Amongst the business of the court, the trial of a man who had stolen two horses excited much interest. On his being sentenced to suffer thirty stripes, he was immediately led from the bar to the whipping-post. Every twitch of the cowhide, (a weapon formerly described,) drew a red line across his back. This was the second infliction of the kind that had been sanctioned by {253} court in the State, since my coming into it. I do not notice the infrequency of punishments as wishing to occasion a belief that misdemeanours are seldom committed. Indeed, were it not for the absolute impunity obtained in most cases, we might soon see the partial development of a new system of physiognomy, one not founded on the features of the face, but on the striped lineaments of the back. Never, till now, did I so much value the usage of Scotland, where the inhabitant, on removing from one parish to another, carries with him the testimonial of the church. The surface of the land in the neighbourhood of Charlestown is beautifully diversified, varying between gently undulated and steep of broken ground. The soil is of the first rate quality, and covered with luxuriant crops of Indian corn. The crops of wheat are what you would call a second rate crop, and several fields of oats, which I saw, were headed out, and were as bulky as any that I have seen in Mid-Lothian; but, for a reason formerly stated, the grain cannot be expected to arrive at fine quality. The banks of Fourteen-Mile-Creek, (which joins the Ohio at the distance of fourteen miles above the falls,) are cliffs of limestone that are overtopped by tall woods, and form, by their windings, many romantic scenes, of which I can convey no adequate idea. The stream is at present almost entirely dried up, but the extent of its bed, and the marks of inundation by its margin, convince me that its floods are nearly equal to those of the Clyde at Glasgow. Some salt springs that percolate through the rocks in the bottom, have been discovered during the present dry season: the existence of these were first surmised by an ingenious gentleman, with whom I am well acquainted. He proceeded by introducing a small tube into a {254} deep and still part of the river, and drew water from the bottom that was perceptibly saline. He has now some people engaged in boring, by which means the discharge of water has been considerably augmented, and has commenced evaporating on a small scale. This process is usually performed by filling a number of iron kettles, of about three feet in diameter, and six inches deep, with the water, and placing them on loose stones, or over a trench that is dug in the ground for receiving the fuel. Boring for salt water is a work that is occasionally accompanied with a considerable degree of difficulty. Where the bore communicates with a fresh water spring, on a higher level than the saline one, a tube of tinned iron is let down to exclude the former.