FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

every side. Already there are well established factories making hats, glass, buckshot [?],
gun powder and foundries for all kinds of iron. In the mountains there are immense
mines of this metal, of a quality equal to that of Sweden. <strong>The</strong>y make some very good
coarse cloth and a factory to manufacture fine materials has been established. <strong>The</strong>y spin
linen [?], which is grown extensively in this country, wool, and cotton. But manpower is
rather lacking. At present labor is excessively expensive. On the other hand, everything
that is made by machine succeeds in the highest degree. <strong>The</strong>re is one cotton spinning
mill near Boston, another near Providence, and one near Pittsburgh. <strong>The</strong> farmers
manufacture ordinary wool cloth themselves, ________ cotton _____ in various colors,
which very much resemble Scotch plaids, and are very attractive. It is amazing how
much in the United States they employ machinery to supplement manpower. <strong>The</strong>re are
machines to saw wood and make shingles which serve to cover houses. Others to plane
boards and polish them, much better than the best carpenter could do it. Every year they
come out with a new invention.
Sunday, November 6 [1808], Somerset-town
We rested almost all the day, since the coaches almost never run on Sunday. Moreover,
this appears to be the only part of religious precept observed by the inhabitants of many
of these parts. In this one where we are, even though it is a _____ town where the
magistrates meet and hold court, there is hardly a church. A Dutch _____ has made a
_____ in the courthouse, employing that language, and exclusively for a Dutch
congregation settled in the neighborhood.
We left Lancaster Wednesday about 5 o’clock in the evening. We spent the night 12
miles from there, and the following day, Thursday, we went to Chambersburg, a city
situated 95 miles from Lancaster. From there the country begins to be less cultivated.
<strong>The</strong> houses for the most part are constructed of logs roughly squared off. <strong>The</strong>y call them
log houses.
Friday we took to the road very early in the morning, about 3 o’clock, so we were up
most of the night, that is, about three o’clock, and at daybreak we began to climb the hills
called the sideling hills. It is the chain of mountains east of the Alleghany chain. We
rode almost all day long over the diabolical roads, being obliged to lock two wheels at
100 paces [?]. <strong>The</strong> hills, while so [?] very high, are the most disagreeable to travel that
one could ever meet. <strong>The</strong>y are all so _______, and the valleys which separate them are
so narrow that only a bullet could get through them. From one side to the other, these
valleys are about 300 to 500 feet deep, perpendicular, ordinarily watered by a very rapid
stream. One also sees a quite pretty river which runs _____ ______ and _______
[ p 3] Just as churches are rare, so are cemeteries, and one sees on each farm a small plot
of land surrounded by a fence and planted with a few trees, where they bury the members
of the family who die. Sentimental travelers could stop here to describe the funeral of a
venerable old man whose remains, _____ by his weeping children, goes to rest with his
ancestors. _______ you _______ the family _______ grouped around the coffin, the
somber and silent grief of the sons, the brothers, the spouse, you ______ ______ the
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