natural defects which we had to contend with; and after some time the timber would not resist a column of water ten yards high.
We continued to go on in this unprofitable manner until the 7th of November, 1824, when it was determined that I should be commissioned to the United States for iron-pumps, I accordingly left Catorce on the 22nd, with instructions, that if a foundery could not be met with in that country for casting the pipes, I should proceed immediately to England. I went by the way of San Luis Potosi, through Tula to Gallos, across the Sierra Madre by Santa Barbara, which stands in a delightful valley, picturesque and fertile, formed by the Sierra Madre and another chain of mountains: from thence to Rio Limon, Horcasitas, and Altamira. I was detained at Tampico till the 16th of December, when I embarked in an American schooner and sailed for New Orleans, and after a tempestuous passage reached Balize on the 2nd of January, 1825. The distance from Balize (at the mouth of the Missisippi) to New Orleans, is one hundred miles. I went in a steam-boat to the latter place, which it is unnecessary to describe. The number and size of the steam-boats plying on the Missisippi is extraordinary. At New Orleans I obtained information of a foundery established at Louisville, fifteen hundred miles up the river, which appeared to be on a scale in every way competent to the size of the castings required. On the 10th I left New Orleans and reached Louisville on the 25th, where I made immediate application to Mr. Prentice, the proprietor of the foundery, who told me that he should require twelve months to execute my order, and recommended me to proceed to Cincinnati, three hundred miles farther up. I accordingly left on the 26th, and reached Cincinnati the following morning. I found on my arrival there, that there were four founderies in the neighbourhood, for the proprietors of which I sent immediately, and contracted with them on the very day of my arrival. In four months the order was completed.
The weight of the pipes was sixty-three tons five hundred, at six dollars per cwt.; the last pipe was cast on the 20th of May, and on the 23rd I left Cincinnati.
In consequence of a twenty-two feet fall in the river at
