running streams & the waters fail
much in dry weather. In places
there are a plenty of coarse flinty limestone,
but in the general few stones are to be
seen; scarcely a spot to be met with, except
where it is clear’d, but what is very
heavily timber’d. I do not recollect
of ever passing thro’ a country that
has so large a proportion of clean, straight
beautiful white oaks, as a part of this
has; there are also a considerable quan-
tity of white & black ash, poplar,
chesnut, elm, shellbark hickory, basswood
or lynn, sugar maple, beech, white pine
& c. When the roads are first open’d
& used they are mostly muddy, in
places very deep, but after they have
been used 8 or 10 years & the roots rotten
& gone, they get pretty good, tho’ at pres-
ent there are many deep places.