If I am not mistaken, Steubenville contains a greater proportion of orderly and religious people, {79} than some other American towns which I have seen. I entertain a very favourable opinion of several citizens, to whom I was introduced. _November 3._ After having left the town, and proceeded about a mile down the river, Mr. Hamilton the tavern-keeper, with whom I had lodged, came along the bank, on horseback, calling after me. I landed, and he delivered to me an article, that I had neglected to pack up. Passed a young man in a small skiff; he had not ballast enough for keeping head against the wind, which twirled his vessel round, and occasionally drifted him up the stream. He put ashore, as did also a family boat, that could not get onward. The wind having increased, I found it expedient to land at Wellsburgh, and wait till the gale abated. The waves were too large for such a small bark, and, in making the crossings necessary to keep in the proper channel, I was in danger of exposing the broadside too much to the weather. Wellsburgh, (formerly Charlestown,) stands on the Virginia side of the river. It is a small town; I observed in it a court-house, a jail, a large store-house, and several taverns. The margin of the river is so shallow, that I could not push my skiff within twelve feet of the dry ground. There is no wharf or artificial landing place here, or at any of the towns that I have seen by the river. The floods sweep off almost every thing that is erected within the banks; even the roads that are scooped out of the beach are at times destroyed. Taverns (out of town) have only a rude footpath cut in the bank, and many of them have not a trace formed by the hands of man. _Afternoon._ The wind calmed, and I proceeded downward. I came up with two young men in a {80} small skiff; one of them put off his coat to row, and the other paddled with an oar. Their intention was evidently to keep before me, but they were soon disappointed. When one small boat comes up with another, a sort of race is almost invariably the consequence. I have already acted a part in several of them, and have uniformly got foremost. On one occasion I was opposed by three men in a smaller skiff than my own. I impute my success to the superior construction of my vessel, and to the extraordinary breadth of my oars. It has occurred to me, that the oars in general use are much too narrow, and that by adopting broader ones, we would avail ourselves more of the _vis inertiæ_ of the water, that of course is the sole cause of locomotion in a vessel propelled by rowing. On a dry bar, or island of gravel, I observed that none of the weeds were close by the present margin of the water, and that they were all on ground at least two feet higher than that line, an evident proof that the surface of the water must have been about two feet higher during the summer months. At that time it must have been a much easier task to descend the river.