There are only two great sights to be seen at Louisville. One, the famous artesian well, 2086 feet deep, bored to reach a horrid sulphur spring, which is, however, a very strong one as there are upwards of 200 grains of sulphates of soda and magnesia in each gallon of water, and upwards of 700 grains of chlorides of sulphur and magnesia. There is a fountain over the well, in which the water rises 200 feet, but whether by external pressure or by the natural force of the water, the deponent sayeth not. It comes out in all sorts of forms, sometimes imitating flowers, and sometimes a shower of snow, on which the negro who showed it to us expatiated with great delight. When I said there were only two sights to see, I alluded to this well, and to the magnificent steam vessel, the "Pacific," which was lying at Portland, about three miles down the Ohio, below the Falls; but I forgot altogether the Falls themselves, and the splendid canal described in papa's book, through which vessels are obliged to pass to get round them, which I ought not to pass without some notice. The river here is upwards of a mile wide, but the falls are most insignificant; and though the Guide Book describes them as "picturesque in appearance," and that the islands give the Ohio here "the appearance of a great many broken rivers of foam, making their way over the falls, while the fine islands add greatly to the beauty of the scene;" neither papa with his spectacles, nor I with my keen optics, could see more than a ripple on the surface of the water. These falls, however, are sufficient to prevent vessels of any great burden ascending or descending beyond this point of the river, and hence the necessity of the canal: but this splendid work, about which papa's interest was very great, in consequence of what he had written about it, proved as great a disappointment as the falls themselves. It must, however, have been a work of great difficulty, as it is cut through a solid bed of rock.[13] The locks are sufficiently capacious to allow of the passage of steamers 180 feet long by 40 feet in breadth, one of which we saw in the lock, and there were three others waiting to pass through.