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The increase per cent. in the last ten years was 83% nearly. But from an approximative statement made in the beginning of the year 1816, the population had experienced an augmentation of 25 per cent. in five years, the number being 527,000, of whom about 107,000 were slaves.* Lexington, in the Lexington, in the year 1797, contained about fifty houses. In 1816 the number was about 1000, and most of them neatly constructed of brick or of wood. There is a fine court of law, bank, and masonic hall. The main street is eighty feet wide, with side walks of eight feet. In the vicinity of this town there are fifty or sixty handsome villas. According to the census of 1810, Kentucky, in point of population, was then the seventh state in the union. The number of persons to a square mile was eleven.

Character and Manners.-The Kentuckians, chiefly emigrants from Virginia, are as remarkable for acuteness of intellect, as they are distinguished by their frank, high-spirited, and hospitable nature. They are brave and patriotic in a high degree, and in times of public danger, have come forward with a most honourable zeal to serve and defend their country. Slavery, however, has taught the rich to despise labour, and planted the seeds of other vices in their character. The women are generally frugal and industrious,

Nile's Weekly Register.

though fond of dancing and innocent amusements; the men have acquired a passion for play, for the gratification of which they often sacrifice their time, money, and health. This country furnishing a great abundance of excellent provisions at a cheap rate, poverty is almost unknown; and the more wealthy live as luxuriantly as the inhabitants of the sea-ports from which they are so remote. In substantial houses a gammon of bacon is regularly boiled for dinner every day in the year. There is always flesh meat for breakfast, dinner, and supper, and the consumption, particularly of bacon and hams, is prodigious. The common beverage consists of whisky and water, gin, beer, porter, cider, apple and peach brandy. Among the higher classes are seen all kinds of wines consumed in the sea-port towns of the United States. The favourite professions are law and medicine.

Diseases.-The most common diseases are intermitting and bilious fever, which prevail chiefly in autumn. In winter cases of pleurisy and rheumatism often occur. Strangers on their arrival are said to be subject to a diarrhoea occasioned by the limestone and vegetable matter which the water holds in solution. Frankfort, the metropolis of the state, situated on the east bank of Kentucky river, sixty miles above its junction with the Ohio, was for several years after the first settlements commenced very unhealthy. The inhabitants were afflicted with bilious fever, which ceased as soon as the low places were drained. Louisville, situated on a plain about a quarter of a mile above the falls of the Ohio, was also subject to bilious and intermitting fever, but is now generally healthy.

History.—In the Historical notice which

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has furnished of this state, we find that the outlet of Kentucky river was discovered in 1754 by a party de scending the Ohio river; but that the riches of this country remained concealed till 1767, when another party engaged in commerce with the Indians ventured through the woods in different directions. Of this number was Colonel Boon, who, struck with the enormous growth of trees, and the luxuriant herbage of the natural meadows, formed a high opinion of its agricultural advantages, and with the view of forming an establishment, he resolved to penetrate to its inmost recesses; but, in this attempt, all those who accompanied him were destroyed by the Indians, and he left alone escaped from the wilderness, and returned disheartened to his residence on the Yadkin river in South Carolina. Some of his countrymen, to whom he described the riches of the country, associated with him in the purchase of a tract of lands belonging to the Cherokee nation, situated on the south side of Kentucky river; and they set out with five families for the purpose of forming an establishment. The lands on the northern, or opposite side, were ceded by some of the tribes of the five nations to Colonel Donaldson, with the approbation of the inhabitants of the neighbouring counties of Clinch and Holstein; and their numbers were increased by forty men from Payell's valley, who ow erected a fort on the bank of the Kentucky river which they called Boonsborough. This country being claimed by other Indians, became the theatre of war, which continued with more or less activity till the year 1778, when all the posts, Indian, English, and French, were

taken possession of by General Clarke. In the year 1790 this province separated from Virginia, in which it had been included, with her free consent, and two years afterwards it was admitted as a state into the American union. *

Civil or Administrative Division of the State of Kentueky, with the Population of each County and Chief Town, in 1810, the Year of the last Enu

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One of the most extraordinary circumstances in the history of this country is the existence of mounds and fortifications, which indicate great antiquity, and a considerable acquaintance with the mechanical arts in the native inhabitants. Some of the old forts, near the mouth of Kentucky river, are covered with trees, which the botanist, Dr Cutler, considered as of a second growth, and inferred from this, that the fortifications must have been more than 1000 years old. The walls of the remains of one, situated at the distance of half a mile from the Ohio, and nearly opposite the mouth of Big Scioto river, inclose fourteen acres of surface of a square form. The walls are thirty feet at the base, and on the summit large enough for the passage of a waggon; they are from eight to sixteen feet in height. There are seven gateways, each twenty feet high; three on the west, two on the east, and two on the north. From the north-west angle are seen the ruins of a covered way which extends 280 yards to a creek on the west side of the fort. The walls are of the same dimensions as those of the fort. There are also two walls leading to a creek on the cast side, distant 150 yards. Beyond the creek there is no vestige of defence. At a small distance from the fort are two large mounds of a pyramidal form.

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* The population of Lexington, in 1817, was estimated to be 6000. Palmer's

Travels, p. 105.

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