a position two miles higher up the river was selected by Gen. Harrison, and a stockade erected, to which he gave the name of

FORT MEIGS.

This work was besieged by a combined force of British and Indians, under Gen. Proctor, in the spring of the year eighteen hundred and thirteen; at a time when the defences were still unfinished, and when the garrison was much weakened by loss of numbers. The besiegers kept up an incessant cannonade for thirteen days, at the end of which, they were compelled to retire, after having expended an incredible number of shells, and cut to 'pieces a detachment of volunteers under Col. Dudley. The more immediate cause of their retreat, was the approach of a reinforcement of twelve hundred men, under Gen. Clay of Kentucky. The loss of our army in this siege, and the several sorties made by the garrison, was eighty-one men killed, and one hundred and eighty-nine wounded; including those who fell a sacrifice to their ungovernable impetuosity. "It rarely occurs," says Gen. Harrison, in an order issued a few days after the retreat of the enemy, "that a General has to complain of the excessive ardour of his men, yet such appears always to be the case whenever the Kentucky militia are engaged. It is indeed the source of all their misfortunes. They appear to think that their valour can accomplish any thing. The General is led to make this remark, from the conduct of Capt. Dudley's company of the regiment, as he has understood that that gallant officer was obliged to turn his espontoon against his company, to oblige them to desist from a further pursuit of the enemy, in compliance with an order from the General."*

* Brannan's Official Letters

We did not cross the river to examine the remains of this work; but from the elongated mounds of earth thrown up, it appears to have been extensive. We were told that no less than eight acres of ground, were at one time included within its defences. What it required so great an effort to raise, it will require an equal effort to level. Agriculture is now the principal object that excites industry here; and it is the business of agriculture, to metamorphose mounds and ramparts, into the less threatening aspect of fences and furrows.

The principal settlement at this place is upon the left banks of the river.

MAUMEE VILLAGE.

Of the population and prospects of this thriving little place, our opinion may be vague. Such rapid changes are daily taking place, in most of the incipient towns and villages of the western country, that it may be erroneous to pretend to statistical accuracy, after the delay of even a few months. We should conjecture the village to contain about forty buildings, and to number probably three hundred souls. A post-office, several store-houses, and a number of hydraulic works, for which the rapids afford convenient sites, are among the elements which presage a future town.

Vessels from the lake can ascend the river to this place, but no higher; although the channel of the river admits of boat navigation to its source. It was at this place, it will be recollected, that Gen. Hull embarked the principal part of his baggage on board a schooner, which so unfortunately for himself and for the country, was captured by the enemy. The distance to Detroit, over land,

is computed to be seventy miles.* Possessing advantages for participating in the commerce of the lakes, and being the natural mart for an extensive and fertile valley, this village may reasonably be expected, to have a gradual and steady increase in population and local importance. It is in Wood County, Ohio.

At this place we determined to procure horses, and ride to the head of the rapids; leaving our voyageurs to, conduct the canoe up the stream. During the delay created by this change in our mode of travelling, I went out a short distance, to obtain a view of the ground upon which Dudley was defeated. But there is probably always some feeling of disappointment, in surveying a field of battle, after the lapse of a few years. We naturally expect to observe some traces of the sanguinary strife, or some relics of the slain. The picture of contending ranks still flits before "the mind's eye;" and after years have passed away, we go to visit the scene of conflict, prepared to discriminate its traces upon the ground, as if it were an event of yesterday. But the face of nature soon resumes its usual aspects; and after, the expiration of a comparatively brief period, the pen, the pencil, and the press, are all that remain to testify to after times, that "such things were."

But what shall these voiceless witnesses testify of the scene before us? The gallantry of a brave detachmenttheir attack and defeat of a ruthless enemy; their unwary advance into the midst of numbers, by whom they

* We find it necessary here to premise, that the distances mentioned in these remarks, where not quoted from Gazetteers, or other authorities, are almost exclusively popular and as very few of them are the result of actual mensuration, we cannot vouch for their absolute accuracy. We can however say, that where the received distances have, in our opinion, been overrated, a correction has been attempted. Where several, and contradictory distances were given, we have made it a rule to select the minimum.

were finally overpowered; the barbarity of savage warfare; the fall-the inhuman butchery of Dudley and his followers!

"How sleep the brave who sink to rest,

By all their country's wishes blest."

MINERALOGY.

The soil at this place is a species of rich and marly loam, charged throughout its whole mass with ferruginous particles. It exhibits upon the surface occasional bowlders, and pebblestones of granite and limestone, with some connected species, which become more abundant in penetrating a few feet. Along with these, splintery fragments of hornstone, and masses of selenite and, of chalcedony, are not unfrequently found. Where the disposition of the surface favours, the soil is subject to be washed off by rains, producing large gullies, which partake of this property, in common with small lateral valleys, that they form a serious impediment in the roads. In one of these indentations, I picked up a nodular mass. of common chalcedony, superimposed upon a basis of dark, somewhat silicated limestone; which appears sufficiently to indicate the origin of those masses, where no limestone is present.

This description of the soil at Maumee, appears to be justly applicable to an extensive range of country, toward the east and the west. The masses of selenite, sometimes in the form of pellucid crystals, have been traced from Trumbull, in Ohio, to the River Raisin in Michigan. Throughout this district of country, characterized by horizontal rocks abounding in petrifactions, there appears to have existed a range of limestone rock, in which the selenite, the chalcedony, and the hornstone were

formerly contained, in nodules and subordinate beds, or in cavities and veins.

As a greater hinderance occurred in getting ready our horses, than was anticipated, and we were now within a few miles of Wayne's battle-ground, I concluded to walk on, and obtain a view of that noted spot, and await the Governor's arrival, at a defile of rocks we were to pass. The road lies up the level valley of the Maumee; every part of which bears the unequivocal marks of a rich soil, and settlements in an active state of improvement. The scenery is interesting, without presenting any bold, or strongly marked features; and partakes of a mildness which is almost peculiar to those secondary tracts, extending south of the lakes, where the strata of rocks are concealed, beneath heavy and continuous beds of sand and gravel. The valley is bounded by low undulating ridges of land, which admit of cultivation to their very tops; and the road winds along between the river and the hills in a pleasing manner.

Nothing but the sounds of agricultural industry, are now heard along the banks of a stream, which has so often resounded with the piercing war-whoop; and even here, we no longer acknowledge the justice of the poet's description of the country—

"Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thund'ring sound."

Substantial farm-houses, and the rude cabins of loge erected in the earliest stages of settlement, intermixed with Indian wigwams, with fields of grain, and with

*We introduce the accent above this word, to complete the requisite measure; but such a pronunciation, though common in Goldsmith's time, is no longer correspondent with popular and polite usage. The line will permit the introduction of a monosyllabical adjective: as dread Niagara, &c.