2 November: In the morning, densely overcast sky. At a quarter past seven or seven thirty, temperature of 8 1/2°R [51.1°F, 10.6°C]. Messrs. Lesueur, Twigg, and a stranger arrived early to view Mr. Bodmer’s drawings. Afterward I visited Mr. Lesueur and later found Dreidoppel at home, back from hunting. He had shot several interesting birds, including a young male female cardinal, a young Icterus phoeniceus, and others. Mr. Bodmer sketched at home.

In the afternoon I visited Mr. Say, and in his yard we examined a stout storax tree (Liquidambar styraciflua), the resin of which has a peculiar odor that I do not find very pleasant. It flows profusely when one cuts into the tree. Its consistency is like that of turpentine or pine resin. When we went walking afterward, we found whole flocks of blackbirds flying over our heads. Mr. Lesueur gave me his essay on Trionyx, which was printed in the Paris Annales du Muséum.M10Now I still lack Say’s essay on turtles and Le Conte’s on the amphibians of North America (he is in France now).

At four o’clock in the afternoon, I went with Mr. Owen to his whiskey distillery, which is driven by a steam engine. A mill for grinding wheat, rye, and corn is set into motion by steam. On an adjacent floor there is a pump, which fills a large mash vat with water. This is boiling or very hot, and when the water reaches a high enough level, certain amounts of various kinds of grain are added. This grain is already piled up beforehand at the edge of the vat of 12 to 15 feet in diameter and is then quickly shoveled in by four men with scoops. Four iron rakes constantly turn in the vat and mix the mass.

When it is finished, it is drained into other large cauldrons in the lower floor of the building, where it ferments. Then the steam is let in, which lifts the vapors, which are condensed in the form of whiskey as they pass through a copper coil in a vat filled with cold water.

The residue is used in several ways, especially, however, for fattening about 160 pigs, distributed on both sides of the middle corridor in a long building. The meat is salted and shipped off. Soon, in the fall, they will be butchered in a special building, most of them shot in the head with a rifle in their stalls. They are now very fat and heavy. As soon as they are butchered, just as many young ones will replace them and be fattened on the whiskey slop.

Here at this distillery, more than 300 pigs are always kept for this purpose. Mr. Owen has leased this undertaking to someone familiar with its operation in return for a portion of the spirits. About 1,500 barrels of whiskey are produced yearly, and now the price of a barrel is ten dollars.M10The whiskey itself is of poor quality. The salted pork is usually shipped down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Some of the flatboats and keelboats built here on the Wabash go as far as New Orleans. During the evening Mr. Say paid a visit and told us some most interesting things about his stay among the Indians when he traveled up the Missouri with Major Long.