood Creek, that river running east and the Wood Creek west. You see no hills or mountains in its vicinity; a plain extends from it on all sides. It has a Court-House, a State Arsenal, a Presbyterian Church, and about seventy houses. Its excellent position on the Canal, which unites the Eastern and Western waters, and its natural communication with the rich counties on Black River, would render it a place of great importance, superior to Utica, if fair play had been given to its advantages. But its rising prosperity has been checked by the policy of its principal proprietor. When he first began to dispose of his lots, he asked what he called a fine of £30, and an annual rent of £7 10s., for each lot for ever. His subsequent conduct has been correspondent with this unfavorable indication, and has given Utica a start which Rome can never retrieve.

Two lots, sixty-six by 200 feet, sell from $200 to $250. Wild land in the vicinity sells from $10 to $12 50 per acre, and improved land for $25. A Company was incorporated the last session of the Legislature, for manu

facturing iron and glass, and half the stock is already filled up. The place has a Post Office and four lawyers. Rome being on a perfect level, we naturally ask from what has it derived its name? Where are its seven hills? Has it been named out of compliment to Lynch, who is a Roman Catholic?

Rome was laid out into a town, after the Canal was made or contemplated. It derives its principal advantages from this communication. Independent of the general rise it has given to Lynch's property, it has drained a large swamp for him near the village, which would otherwise have been useless; and yet he demanded from the Company, at first, $7,000, and at last, $5,000 for his land, through which the Canal was to pass. The appraisers gave him but nominal damages-one dollar.

The Canal at Rome is 13 miles long; 32 feet wide at top, and from 2 to 3 feet deep. The locks are 73 feet long and 12 wide; 10 feet lift on the Mohawk, and 8 feet on Wood Creek.

July 12th. The Commissioners had a meeting here; all present. Adjourned to meet in Geneva. At this meeting the Senior Commissioner was for breaking down the mound of Lake Erie, and letting out the waters to follow the level of the country, so as to form a sloop navigation with the Hudson, and without any aid from any other

water.

The site of Fort Stanwix or Fort Schuyler is in this village. It contains about two acres, and is a regular fortification, with four bastions and a deep ditch. The position is important in protecting the passage between the lakes and the Mohawk river. It is now in ruins, and partly demolished by Lynch, its proprietor. Since the Revolutionary War a block-house was erected here by the State, and is now demolished. About half a mile below the Fort, on the meadows, are the remains of an old fort, called Fort William; and about a mile west of Rome, near where Wood Creek enters the Canal, there was a regular

fort, called Fort Newport. Wood Creek is here so narrow that you can step over it.

Fort Stanwix is celebrated in the history of the Revolutionary War, for a regular siege which it stood. And as this and the battle of Oriskany are talked of all over the country, and are not embodied at large in history, I shall give an account of them, before they are lost in the memory of tradition.

After having dined on a salmon caught at Fish Creek, about eight miles from Rome, we departed in our boats on the descending waters of Wood Creek. And as we have now got rid of the Eastern waters, it may be proper to make some remarks on the Mohawk River.

This river is about 120 miles in length, from Rome to the Hudson. Its course is from west to east. The commencement of its navigation is at Schenectady. It is in all places sufficiently wide for sloop navigation; but the various shoals, currents, rifts, and rapids with which it abounds, and which are very perspicuously laid down on Wright's map, render the navigation difficult even for batteaux. The Canal Company have endeavored, by dams and other expedients, to deepen the river and improve the navigation, but they have only encountered unnecessary expense; the next freshet or rise of the river has either swept away their erections or changed the current. Mr. Weston, the engineer, from a view of the multifarious difficulties attendant on such operations, proposed to make a canal from Schoharie Creek to Schenectady, on the south side of the river; he only erred in not embracing the whole route of the Mohawk. The valley formed by that river is admirably calculated for a canal. The ex

pense of digging it will not exceed that of a good turnpike. The river is good only as a feeder.

The young willows which line the banks of the river, and which are the first trees that spring up on alluviums, show the continual change of ground. No land can be more fertile than the flats of this extensive valley. The settlements here were originally made by migrations from Holland and Germany. The grants under the Dutch Governor were from given points on the Mohawk, embracing all the land south or north, meaning thereby to include only the interval land, and deeming the upland as nothing. Chief-Justice Yates said, that he recollected a witness to state in Court that he had travelled from Kinderhook to Albany and found no land.

The Mohawk is barren of fish. It formerly contained great plenty of trout-it now has none. The largest fish is the pike, which have been caught weighing fourteen pounds. Since the canal at Rome, chubb, a species of dace, have come into the Mohawk through Wood Creek, and are said to be plenty. A salmon and black bass have also been speared in this river, which came into it through the canal. It would not be a little singular if the Hudson should be supplied with salmon through that channel. The falls of the Cohoes oppose a great impediment to the passage of fish; but the Hudson is like the Mohawk, a very sterile river in that respect.

We saw great numbers of bitterns, blackbirds, robins, and bank swallows, which perforate the banks of the river. Also, some wood-ducks, gulls, sheldrakes, bob-linklins, king-birds, crows, kildares, small snipe, woodpeckers, woodcock, wrens, yellow birds, phebes, blue jays, highholes, pigeons, thrushes, and larks. We also saw several

king-fishers, which denote the presence of fish. We shot several bitterns, the same as found on the salt marsh. The only shell fish were the snapping turtle and muscle.

We left Rome after dinner-five Commissioners, the surveyor, and a young gentleman. Morris and Van Rensselaer were to go by land and meet us at Geneva.

We went this day as far as Gilbert's Tavern on the north side of the creek, six and a-half miles by water, and four and a-half miles by land, from Rome.

We saw a bright red-bird about the size of a blue-bird. Its wings were tipped with black, and the bird uncom monly beautiful. It appeared to have no song, and no one present seemed to know its name. I saw but three besides in the whole course of my tour, one on the Ridge Road west of the Genesee River. It is, therefore, a rara avis.

On the banks of the creek were plenty of boneset, the Canada shrub, said to be useful in medicine, and a great variety of beautiful flowering plants. Wild gooseberry bushes, wild currants, and wild hops were also to be seen. The gooseberries were not good; the hops are said to be as good as the domestic ones. In the long weeds and thick underwood we were at first apprehensive of rattlesnakes, of which we were told there are three kinds-the large and the small, and the dark rattlesnake. But neither here nor in any part of our tour did we see this venomous reptile. The only animals we saw on this stream were the black squirrel and the hare, as it is called in Albany, a creature white in winter, of the rabbit kind, although much larger.

About a mile from the head of the creek we passed a small stream, from the south, called Black or Mud Creek.