The favourable situation of the Ohio entitles this river to be considered as the centre of commercial activity, between the eastern and western states; and it is the only open communication with the ocean, for the exportation of provisions, from that part of the United States, which is comprised between the Alleghany Mountains, the lakes, and the left bank of the Mississippi. All these advantages, blended with the salubrity of the climate and the general beauty of the country, induced M. Michaux to imagine that, in the course of twenty years, the banks of the Ohio, from Pittsburgh to Louisville, would become the most populous and the most commercial part of the United States. _Limestone_ consisted only of thirty or forty houses, constructed with wood. This little town had been built upwards of fifteen years. It was for some time the place where such emigrants landed as came from the northern states, by way of Pittsburgh: it was also the mart for merchandise, sent from Philadelphia and Baltimore to Kentucky. M. Michaux resolved to travel on foot, from this place to Lexington. The distance is sixty-five miles, and he performed the journey in two days and a half. In his journey he passed through _Mays Lick_, where there is a salt-work. The wells that supply the salt-water are about twenty feet in depth, and not more than fifty or sixty fathoms from the _River Salt Lick_; the waters of which, during the summer, are somewhat brackish. In this part of the country salt-springs are usually found in places which are described by the name of _Licks_; and where, before the arrival of Europeans, the bisons, elks, and stags, that existed in Kentucky, went, by hundreds, to lick the saline particles; with which the soil is impregnated. In the country around Mays Lick the soil is dry and sandy; and the road is covered with large, flat, chalky stones, of a bluish colour within, and the edges of which are round. The only trees that M. Michaux observed here, were white oaks and hickory; and the stinted growth and wretched appearance of these, clearly indicated the sterility of the soil.