SOURCES OF THE OHIO RIVER

Description of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers.—­ The Ohio river.—­ Exploration of Cavelier de la Salle.—­ Names given by ancient cartographers to the Ohio.—­ Routes of the aborigines from the great lakes to the Ohio river.

The southerly branch of the Ohio River, and one of its chief affluents, is made by the union of the West Fork and Tygart Valley rivers, in the county of Marion, state of Virginia, the united waters of which flow north into Pennsylvania as the Monongahela River, and is there joined by the Cheat River, its principal tributary.  The Monongahela unites with the Alleghany to form the Ohio, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  The length of the Monongahela, without computing that of its tributaries, is about one hundred and fifty miles; but if we include its eastern fork, the Tygart Valley River, which flows from Randolph County, Virginia, the whole length of this tributary of the Ohio may exceed three hundred miles.  It has a width at its union with the Alleghany of nearly one-fourth of a mile, and a depth of water sufficient for large steamboats to ascend sixty miles, to Brownsville, Pennsylvania, while light-draught vessels can reach its head, at Fairmont, Virginia.

The northern branch of the Ohio, known as the Alleghany River, has a length of four hundred miles, and its source is in the county of Potter, in northern Pennsylvania.  It takes a very circuitous course through a portion of New York state, and re-enters Pennsylvania flowing through a hilly region, and at the flourishing city of Pittsburgh mingles its waters with its southern sister, the Monongahela.

The region traversed by the Alleghany is wild and mountainous, rich in pine forests, coal, and petroleum oil; and the extraction from its rocky beds of the last-named article is so enormous in quantity, that at the present time more than four million barrels of oil are awaiting shipment in the oil districts of Pennsylvania.  The smaller steamboats can ascend the river to Olean, about two hundred and fifty miles above Pittsburgh.  At Olean, the river has a breadth of twenty rods.

In consequence of its high latitude, the clear waters of the Alleghany usually freeze over by the 25th of December, after having transported upon its current the season’s work, from the numerous saw-mills of the great wilderness through which it flows, in the form of rafts consisting of two hundred million feet of excellent lumber.