OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

EARTH
SCIENCES
LIBRARY

A SECOND VISIT

TO

THE UNITED STATES

OF

NORTH AMERICA.
VOL. II.

LONDON :

SPOTTISWOODKS and SHAW,
NL-W street- Square.

A SECOND VISIT

TO

THE UNITED STATES

NORTH AMERICA.

BY

SIR CHARLES LYELL, F.R.S.

PRESIDENT OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,

AUTHOR OF " THE PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY,"

AND " TRAVELS IN NORTH AMERICA."

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1849.

CONTENTS SCIENCES

LIBRARY

THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAP. XX.

Page

Darien to Savannah. Black Baptist Church and Preacher.
Negro Prayer. Negro Intelligence. Bribery of Irish
Voters. Dirt-Eaters, Railway Expedition on Hand-
Car. Geology of Georgia. Negroes more progressive
in Upper Country. Indifference of Georgians to Win
ter Cold. Want of Elbow-Room in Pine-Barrens - 1

CHAP. XXL

f

Indian Mounds and Block-house at Macon, Georgia.
Fashionists. Funeral of Northern Man. Geology and
Silicified Corals and Shells. Stage Travelling to Milledge-
ville. Negro Children. Home-made Soap. Decom
position of Gneiss. Deep Ravines recently excavated
after clearing of Forest. Man shot in, a Brawl. Disap-

J' pointed Place Hunter. Lynch Law in Florida. Repeal
A)f English Corn-Laws. War Spirit abating - 14

M632474

vi CONTENTS,

CHAP. XXII.

Page

Macon to Columbus by Stage. Rough Travelling. Pas
sage of Flint River. Columbus. Recent Departure of
Creek Indians. Falls of the Chatahoochie. Competi
tion of Negro and White Mechanics. Age of Pine
Trees. Abolitionist " Wrecker" in Railway Car.
Runaway Slave. Sale of Novels by News-boys.
Character of Newspaper Press. Geology and Creta
ceous Strata, Montgomery. Curfew. Sunday School
for Negroes. Protracted Meeting 31

CHAP. XXIII.

Voyage from Montgomery to Mobile. Description of r*
large River Steamer. Shipping of Cotton at Bluffs.
Fossils collected at Landings. Collision of Steamer with
the Boughs of Trees. Story of a German Stewardess.
Emigration of Stephanists from Saxony. Perpetuation
of Stephanist and Mormon Doctrines. Distinct Table
for Coloured and White Passengers. Landing at Clai-
borne by Torchlight. Fossil Shells - 45

CHAP. XXIV.

Claiborne, Alabama. Movers to Texas. State Debts
and Liabilities. Lending Money to half-settled States.
Rumours of War with England. Macon, Alabama.
Sale of Slaves. Drunkenness in Alabama. Laws
against Duelling. Jealousy of Wealth. Emigration to
the West. Democratic Equality of Whites. Skeleton
of Fossil Whale or Zeuglodon. Voyage to Mobile 60

CONTENTS. Vll

CHAP. XXY.

Page

Voyage from Mobile to Tuscaloosa. Visit to the Coal-
Field of Alabama. Its Agreement in Age with the an
cient Coal of Europe. Absenteeism in Southern States.
Progress of Negroes. Unthriftiness of Slave-Labour.
University of Tuscaloosa. Churches. Bankruptcies.
Judges and Law Courts. Geology on the Tombeckbee
Kiver. Artesian Wells. Limestone Bluff of St. Ste
phen's. Negro shot by Overseer. Involuntary Efforts
of the Whites to civilise the Negroes. New Statute in
Georgia against Black Mechanics. The Effects of
speedy Emancipation and the free Competition of White
and Black Labourers considered - - 77

CHAP. XXVI.

Return to Mobile. Excursion to the Shores of the Gulf
of Mexico. View from Lighthouse. Mouth of Alabama
River. Gnathodon inhabiting Brackish Water. Banks
of these Fossil Shells far Inland. Miring of Cattle.
Yellow Fever at Mobile in 1 839. Fire in same Year.
Voyage from Mobile to New Orleans. Movers to Texas.
Lake Pontchartrain. Arrival at New Orleans. St.
Louis Hotel. French Aspect of City. Carnival. Pro
cession of Masks - - - 102

CHAP. XXVII.

Catholic Cathedral, New Orleans. French Opera. Creole
Ladies. Quadroons. Marriage of Whites with Qua
droons. St. Charles Theatre. English Pronunciation.
Duellist's Grave. Ladies' Ordinary. Procession of
Fire Companies. Boasted Salubrity of New Orleans.
Goods selling at Northern Prices. Mr. Wilde. Roman
Law. Shifting of Capital to Baton Rouge. Debates in
Houses of Legislature. Convention and Revision of
the Laws. Policy of Periodical State Conventions.
Judges cashiered. Limitation of their Term of Office 114

CONTENTS.

CHAP. XXVIII.

Page

Negroes not attacked by Yellow Fever. History of Mr.
Wilde's Poem. The Market, New Orleans. Motley
Character of Population. Levee and Steamers. First
Sight of Mississippi River. View from the Cupola of
the St. Charles. Site of New Orleans. Excursion to
Lake Pontchartrain. Shell Road. Heaps of Gnathodon.
Excavation for Gas-Works. Buried upright Trees.
Pere Antoine's Date-palm - \'1~

CHAP. XXIX.

Excursion from New Orleans to the Mouths of the River.
Steam-Boat Accidents. River Fogs. Successive Growths
of Willow on River Bank. Pilot-Station of the Balize.
Lighthouse destroyed by Hurricane. Reeds, Shells, and
Birds on Mud-Banks. Drift-wood. Difficulty of esti
mating the annual Increase of Delta. Action of Tides
and Currents. Tendency in the old Soundings to be
restored. Changes of Mouths in a Century inconsi
derable. Return to New Orleans. Battle-Ground.
Sugar-Mill. Contrast of French and Anglo-American
Races. Causes of Difference. State and Progress of
Negroes in Louisiana - - - 1 40

CHAP. XXX.

Voyage from New Orleans to Port Hudson. The Coast,
Villas and Gardens. Cotton Steamers. Flat Boats.
Crevasses and Inundations. Decrease of Steam-Boat
Accidents. Snag-Boat. Musquitos. Natural Rafts.
Bartram on buried Trees at Port Hudson. Dr. Carpen
ter's Observations. Landslip described. Ancient Sub
sidence in the Delta followed by an upward Movement,
deducible from the buried Forest at Port Hudson - ] G'5

CONTENTS. IX

CHAP. XXXI.

Page

Fontania near Port Hudson. Lake Solitude. Floating
Island. Bony Pike. Story of the Devil's Swamp.
Embarking by Night in Steam-Boat. Literary Clerk.
Old Levees undermined. Succession of upright buried
Trees in Bank. Kaccourci Cut-off. Bar at Mouth of
Red River. Shelly Freshwater Loam of Natchez.
Recent Ravines in Table-Land. Bones of extinct Qua
drupeds. Human Fossil Bone. Question of supposed
co-existence of Man with extinct Mammalia discussed.
Tornado at Natchez. Society, Country Houses, and
Gardens. Landslips. Indian Antiquities - 185

CHAP. XXXII.

Natchez. Vidalia and Lake Concordia. Hybernation of
Alligator. Bonfire on Floating Raft. Grand Gulf.
Magnolia Steamer. Yicksburg to Jackson (Mississippi) by
Railway. Fossils on Pearl River. Ordinary at Jackson.
Story of Transfer of State-House from Natchez. Vote
by Ballot. Popular Election of Judges. Voyage from
Vicksburg to Memphis. Monotony of River Scenery.
Squall of "Wind. Actors on Board. Negro mistaken
for White. Manners in the Backwoods. Inquisitiveness.
Spoilt Children. Equality and Levelling. Silence of
English Newspapers on Oregon Question - 202

CHAP. XXXIII.

Bluffs at Memphis. New Madrid. No Inn. Under
mining of River Bank. Examination of Country shaken
by Earthquake of 1811-12. Effects of Passage of Waves
through Alluvial Soil. Circular Cavities or Sand-Bursts.
Open Fissures. Lake Eulalie drained by Shocks. Bor-

CONTENTS.

Page

ders of Sunk Country, West of New Madrid. Dead
Trees standing erect. A slight Shock felt. Trade in
Peltries increased by Earthquake. Trees erect in new-
formed Lakes. Indian Tradition of Shocks. Dreary
Forest Scene. Rough Quarters. Slavery in Missouri 225

CHAP. XXXIV.

Alluvial Formations of the Mississippi, ancient and modern.
Delta defined. Great Extent of Wooded Swamps.
Deposits of pure Vegetable Matter. Floors of Blue
Clay with Cypress Roots. Analogy to ancient Coal-
Measures. Supposed " Epoch of existing Continents."
Depth of Freshwater Strata in Deltas. Time required
to bring down the Mud of the Mississippi. New Expe
riments and Observations required. Great Age of buried
and living Cypress-trees. Older and newer Parts of
Alluvial Plain. Upraised Terraces of Natchez, &c., and
the Ohio, the Monuments of an older Alluvial Formation.
Grand Oscillation of Level. The ancient Valleys inha
bited by Quadrupeds now extinct. Land-shells not
changed. Probable Rate of Subsidence and Upheaval.
Relative Age of the ancient Alluvium of the Mississippi,
and the Northern Drift - 242

CHAP. XXXV.

Departure from New Madrid. Night-watch for Steamers.
Scenery of the Ohio River. Mount Vernon, Ornitho
logy. No Undergrowth in Woods. Spring Flowers.
Visit to Dr. Dale Owen, New Harmony. Fossil Forest
of erect Trees in Coal-Measures. Movers migrating
Westward. Voyage to Louisville. Professional Zeal of
one of '; tiie Pork Aristocracy." Fossil Coral-reef at the
Falls of the Ohio, Louisville. Fossil Zoophites as perfect
as recent Stone-corals - - - - 2G

CONTENTS. XI

CHAP. XXXVI.

Louisville. Noble Site for a Commercial City. Geology.
Medical Students. Academical Rotation in Office. Epis
copal Church. Preaching against the Reformation.
Service in Black Methodist Church. Improved Condi
tion of Negroes in Kentucky. A coloured Slave mar
ried as a free White. Voyage to Cincinnati. Naturalised
English Artizan gambling. Sources of Anti-British
Antipathies. Progress of Cincinnati. Increase of
German Settlers. Democracy of Romanists. Geology
of Mill Creek. Land Tortoises. Observatory. Culti
vation of the Vine. Sculpture by Hiram Powers - 279

CHAP. XXXVII.

Cincinnati toPittsburg. Improved Machinery of Steamer.
Indian Mound. Gravel Terraces. Pittsburg Fire.
Journey to Greensburg. Scenery like England. Ore
gon War Question. Fossil Foot-prints of Air-breath
ing Reptile in Coal Strata. Casts of Mud-cracks.
Foot-prints of Birds and Dogs sculptured by Indians.
Theories respecting the Geological Antiquity of highly
organized Vertebrata. Prejudices opposed to the Re
ception of Geological Truths. Popular Education the
only Means of preventing a Collision of Opinion be
tween the Multitude and the Learned - - 297

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Greensburg to Philadelphia. Crossing the Alleghany
Mountains. Scenery. Absence of Lakes. Harris-
burg. African Slave-trade. Railway Meeting at
Philadelphia. Borrowing Money for Public Works.
Negro Episcopal Clergyman. Washington. National
Fair and Protectionist Doctrines. Dog- wood in Vir
ginia. Excursion with Dr. Wyman. Natural History.
Musk-rats. Migration of Humming-birds to New-
Jersey - - 319

Xll CONTENTS.

CHAP. XXXIX.

Page

New York, clear Atmosphere and gay Dresses. Omni
buses. Naming of Streets. Visit to Audubon. Croton
Aqueduct. Harper's Printing Establishment. Large
Sale of Works by English and American Authors.
Cheapness of Books. International Copyright. Sale of
Eugene Sue's Wandering Jew. Tendency of the Work.
Mr. Gallatin on Indian Corn. War with Mexico. Fa
cility of raising Troops. Dr. Dewey preaching against
War. Cause of Influence of Unitarians. Geological
Excursion to Albany. Helderberg War. Voting
Thanks to the Third House. Place-hunting. Spring
Flowers. Geology and Taconic System - - 332

CHAP. XL.

Construction and Management of Railways in America.
Journey by Long Island from New York to Boston.
Whale Fishery in the Pacific. Chewing Tobacco. Vi
sit to Wenham Lake. Cause of the superior Permanence
of Wenham Lake Ice. Return to Boston. Skeletons
of Fossil Mastodon. Food of these extinct Quadru
peds. Anti-war Demonstration. Voyage to Halifax.
Dense Fog. Large Group of Icebergs seen on the
Ocean. Transportation of Rocks by Icebergs. Danger
of fast sailing among Bergs. Aurora Borealis. Con
nection of this Phenomenon with Drift Ice. Pilot with
English Newspapers. Return to Liverpool - - 3<>5

A SECOND VISIT

THE UNITED STATES

IN THE YEAKS 1845 — 6.

CHAP. XX.

Darien to Savannah. — Black Baptist Church and Preacher. —
Negro Prayer. — Negro Intelligence. — Bribery of Irish Voters.
• — Dirt-Eaters. — Railway Expedition on Hand- Car. — Geology
of Georgia. — Negroes more progressive in Upper Country. —
Indifference of Georgians to Winter Cold. — Want of Elbow -
Room in Pine- Barrens.

Jan. 9. 1846. — WHEN I had finished my geological
examination of the southern and maritime part of
Georgia, near the mouth of the Alatamaha river, I
determined to return northward to Savannah, that I
might resume my survey at the point where I left
off in 1842*, and study the tertiary and cretaceous
strata between the Savannah and Alabama rivers.

On our way back from Hopeton to Darien, Mr.
Couper and his son accompanied us in a canoe, and

* See " Travels in North America," vol. i. pp. 155 — 174.
VOL. II. B

2 BLACK BAPTIST CHURCH [CHAP. XX.

we passed through the General's Cut, a canal so
called because, according to tradition, Oglcthorpe's
soldiers cut it out with their swords in one day.
We met a great number of negroes paddling their
canoes on their way back from Darien, for it was
Saturday, when they are generally allowed a half
holiday, and they had gone to sell on their own
account their poultry, eggs, and fish, and were bring
ing back tobacco, clothes, and other articles of use or
luxury.

Having taken leave of our kind host, we waited
some hours at Darien for a steamer, which was
to touch there on its way from St. Augustine in
Florida, and which conveyed us speedily to Sa
vannah. Next day, I attended afternoon service in
a Baptist church at Savannah, in which I found that
I was the only white man, the congregation con
sisting of about 600 negroes, of various shades, most
of them very dark. As soon as I entered, I was
shown to a seat reserved for strangers, near the
preacher. First the congregation all joined, both
men and women, very harmoniously in a hymn, most
of them having evidently good ears for music, and
good voices. The singing was followed by prayers,
not read, but delivered without notes by a negro of
pure African blood, a grey-headed venerable-looking
man, with a fine sonorous voice, named Marshall.
He, as I learnt afterwards, has the reputation of
being one of their best preachers, and he concluded
by addressing to them a sermon, also without notes,
in good style, and for the most part in good English ;
so much so, as to make me doubt whether a few

CHAP. XX.] AND PKEACHEE.

ungrammatical phrases in the negro idiom might not
have been purposely introduced for the sake of
bringing the subject home to their familiar thoughts.
He got very successfully through one flight about
the gloom of the valley of the shadow of death, and,
speaking of the probationary state of a pious man
left for a while to his own guidance, and when in
danger of failing saved by the grace of God, he
compared it to an eagle teaching her newly fledged
offspring to fly by carrying it up high into the air,
then dropping it, and, if she sees it falling to the
earth, darting with the speed of lightning to save it
before it reaches the ground. Whether any eagles
really teach their young to fly in this manner, I leave
the ornithologist to decide; but when described in
animated and picturesque language, yet by no means
inflated, the imagery was well calculated to keep the
attention of his hearers awake. He also inculcated
some good practical maxims of morality, and told
them they were to look to a future state of rewards
and punishments in which God would deal impar
tially with " the poor and the rich, the black man
and the white."

I went afterwards, in the evening, to a black
Methodist church, where I and two others were the
only white men in the whole congregation ; but I
was less interested, because the service and preaching
were performed by a white minister. Nothing in
my whole travels gave me a higher idea of the capa
bilities of the negroes, than the actual progress which
they have made, even in a part of a slave state, where
they outnumber the whites, than this Baptist meet-

B 2

4 NEGRO BAPTISTS. [CHAP. XX.

ing. To see a body of African origin, who had
joined one of the denominations of Christians and
built a church for themselves, — who had elected a
pastor of their own race and secured him an annual
•salary, from whom they were listening to a good
sermon, scarcely, if at all, below the average standard
of the compositions of white ministers, — to hear the
whole service respectably, and the singing admirably
performed, surely marks an astonishing step in civil
isation.

The pews were well fitted up, and the church
well ventilated, and there was no disagreeable odour
in cither meeting-house. It was the winter season,
110 doubt, but the room was warm and the numbers
great. The late Mr. Sydney Smith, when he had
endeavoured in vain to obtain from an American of
liberal views, some explanation of his strong objec
tion to confer political and social equality on the
blacks, drew from him at length the reluctant con
fession that the idea of any approach to future amal
gamation was insufferable to any man of refinement,
unless he had lost the use of his olfactory nerves.
On hearing which Mr. Smith exclaimed —

O

" ' Et si non nlium late jactaret odorem
Cii'is erat ! ' *

And such, then, are the qualifications by which the
rights of suffrage and citizenship are to be deter
mined ! "

A Baptist missionary, with whom I conversed on
the capacity of the negro race, told me that he was
once present when one of their preachers delivered a
* Virgil, Geors;. ii. 133.

CHAP. XX.] NEGRO PRAYER. 5

prayer, composed by himself,, for the ordination of a
minister of his sect, which, said he, was admirable in
its conception, although the sentences were so im-
grammatical, that they would pass, with a stranger,
for mere gibberish. The prayer ran thus : —

" Make he good, like he say,
Make he say, like he good,
Make he say, make he good, like he God."

Which may be thus interpreted : — Make him good as
his doctrine, make his doctrine as pure as his life, and
may both be in the likeness of his God.

This anecdote reminds me of another proof of negro
intelligence, related to me by Dr. Le Conte, whose
black carpenter came to him one day, to relate to him,
with great delight, a grand discovery he had made,
namely, that each side of a hexagon was equal to the
radius of a circle drawn about it. When informed
that this property of a hexagon had long been known,
he remarked that if it had been taught him, it would
have been practically of great use to him in his busi
ness.

There had been " a revival " in Savannah a short
time before my return, conducted by the Methodists,
in the course of which a negro girl had been so much
excited, as to be thrown into a trance. The physi
cian who attended her gave me a curious description
of the case. If the nerves of only one or two victims
are thus overwrought, it is surely more than ques
tionable whether the evil does not counterbalance
all the good done, by what is called " the awakening"
of the indifferent.

I inquired one day, when conversing with some of

B 3

G BRIBERY OF VOTERS. [CHAP. XX.

the citizens here, whether, as New York is called the
Empire State, Pennsylvania the Keystone State,
Massachusetts the Bay State, and Vermont, when
the question of its separation from New Hampshire
was long under discussion, " the Future State," —
in short, as almost all had some name, had they any
designation for Georgia ? It ought, they said, to be
styled the Pendulum State, for the Whigs and
Democrats get alternately possession of power; so
that each governor is of opposite politics to his pre
decessor. The metropolis, they added, imitates the
example of the State, electing the mayor and alder
men of Savannah one year from the Democratic and
the next from the Whig party. It has been of late
a great point, in electioneering tactics, to secure the
votes of fifty or sixty Irish labourers, who might turn
the scale here, as they have so often done in New
York, in the choice of city officers. In the larger
city they were conciliated for some years by employ
ment in the Croton waterworks, so that " pipe-
laying " became the slang term for this kind of
bribery ; here, it ought to be called " reed-cutting,"
for they set the Hibernians to cut down a dense
crop of tall reeds (Sesbania vcsicaria), which covers
the canal and the swamps round the city, grow
ing to the height of fifteen feet, and, like the city
functionaries, renewed every year. Some members
of the medical college, constituting a board of health,
have just come out with a pamphlet, declaring, that
by giving to the sun's rays, in summer, free access
to the mud in the bogs, and thus promoting the
decay of vegetable matter, the cutting down of these
reeds has caused malaria.

CHAP. XX.] DIRT-EATERS. 7

In the course of all my travels, I had never seen
one opossum in the woods, nor a single racoon, their
habits being nocturnal, yet we saw an abundant
supply of both of them for sale in the market here.
The negroes relish them much, though their flesh is
said to be too coarse and greasy for the palate of a
white man. The number of pine-apples and bananas
in the market, reminded us of the proximity of the
West Indies. We observed several negroes there,
whose health had been impaired by dirt-eating, or
the practice of devouring aluminous earth, — a diseased
appetite, which, as I afterwards found, prevails in
several parts of Alabama, where they eat clay. I
heard various speculations on the origin of this
singular propensity, called " geophagy " in some me
dical books. One author ascribes it to the feeding
of slaves too exclusively on Indian corn, which is
too nourishing, and has not a sufficiency in it of inor
ganic matter, so that when they give it to cattle, they
find it best to grind up the cob and part of the stalk
with the grain. But this notion seems untenable, for
a white person was pointed out to me, who was quite
as sickly, and had a green complexion, derived from
this same habit ; and I was told of a young lady in
good circumstances, who had never been stinted of
her food, yet who could not be broken of eating clay.

Jan. 13. — From Savannah we went by railway
to Macon in Georgia, a distance of 191 miles, my
wife 2oino; direct in a train which carried her in

o CD

about twelve hours to her destination, accompanied
by one of the directors of the railway company, who
politely offered to escort her. The same gentleman

B 4

8 EXPEDITION ON HAND-CAR. [CHAP. XX.

supplied me with a hand-car and three negroes,
so that I was able to perform the journey at my
leisure, stopping at all the recent cuttings, and ex
amining the rocks and fossils on the way. I was
desirous of making these explorations, because this
line of road traverses the entire area occupied by the
tertiary strata between the sea and the borders of
the granitic region, which commences at Macon, and
the section was parallel to that previously examined
by me on. the Savannah river in 1842. When I
came to low swampy grounds, or pine-barrens, where
there were no objects of geological interest, my black
companions propelled me onwards at the rate of ten
or twelve miles an hour by turning a handle con
nected with the axis of the wheels. Their motions
were like those of men drawing water from a well.
Throughout the greater part of the route, an intel
ligent engineer accompanied me. As there was only
one line of rail, and many curves, and as the negroes
cannot be relied on for caution, he was anxious for my
safety, while I was wholly occupied with my geology.
I saw him frequently looking at his watch, and often
kneeling down, like (i Fine-ear " in the fairy tale, so as
to place his ear in contact with the iron rails to ascer
tain whether a passenger or luggage-train were within
a mile or two. We went by Parramore's Hill, where
the sandstone rocks detained me some time, and, at the
ninety-fifth mile station from Savannah, I collected
fossils, consisting of marine shells and corals. These
were silicified in the burr-stone, of which mill-stones
are manufactured. Near Sandersville I saw a lime
stone from which Eocene shells and corals are pro-

CHAP. XX.] GEOLOGY OF GEORGIA. 9

cured, as well as the teeth of sharks and the bones of
the huge extinct cetacean called Zeuglodon. Here
I had ample opportunities of confirming the opinion
I had previously announced as the result of my
labours in 1842., that this burr-stone, with its red,
yellow, and white sands, and its associated porcelain
clays or kaolin, constitutes one of the members of the
Eocene group, overlying the great body of cal
careous rock, once supposed by some to be cretaceous,
but which really belongs to the same tertiary period.*
Although the summit level of the railway attains
an elevation of about 500 feet, descending afterwards
somewhat abruptly to Macon, which is only 300 feet
above the sea, it is surprising how we stole imper
ceptibly up this ascent, as if on a perfectly level
plain, every where covered with wood, following
chiefly the swampy valley of the Ogeechee river,
in such a manner as to miss seeing all the leading

o o

features in the physical geography of the country.
Had I not, when at Hopeton, seen good examples
of that succession of steps, or abrupt escarpments, by
which a traveller in passing from the sea-coast to the
granite region ascends from one great terrace to
another, I should have doubted the accuracy of Bar-
tram's description, f

I had many opportunities, during this excursion, of
satisfying myself of the fact for which I had been
prepared by the planters " on the sea-board," that the
intelligence of the coloured race increased in the
interior and upland country in proportion as they

* See Quarterly Journ. of Geol. Society, 1845, p. 563.
t Ante, vol. i. pp. 345, 346.

10 NEGKOES IN UPPER COUNTEY. [CHAP. XX.

have more intercourse with the whites. Many of
them were very inquisitive to know my opinion
as to the manner in which marine shells, sharks'
teeth, sea-urchins, and corals could have been buried
in the earth so far from the sea and at such
a height. The deluge had occurred to them as a
cause, but they were not satisfied with it, observing
that they procured these remains not merely near
the surface, but from the bottom of deep wells, and
that others were in flint stones. In some places,
when I left the railway and hired a gig to visit
plantations far from the main road, the proprietor
would tell me he was unable to answer my questions,
his well having been sunk ten or twelve years ago.
In that period the property had changed hands two or
three times, the former owners having settled farther
south or south-west ; but the estate had remained
under the management of the same head negro, to
whom I was accordingly referred. This personage,
conscious of his importance, would begin by enlarging,
with much self-complacency, on the ignorance of his
master, who had been too short a time in those parts
to understand anything I wished to know. When
at length he condescended to come to the point, he
could usually give me a clear account of the layers
of sand, clay, and limestone they had passed
through, and of fishes' teeth they had found, some
of which had occasionally been preserved. In pro
portion as these coloured people fill places of trust,
they are involuntarily treated more as equals by
the whites. The prejudices which keep the races
asunder would rapidly diminish, were they not studi-

CHAP. XX.] NEGROES IN UPPER COUNTRY. 11

ously kept up by artificial barriers, unjust laws, and
the re-action against foreign interference. In one
of the small farms, where I passed the night, I was
struck with the good manners and pleasant expres
sion of countenance of a young woman of colour,
who had no dash of white blood in her veins. She
managed nearly all the domestic affairs of the house,
the white children among the rest, and, when next
day I learnt her age, from the proprietor, I ex
pressed surprise that she had never married. " She
has had many offers," said he, " but has declined all,
for they were quite unworthy of her, — rude and un
cultivated country people. I do not see how she
is to make a suitable match here, though she might
easily do so in a large town like Savannah." He
spoke of her just as he might have done of a white
free maid-servant.

If inter-marriages between the coloured and white
races were not illegal here, how can we doubt that
as Englishwomen sometimes marry black servants in
Great Britain, others, who came out here as poor
emigrants, would gladly accept an offer from a well-
conducted black artizan or steward of an estate, a
man of intelligence and sober habits, preferable in
so many respects to the drunken and illiterate Irish
settlers, who are now so unduly raised above them
by the prejudices of race !

In one family, I found that there were six white
children and six blacks, of about the same age, and
the negroes had been taught to read by their com
panions, the owner winking at this illegal proceeding,
and seeming to think that such an acquisition would

1 2 INDIFFERENCE TO COLD. [CHAP. XX

rather enhance the value of his slaves than otherwise.
Unfortunately, the whites, in return, often learn
from the negroes to speak broken English, and, in
spite of losing much time in unlearning ungramma-
tical phrases, well-educated people retain some of
them all their lives.

As I stopped every evening at the point where
my geological work for the day happened to end,
I had sometimes to put up with rough quarters
in the pine-barrens. It was cold, and none of
my hosts grudged a good fire, for large logs of
blazing pine-wood were freely heaped up on the
hearth, but the windows and doors were kept wide
open. One morning, I was at breakfast with a
large family, at sunrise, when the frost was so hard,
that every pool of water in the road was encrusted
with ice. In the course of the winter, some ponds,
they said, had borne the weight of a man and horse,
and there had been a coroner's inquest on the body
of a man, lately found dead on the road, where the
question had been raised whether he had been mur
dered or frozen to death. They had placed me in a
thorough draught, and, unable to bear the cold any
longer, I asked leave to close the window. My
hostess observed, that " I might do so, if I preferred
sitting in the dark." On looking up, I discovered
that there was no glass in the windows, and that
they were furnished with large shutters only. For
my own part, I would willingly have been content
with the light which the pine-wood gave us, but
seeing the women and girls, with bare necks and
light clothing, perfectly indifferent to the cold, I

CHAP. XX.] PINE-BARRENS. 13

merely asked permission to put on my great coat and
hat. These Georgians seemed to me, after their
long summer, to be as insensible to the frost as
some Englishmen the first winter after their return
from India, who come back charged, as it were, with
a superabundant store of caloric, and take time, like
a bar of iron out of a furnace, to part with their heat.
A farmer near Parramore's Hill, thinking I had
come to settle there, offered to sell me some land at
the rate of two dollars an acre. It was well timbered,
and I found that the wood growing on this sandy
soil is often worth more than the ground wThich it
covers. Another resident in the same district, told
me he had bought his farm at two and a half dollars
(or about half-a-guinea) an acre, and thought it dear,
and would have gone off to Texas, if he were not
expecting to reap a rich harvest from a thriving
plantation of peach trees and nectarines, just coming
into full bearing. A market for such fruit had re
cently been opened by the new railway, from Macon
to Savannah. He complained of want of elbow-room,
although I found that his nearest neighbour was six
or seven miles distant ; but, he observed, that having
a large family of children, he wished to lay out his
capital in the purchase of a wider extent of land in
Texas, and so be the better able to provide for
them.

14 IXDIxVN MOUXDS. [CHAP. XXI.

CHAP. XXL

Indian Mounds and Block-house at Macon, Georgia. — Fashion-
ists. — Funeral of Northern Man. — Geology and silicified
Corals and Shells. — Stage travelling to Milledgeville. — Negro
Children. — Home-made Soap. — Decomposition of Gneiss. —
Deep Ravines recently excavated after clearing of Forest. —
Man shot in a Brawl. — Disappointed Place-Hunter . — Lynch
Law in Florida. — Repeal of English Corn-Laws. — War
Spirit abating.

Jan. 15. 1846. — WHEN I was within twenty miles
of Macon, I left the hand-car and entered a railway-
train, which carried me in one hour into the town.
About a mile south of the place, we passed the base
of two conical Indian mounds, the finest monuments
of the kind I had ever seen. The first appearance
of a large steam-vessel ascending one of the western
tributaries of the Mississippi, before a single Indian
has been dispossessed of his hunting grounds, or a
single tree of the native forest has been felled.,
scarcely affords a more striking picture of a wilder
ness invaded by the arts of civilised life, than Macon,
in Georgia, resounding to the sound of a locomotive
engine. On entering the town, my eye was caught
by a striking object, a wooden edifice of very peculiar
structure and picturesque form, crowning one of the
hills in the suburbs. This, I was told, on inquiry,
was a block-house, actually in use against the Indians

CHAP. XXL] FASIIIONISTS. 1,5

only twenty-five years ago, before any habitations of
the white men were to be seen in the forest here.
It was precisely one of those wooden forts so faith
fully described by Cooper in the "Path-finder." After
the mind has become interested with such antiquities,
it is carried back the next moment to the modern
state of things by an extraordinary revulsion, when
a fellow-passenger, proud of the sudden growth of
his adopted city, tells you that another large building,
also conspicuous on a height, is a female seminary
lately established by the Methodists, " where all the
young ladies take degrees ;" and then, as you pace
the streets with your baggage to the hotel, another
says to you, " There go two of our fashionists,"
pointing to two gaily-dressed ladies, in the latest
Parisian costume.

I had seen, in the pale countenances of the whites
in the pine-woods I had lately travelled through,
the signs of much fever and ague prevalent in the
hot season in Georgia, but at Macon we heard
chiefly of consumptive patients, who have fled from
the Northern States in the hope of escaping the cold
of winter. The frost, this year, has tried them se
verely in the South. Two days before I reached
Macon, a young northern man had died in the hotel
where my wife wras staying, a melancholy event, as
none of his friends or relatives were near him. Lucy,
the chambermaid of the hotel, an intelligent bright
mulatto, from Maryland, who expressed herself as
well as any white woman, came to tell my wife that
the other ladies of the house were to be present at the
funeral, and invited her to attend. She found the two

16 FUNERAL OF NORTHERN MAN. [CHAP. XXI.

drawing-rooms thrown into one, and the coffin placed
on a table between the folding doors, covered with
a white cloth. There were twenty or thirty gen
tlemen on the one side, and nearly as many ladies
and children on the other, none of them in mourning.
The Episcopal clergyman who officiated, before read
ing the usual burial service, delivered a short and
touching address, alluding to the stranger cut off
in his youth, far from his kindred, and exhorting
his hearers not to defer the hour of repentance to a
death-bed, when their reason might be impaired or
taken from them. After the prayers, six of the
gentlemen came forward to carry the coffin down
stairs, to put it into a small hearse drawn by a single
horse, and three carriages followed with as many as
they could hold, to the cemetery of Rose Hill. This
burial-ground is in a beautiful situation on a wooded
hill, near the banks of the Ocmulgee and overlooking
the Falls.

These Falls, like so many of those on the rivers
east of the Alleghanies, are situated on the line of
junction of the granitic and tertiary regions.* The
same junction may also be seen at the bridge over
the Ocmulgee, at Macon, the red loam of the ter
tiary formation resting there on mica schist. At
the distance of one mile south-east of the town,
a railway cutting has exposed a series of beds
of yellow and red clay, with accompanying sands
of tertiary formation, and, at the depth of forty
feet, I observed a large fossil tree converted into

* See " Travels in X. America," vol. i. p. 132.

CHAP. XXL] SILICIFIED SHELLS AND CORALS. 17

lignite, the concentric rings of annual growth being
visible. Receding from the granitic rocks, six or
eight miles still farther to the south-east, I found
at Brown Mountain, a bluff on the Ocmulgee river,
and at other places in the neighbourhood, a great
many siliceous casts of fossil shells and corals, and
among others a large nautilus, the whole indicating
that these beds of cherty sandstone and impure lime
stone belong to the Eocene period.

As there is much kaolin in this series of chert and
burr-stone strata, I have little doubt that the petri
faction of fossil wood, and of shells and corals, has
taken place in consequence of the decomposition of
the imbedded felspathic rocks and crystals of felspar,
taking place simultaneously with the putrefaction of
the organic bodies. The silex, just set free from its
chemical combination in the felspar, would replace
each organic particle as fast as it decayed or was re
solved into its elements.

From Macon I went to Milledgeville, twenty-five
miles to the north-east, the capital of Georgia.
Instead of taking the direct road, we made a detour,
going the first thirty miles on the Savannah railway,
to a station called Gordon, where we found a stage
coach ready to drag us through the deep sands of the
pine-barrens, or to jolt us over corduroy roads in the
swamps. As we were traversing one of the latter, at
the rate of half a mile an hour, I began to contrast
the speed of the new railway with stage-travelling.
Our driver maintained that he could go as fast as the
cars. " How do you make that out ? " said I. " Put
a locomotive," he replied, " on this swamp, and see

18 NEGRO CHILDHEX. [CHAP. XXI.

winch will get on best. The most you can say is,
that each kind of vehicle runs fastest on its own line
of road."

We were passing some cottages on the way-side,
when a group of children rushed out, half of them
white and half negro, shouting at the full stretch of
their lungs, and making the driver fear that his
horses would be scared. They were not only like
children in other parts of the world, in their love of
noise and mischief, but were evidently all associating
on terms of equality, and had not yet found out that
they belonged to a different caste in society. One
of our passengers was a jet black youth, about ten
years old, who got down at a lone house in the woods,
from the door of which two mulatto boys a year or
two younger ran out. There was much embracing
and kissing, and mutual caressing, with more warmth
of manner than is usually shown by the whites. "We
were glad to see the white mistress of the house,
probably the owner of them and their parents, looking
on with evident pleasure and interest at the scene.

Milledgeville, a mere village, though the capital of
the State, is provided with four neat and substantial
wooden churches, clustered together, the Presbyterian,
Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian. In the latter we
found there was to be no service, as the clergyman had
been recently " called" to a larger church, newly built,
at Savannah. The Presbyterian minister was from
New England, and an excellent preacher. He ex
horted his congregation to take the same view of
their short sojourn on this globe, which the emigrant
takes of his journey to the far west, bearing patiently

CHAP. XXI.] THE " EXECUTIVE MANSION." 19

great hardships and privations, because, however
severe at the time, he knows they will soon end, and
prove momentary in their duration, in comparison
with the longer period which he hopes to spend in a
happier land.

At our hotel apologies were made to us by a
neatly-dressed coloured maid, for the disorderly
state of our room, the two beds having been recently
occupied by four members of the Legislature, who,
according to her, " had turned the room into a hog
pen, by smoking and spilling their brandy and wine
about the floor."

While I was geologising in the suburbs, the Go
vernor's lady called on my wife and took her to her
residence, called here the " Executive Mansion," as
appears by the inscription over the door. It con
tained some handsome reception-rooms newly fur
nished by the last Governor, but the white ground of
a beautiful Axminster carpet had been soiled and
much damaged the first evening after it was put
down, at a levee, attended by several hundred men,
each walking in after a heavy rain with his shoes
covered with mud.

When the Governor's wife paid us a second visit,
our landlady made herself one of the party just as
if we were all visitors at her house. She was very
much amused at my wife's muiF, having never seen
one since she was a'girl, half a century before, at Balti
more, yet the weather was now cold enough to make
such an article of dress most comfortable. Among
other inquiries, she said to my wife, "Do tell me
how you make your soap in England." Great was

20 HOME-MADE SOAr. [CHAP. XXL

her surprise to hear that ladies in that country were
in the habit of buying the article in shops, and would
be much puzzled if called upon to manufacture it
for themselves. As it was evident she had never
studied Adam Smith on the Division of Labour, she
looked upon this fine-lady system of purchasing
every article at retail stores, as very extravagant.
" That's the way they do in the North," said she,
(< though I never could understand where all their
money comes from." She then explained how eco
nomically she was able to supply herself with soap.
"First, there is the wood, which costs nothing but
the trouble of felling the trees ; and, after it has
served for fuel, it yields the ashes, from which we
get the potash. This is mixed with the fat of sixty
hogs, which costs nothing, for what else could I do
with all this fat at killing time ? As for the labour,
it is all done by my own people. I have nine maids,
and they make almost everything in the house, even
to the caps I wear." Touching the soap, she ob
served, we must be careful to select the ashes of the
oak, hiccory, ash, and other hard wood, for the pines
yield no potash ; a remark which led me to speculate
on the luxuriant growth of the long-leaved pines
in the purely siliceous tertiary soils, from which it
would have been difficult to conceive how the roots
of the trees could extract any alkaline matter,
whereas the soil of the " hiccory grounds" is derived
from the disintegration of granitic rocks, which are
very felspathic here, and are decomposing in situ.

Having occasion to hire a horse, I found that the
proprietor of the livery stables was a coloured man,

CHAP. XXL] BLOCKS OF GRANITE AND GNEISS. 21

who came himself to bargain about the price, which
was high compared to that asked in the North.

The site of Milledgeville is 577 feet above the
level of the sea, and, like Macon, it stands on the
boundary of the tertiary and granitic region. Dr. J.
R. Getting, who had been employed by the State to
make a geological survey of part of Georgia, showed
me in the State House some fossils collected by him,
and he accompanied me in an excursion into the
neighbourhood of the capital. It is well worthy of
remark, that here, as everywhere in Georgia and Ala
bama, there are loose blocks of granite and gneiss
strewed over the granitic area ; but no fragments of
them are ever seen to cross the boundary into the
area composed of the tertiary strata, where small
pebbles only are seen washed out of the sands.
Farther to the north, in Massachusetts, for example,
and the island of Martha's Vineyard, we see enor
mous erratics of granite, twenty-five and thirty feet
in diameter, which must have come from the north,
probably from the mountains of New Hampshire, rest
ing on the tertiary clays and rocks*; and in Long
Island (New York), a variety of transported blocks
repose upon, or are interstratified with, very modern
deposits. In the Southern States the same causes
have not been in action, and if we suppose . ice
bergs to have been the transporting power in the
north, it seems natural that their action should not
have extended to the Southern States, so as to carry
fragments of crystalline rocks out of the granitic

Travels in K". America, vol. i. p. 259. cliap.

xu.

22 DECOMPOSITION OF GNEISS. [CHAP. XXI.

region. Yet it is striking around Milledgeville, to see
so many large detached and rounded boulders of
granite lying on the surface of the soil, and all strictly
confined within the limits of the granitic region. One
of these, on the slope of a hill three miles from the
town, resting on gneiss, measured twelve feet in its
longest diameter, and was four feet high. I pre
sume that these boulders are nearly in situ ; they
may have constituted " tors " of granite, like those in
Cornwall, fragments of masses, once more extensive,
left by denudation at a period wrhen the country was
rising out of the sea, and fragments may have been
occasionally thrown down by the waves, and swept
to a small distance from their original sites. The lati
tude of Milledgeville is 32° 20' north, or considerably
to the south of the most southern limits to which
the northern drift with its erratics has hitherto been
traced in the United States.

Another most singular phenomenon in the environs
of Milledgeville is the depth to which the gneiss and
mica schist have decomposed in situ. Some very in
structive sections of the disintegrated rocks have been

O

laid open in the precipices of recently formed ravines.
Were it not that the original intersectinGf veins of

c> o

white quartz remain unaltered to show that the
layers of sand, clay, and loam are mere laminae of
gneiss and mica schist, resolved into their elements, a
geologist would suppose that they were ordinary
alternations of sandy and clayey beds with occasional
cross stratification, the whole just in the state in
which they were first deposited. Now and then, as
if to confirm the deception, a large crystal of felspar,

CHAP. XXL] MODERN RAVINES. 23

eight or ten inches long, is seen to retain its angles,
although converted into kaolin. Similar crystals,
almost as perfect, may be seen washed into the tertiary
strata south of the granitic region, where white
porcelain clays, quartzose, gravel, sand, and micaceous
loam are found, evidently derived from the waste of
decomposed crystalline rocks. I am not surprised,
therefore, that some geologists should have con
founded the ancient gneiss of this district, thus de
composed in situ, with the tertiary deposits. Their
close resemblance confirms me in the opinion, that
the arrangement of the gneiss and mica schist in beds
with subordinate layers, both horizontal and oblique,
was originally determined, in most cases at least, by
aqueous deposition, although often modified by sub
sequent crystalline action.

The surprising depth of some of the modern
ravines, in the neighbourhood of Milledgeville, sug
gests matter of curious speculation. At the distance
of three miles and a half due west of the town, on the
direct road to Macon, on the farm of Pomona, is the
ravine represented in the annexed wood-cut (p. 25.).
Twenty years ago it had no existence ; but when the
trees of the forest were cut down, cracks three feet
deep were caused by the sun's heat in the clay ; and,
during the rains, a sudden rush of water through
these cracks, caused them to deepen at their lower ex
tremities, from whence the excavating power worked
backwards, till, in the course of twenty years, a
chasm, measuring no less than 55 feet in depth, 300
yards in length, and varying in width from 20 to

24 MODERN HAYINES. [CHAP. XXI.

180 feet, was the result. (See fig. 7. p. 25.) The high
road has been several times turned to avoid this
cavity, the enlargement of which is still proceeding,
and the old line of road may be seen to have held
its course directly over what is now the widest part
of the ravine. In the perpendicular walls of this
great chasm appear beds of clay and sand, red, white,
yellow, and green, produced by the decomposition In
situ of hornblendic gneiss, with layers and veins of
quartz, as before-mentioned, and of a rock consisting
of quartz and felspar, which remain entire to prove
that the whole mass was once crystalline.

In another place I saw a bridge thrown over a
recently formed gulley, and here, as in Alabama, the
new system of valleys and of drainage, attendant on
the clearing away of the woods, is a source of serious
inconvenience and loss.

I infer, from the rapidity of the denudation caused
here by running water after the clearing or re
moval of wood, that this country has been always
covered with a dense forest, from the remote time
when it first emerged from the sea. However long
may have been the period of upheaval required to
raise the marine tertiary strata to the height of more
than 600 feet, we may conclude that the surface has
been protected by more than a mere covering of
herbage from the effects of the sudden flowing off

O O

of tli e rain water.

I know it may be contended that, when the granite
and gneiss first rose as islands out of the sea, they may
have consisted entirely of hard rock, which resisted
denudation, and therefore that we can only affirm

CHAP. XXL] RAVINE NEAR MILLEDGEVILLE. 25

Fig. 7.

m

ir;

Ravine on the Farm of Pomona, near Milledgeville, Georgia,
January, 1846.

Excavated in the last twenty years, 55 feet deep, and 180 feet broad.
VOL. II. C

CHAP. XXL] MAN SHOT IN A BRAWL. 27

that the forest has been continuous from the time
of the decomposition and* softening of the upper
portion of these rocks. But I may reply, that
similar effects are observable, even on a grander
scale, in recently excavated ravines seventy or eighty
feet deep, in some newly cleared parts of the tertiary
regions of Alabama, as in Clarke county for ex
ample, and also in some of the cretaceous strata of
loose gravel, sand, and clay, in the same State at
Tuscaloosa. These are at a much greater height
above the sea, and must, from the first, have been as
destructible as they are now.

We returned to Macon by our former route,
through the pine woods, and when we stopped to
change horses, a lady, who was left for a time alone
in the coach with my wife, informed her, that a
young man who had been sitting opposite to them,
had, the day before, shot an Irishman in a tavern,
and was flying from justice. A few days later we
learnt that the wounded man had not died, but as it
was a Penitentiary offence, it was prudent for the
culprit to keep out of the way for a time. On hear
ing this, I asked one of my companions, how it was
possible, when such affairs were occurring, and the
police was so feeble, we could travel night and day,
and feel secure from personal violence. " There is
no danger here," he said, " of robbery, as in Europe,
for we have none who are poor, or rendered vicious
and desperate by want. No murders are committed
here except in personal quarrels, and are almost
always the act of restless and unquiet spirits, who

c 2

28 DISAPPOINTED PLACE-HUNTER. [CHAP. XXI.

seek excitement in gambling and drink. The wars
in Texas relieved us of many of these dare-devils."

One of our fellow-travellers seemed to be a disap
pointed place-hunter, who had been lobbying the
Houses of Legislature in vain for the whole session.
He was taking his revenge by telling many a story
against an assembly, which had been so obtuse as not
to discover his merits. Twelve of them, he said,
from the upper country, could not even read, and
one of these happening, when in the House, to receive
an invitation to the Governor's annual dinner, rose,
and, holding the card in his hand, with the writing
upside down, said, " Mr. Speaker, I am determined
to oppose this resolution." Another, when they
were debating whether they should move the Capitol,
or seat of legislature, from Milledgeville to Macon,
went out, and, on resuming his seat, declared they were
wasting their time, for he had measured, and made a
rough estimate of the weight of the building (which
was of stone), and found, on calculation, that all the
oxen in Georgia could not drag it a single mile !

There was much talk here of a recent exhibition
on the frontiers of Georgia, of what is commonly
called Lynch Law/ which invalidated the assertion
of my companion in regard to the absence of robbers.
Many people having been plundered of their pro
perty, especially their negroes, organised a private
association for putting down the thieves, who came
from Florida, and having arrested one of them,
named Yoermans, they appointed a committee of
twelve to try him. Witnesses having been sworn, a
verdict of guilty was returned, and the punishment

CHAP. XXL] LYNCH LAW IN FLORIDA. 29

of death decided upon, by a vote of six to one. They
then crossed from Georgia into Florida, where the
prisoner confessed, under the gallows, that he was a
murderer and robber, and called upon a preacher of
the gospel, three or four of whom were present, as
well as a justice of the peace, to pray for him, after
which he was hung.

I expressed my horror at these transactions, ob
serving that Florida, if in so rude and barbarous a
state, ought not to have been admitted into the
Union. My companions agreed to this, but said
they believed the man had fair play on his trial, and
added, " If you were a settler there, and had no
other law to defend you, you would be glad of the
protection of Judge Lynch."

The news had just reached Milledgeville and
Macon of the English Premier's speech in favour of
the free importation of foreign corn, a subject dis
cussed here with as much interest as if it were a
question of domestic policy. The prospect of in
creased commercial intercourse with England, is
regarded by all as favourable to peace, especially as
the Western States, the most bellicose in the whole
Union, will be the chief gainers. Even before this
intelligence arrived, the tone of the public mind was
beginning to grow somewhat less warlike. The hero
in a new comic piece, on the stage at New York,
personifies the member for Oregon, and talks big
about " our destiny," and " the whole of Oregon or
none." We also observe an extract from the (e North
American Review " going the round of the news
papers, in which the Oregon dispute is compared to

c 3

30 WAR SPIRIT ABATING. [CHAP. XXI.

Dandle Dinmont's famous law-suit with Jock
o'Dawston about the marches of their farms, and
Counsellor Pley dell's advice to his client is recom
mended for imitation.

" We should have a war to-morrow," said a Whig
politician to me at Macon, " if your democracy were
as powerful as ours, for the most radical of your
newspapers are the most warlike. Your ministers
seem more free from anti- American prejudices than
the ordinary writers of travels, reviews, or newspaper
articles, and they have a great advantage over our
government at Washington. One of our statesmen,
a late candidate for the presidentship, is said to have
declared, that when so many millions are admitted
into the Cabinet, it is scarcely possible to manage a
delicate point of foreign policy with discretion."

CHAP. XXII.] MACON TO COLUMBUS. 31

CHAP. XXII.

Macon to Columbus by Stage. — Rough Travelling. — Passage
of Flint River. — Columbus. — Recent Departure of Creek
Indians. — Falls of the Chatahoochie. — Competition of Negro
and White Mechanics. — Age of Pine Trees. — Abolitionist
" Wrecker " in Railway Car. — Runaway Slave. — Sale of
Novels by Neivs-boys. — Character of Newspaper Press. —
Geology and Cretaceous Strata, Montgomery. — Curfew. —
Sunday School for Negroes. — Protracted Meeting.

Jan. 21. 1846. — HITHERTO we had travelled from
the north by railway or steam-ship, but from Macon,
on our way south, we were compelled to resort to
the stage-coach, and started first for Columbus. For
the first time, we remarked that our friends, on part
ing, wished us a safe journey, instead of a pleasant
one, as usual. There had been continued rains, and
the roads were cut up by waggons bringing heavy
bales of cotton to the Savannah railroad. We passed
Knoxville, a small and neat town, and, after dark,
supped at a small road-side inn, on pork-chops,
waffles, and hominy, or porridge, made of Indian
meal. Here we were told that the stage of the
night before had been water-bound by the rising of
the rivers. We went on, however, to the great Flint
river, where the stage drove into a large flat boat or
raft. The night was mild, but dark, and the scene
which presented itself very picturesque. A great

c 4

32 ROUGH TRAVELLING. [CHAP. XXII.

number of negroes were standing on both banks,
chattering incessantly, and holding in their hands
large blazing torches of pine-wood, which threw a
red light on the trees around. The river was much
swollen, but we crossed without impediment. It
was the first stream we had come to of those flowing
into the Gulf of Mexico.

Our coach was built on a plan almost universal in
America, and like those used in some parts of
France, with three seats, the middle one provided
with a broad leather strap, to lean back upon. The
best places are given to the ladies, and a husband is
seated next his wife. There are no outside pas
sengers, except occasionally one sitting by the
driver's side. We were often called upon, on a
sudden, to throw our weight first on the right, and
then on the left side, to balance the vehicle and
prevent an upset, when one wheel was sinking into a
deep rut. Sometimes all the gentlemen were or
dered to get out in the dark, and walk in the wet
and muddy road. The coachman would then whip
on his steeds over a fallen tree or deep pool, causing
tremendous jolts, so that my wife was thrown first
against the roof, and then against the sides of the
lightened vehicle, having almost reason to envy those
who were merely splashing through the mud. To
sleep was impossible, but at length, soon after day
break, we found ourselves entering the suburbs of
Columbus ; and the first sight we saw there was a
long line of negroes, men, women, and boys, well
dressed and very merry, talking and laughing, who
stopped to look at our coach. On inquiry, we were

CHAP. XXIL] COLUMBUS. 33

told that it was a gang of slaves, probably from Vir
ginia, going to the market to be sold,

Columbus, like so many towns on the borders of
the granitic and tertiary regions, is situated at the
head of the navigation of a large river, and the
rapids of the Chatahoochie are well seen from the
bridge by which it is here spanned. The vertical
rise and fall of this river, which divides Georgia
from Alabama, amounts to no less than sixty or
seventy feet in the course of the year; and the
geologist should visit the country in November,
when the season is healthy, and the river low, for
then he may see exposed to view, not only the hori
zontal tertiary strata, but the subjacent cretaceous
deposits, containing ammonites, baculites, and other
characteristic fossils. These organic remains are met
with some miles below the town, at a point called
6 ( Snake's Shoals ; " and Dr. Boykin showed us a
collection of the fossils, at his agreeable villa in
the suburbs. In an excursion which I made with
Mr. Pond to the Upotoy Creek, I ascertained that
the cretaceous beds are overlaid everywhere by ter-
tiary strata, containing fossil wood and marine shells.

The last detachment of Indians, a party of no less
than 500, quitted Columbus only a week ago for
Arkansas, a memorable event in the history of the
settlement of this region, and part of an extensive
and systematic scheme steadily pursued by the Go
vernment, of transferring the Aborigines from the
Eastern States to the Far- West.

Here, as at Milledgeville, the clearing away of the
woods, where these Creek Indians once pursued

c 5

34 NEGRO AND WHITE MECHANICS. [CHAP. XXII.

their game, has caused the soil, previously level and
unbroken, to be cut into by torrents, so that deep
gullies may everywhere be seen ; and I am assured
that a large proportion of the fish, formerly so
abundant in the Chatahoochie, have been stifled by
the mud.

The water-power at the rapids has been recently
applied to some newly-erected cotton mills, and
already an anti-free-trade party is beginning to be
formed. The masters of these factories hope, by
excluding coloured men — or, in other words, slaves
— from all participation in the business, to render it
a genteel employment for white operatives ; a mea
sure which places in a strong light the inconsistencies
entailed upon a community by slavery and the an
tagonism of races, for there are numbers of coloured
mechanics in all these Southern States very expert
at trades requiring much more skill and knowledge
than the functions of ordinary work-people in fac
tories. Several New Englanders, indeed, who have
come from the North to South Carolina and Georgia,
complain to me that they cannot push on their
children here, as carpenters, cabinet-makers, black
smiths, and in other such crafts, because the planters
bring up the most intelligent of their slaves to these
occupations. The landlord of an inn confessed to
me, that, being a carrier, he felt himself obliged to
have various kinds of work done by coloured artisans,
because they were the slaves of planters who employed
him in his own line. " They interfere," said he,
"with the fair competition of white mechanics, by
whom I could have got the work better done."

CHAP. XXII.] JOURNEY TO MONTGOMERY. 35

These Northern settlers are compelled to pre
serve a discreet silence about such grievances when
in the society of Southern slave-owners, but are
open and eloquent in descanting upon them to a
stranger. They are struck with the difficulty ex
perienced in raising money here, by small shares, for
the building of mills. " Why," say they, " should
all our cotton make so long a journey to the North,
to be manufactured there, and come back to us at so
high a price ? It is because all spare cash is sunk
here in purchasing negroes. In order to get a
week's work done for you, you must buy a negro
out and out for life."

From Columbus we travelled fifty-five miles west to
Chehaw, to join a railway, which was to carry us on to
Montgomery. The stage was drawn by six horses,
but as it was daylight we were not much shaken.
We passed through an undulating country, sometimes
on the tertiary sands covered with pines, sometimes
in swamps enlivened by the green palmetto and tall
magnolia, and occasionally crossing into the borders
of the granitic region, where there appeared imme
diately a mixture of oak, hiccory, and pine. There
was no grass growing under the pine trees, and the
surface of the ground was everywhere strewed with
yellow leaves, and the fallen needles of the fir trees.
The sound of the wind in the boughs of the long-
leaved pines always reminded me of the waves break
ing on a distant sea-shore, and it was agreeable to
hear it swelling gradually, and then dying away, as
the breeze rose and fell. Observing at Chehaw a
great many stumps of these firs in a new clearing, I

c G

36 AGE OF PINE TREES. [CHAP. XXII.

was curious to know how many years it would take
to restore such a forest if once destroyed. The first
stump I examined measured 2 feet 5 inches in di
ameter at the height of 3 feet from the ground, and
I counted in it 120 rings of annual growth ; a second
measured less by 2 inches in diameter, yet was 260
years old ; a third, at the height of 2 feet above the
ground, although 180 years old, was only 2 feet in
diameter ; a fourth., the oldest I could find, measured,
at the height of 3 feet above its base, 4 feet, and pre
sented 320 rings of annual growth; and I could have
counted a few more had the tree been cut down even
with the soil. The height of these trees varied from
70 to 120 feet. From the time taken to acquire
the above dimensions, we may confidently infer that
no such trees will be seen by posterity, after the
clearing of the country, except where they may
happen to be protected for ornamental purposes. I
once asked a surveyor in Scotland why, in planting
woods with a view to profit, the oak was generally
neglected, although I had found many trunks of very
large size buried in peat-mosses. He asked if I had
ever counted the rings of growth in the buried trees,
to ascertain their age, and I told him I had often
reckoned up 300, and once upwards of 800 rings ; to
which he replied, " then plant your shillings in the
funds, and you will see how much faster they would
grow."

Before reaching Chehaw, we stopped to dine at a
small log-house in the woods, and had prepared our
minds, from outward appearances, to put up with
bad fare ; but, on entering, we saw on the table a

CHAP. XXII.] RUNAWAY SLAVE. 37

wild turkey roasted, venison steaks, and a partridge-
pie, all the product of the neighbouring forest,
besides a large jug of delicious milk, a luxury not
commonly met with so far south.

The railway cars between Chehaw and Mont
gomery consisted, like those in the North, of a long
apartment, with cross benches and a middle passage.
There were many travellers, and among them one
rustic, evidently in liquor, who put both his feet on
one of the cushioned benches, and began to sing.
The conductor told him to put his feet down, and
afterwards, on his repeating the offence, lifted them
off. On his doing it a third time, the train was
ordered to stop, and the man was told, in a pe
remptory tone, to get out immediately. He was a
strong-built labourer, and would have been much
more than a match for the conductor, had he re
sisted ; but he instantly complied, knowing, doubt
less, that the officer's authority would be backed by
the other passengers, if they were appealed to. We
left him seated on the ground, many miles from any
habitation, and with no prospect of another train
passing for many a long hour. As we go south
wards, we see more cases of intoxication, and hear
more swearing.

At one of the stations we saw a runaway slave,
who had been caught and handcuffed ; the first I had
fallen in with in irons in the course of the present
journey. On seeing him, a New Englander, who
had been with us in the stage before we reached
Chehaw, began to hold forth on the miserable con
dition of the negroes in Alabama, Louisiana, Mis-

38 ABOLITIONIST " WRECKER." [CHAP. XXII.

sissippi, and some other States which I had not yet
visited. For a time I took for granted all he said of
the sufferings of the coloured race in those regions,
the cruelty of the overseers, their opposition to the
improvement and education of the blacks, and espe
cially to their conversion to Christianity. I began
to shudder at what I was doomed to witness in the
course of my further journey ings in the South and
West. He was very intelligent, and so well in
formed on politics and political economy, that at first
I thought myself fortunate in meeting with a man so
competent to give me an unprejudiced opinion on
matters of which he had been an eye-witness. At
length, however, suspecting a disposition to exag
gerate, and a party-feeling on the subject, I gradually
led him to speak of districts with which I was already
familiar, especially South Carolina and Georgia. I
immediately discovered that there also he had every
where seen the same horrors and misery. He went
so far as to declare that the piny woods all around
us were full of hundreds of runaways, wrho subsisted
on venison and wild hogs ; assured me that I had
been deceived if I imagined that the coloured men in
the upper country, where they have mingled more with
the wrhites, were more progressive ; nor was it true
that the Baptists and Methodists had been successful
in making proselytes. Few planters, he affirmed,
had any liking for their negroes ; and, lastly, that a
war with England about Oregon, unprincipled as
would be the measure on the part of the democratic
faction, would have at least its bright side, for it
might put an end to slavery. " How in the world,"

CHAP. XXII.] ABOLITIONIST (l WRECKER."

asked I, "could it effect this object ?" " England,"
he replied, " would declare all the slaves in the South
free, and thus cripple her enemy by promoting a
servile war. The negroes would rise, and although,
no doubt, there would be a great loss of life and
property, the South would nevertheless be a gainer
by ridding herself of this most vicious and impo
verishing institution." This man had talked to me
so rationally on a variety of topics so long as he was
restrained by the company of Southern fellow-pas-
sengers from entering on the exciting question of
slavery, that I now became extremely curious to
know what business had brought him to the South,
and made him a traveller there for several years.
I was told by the conductor that he was "a wrecker ;"
and I learnt, in explanation of the term, that he was
a commercial agent, and partner of a northern house
which had great connexions in the South. To him
had been assigned the unenviable task, in those times
of bankruptcy and repudiation which followed the
financial crisis of 1839-40, of seeking out and re
covering bad debts, or of seeing what could be saved
out of the wreck of insolvent firms or the estates of
bankrupt planters. He had come, therefore, into
contact with many adventurers who had been over
trading, and speculators who had grown unscrupu
lous, when tried by pecuniary difficulties. Every
year, on revisiting the Free States, he had contrasted
their progress with the condition of the South, which
by comparison seemed absolutely stationary. His
thoughts had been perpetually directed to the eco
nomical and moral evils of slavery, especially its

40 NEWS-BOYS. [CHAP. XXII.

injuriousness to the fortunes and characters of that
class of the white aristocracy with which he had most
to do. In short, he had seen what was bad in the
system through the magnifying and distorting me
dium of his own pecuniary losses, and had imbibed
a strong anti-negro feeling, which he endeavoured to
conceal from himself, under the cloak of a love of
freedom and progress. While he was inveighing
against the cruelty of slavery, he had evidently dis
covered no remedy for the mischief but one, the hope
of which he confessedly cherished, for he was ready
to precipitate measures which would cause the Afri
cans to suffer that fate which the aboriginal Indians
have experienced throughout the Union.

When I inquired if, in reality, there were hun
dreds of runaway slaves in the woods, every one
laughed at the idea. As a general rule, they said,
the negroes are well fed, and, when they are so, will
very rarely attempt to escape unless they have com
mitted some crime : even when some punishment is
hanging over them, they are more afraid of hunger
than of a whipping.

Although we had now penetrated into regions
where the schoolmaster has not been much abroad,
we observe that the railway cars are everywhere
attended by news-boys, who, in some places, are
carried on a whole stage, walking up and down " the
middle aisle " of the long car. Usually, however, at
each station, they, and others who sell apples and
biscuits, may be seen calculating the exact speed at
which it is safe to jump off, and taking, with the
utmost coolness, a few cents in change a moment

CHAP. XXIL] NEWSPAPER PRESS. 41

before they know that the rate acquired by the train
will be dangerous. I never witnessed an accident,
but as the locomotive usually runs only fifteen miles
an hour, and is some time before it reaches half that
pace, the urchins are not hurried as they would be in
England. One of them was calling out, in the midst
of the pine-barren between Columbus and Chehaw,
" A novel, by Paul le Koch, the Bulwer of France,
for 25 cents — all the go ! — more popular than the
Wandering Jew," &c. Newspapers for a penny or
two-pence are bought freely by the passengers ; and,
having purchased them at random wherever we went
in the Northern, Middle, Southern, and Western
States, I came to the conclusion that the press of
the United States is quite as respectable as our own.
In the present crisis the greater number of prints
condemn the war party, expose their motives, and do
justice to the equitable offers of the English ministry
in regard to Oregon. A large portion of almost
every paper is devoted to literary extracts, to novels,
tales, travels, and often more serious works. Some
of them are specially devoted to particular religious
sects, and nearly all of this class are against war.
There are also some "temperance," and, in the
North, " anti-slavery " papers.

We at length arrived at Montgomery, on the river
Alabama, where I staid a few days to examine the
geology of the neighbourhood. From the high
ground near the town there is a distant view of the
hills of the granitic region around Wetumpka. But
the banks of the river at Montgomery are composed
of enormous beds of unconsolidated gravel, thirty

42 CRETACEOUS STRATA. [CHAP. XXII.

feet thick, alternating with red clay and sand, which
I at first supposed to be tertiary, from their re
semblance to strata near Macon and Augusta in
Georgia. The fossil shells, however, of the accom
panying marls (Inoceramus and Rostellaria arenaruni),
soon convinced me that they belonged to the cre
taceous formation. About three miles south of the
town there is a broad zone of calcareous marl, con
stituting what is called the prairie, or cane-brake
country, bare of natural wood, and where there is so
great a want of water, that it was at first difficult for
settlers to establish themselves upon it, until, by aid
of the Artesian auger, they obtained an abundant
supply from a depth of 300, and often 500 feet,
derived from the underlying gravelly and sandy beds.
Farther from the outcrop of these gravelly beds
borings have been made 800 feet deep without suc
cess. The temperature of the water was found to
increase in proportion to the depth of the wells.
A proprietor told me he had found it very difficult
to get trees to grow on the prairie land, but he
had succeeded, with great care, in rearing a few-
mulberries.

The common name for themarlite, of which this tree
less soil is composed, is " rotten limestone." I found
many lumps on the surface, much resembling white
chalk, and containing shells of the genera, Inocera
mus, Baculite, Ammonite, Hippurite, and that well-
known fossil of the English chalk, Ostrea vesicularis.
In the market-place of Montgomery, I saw an
auctioneer selling slaves, and calling out, as I passed,
" Going for 300 dollars." The next day another

CHAP. XXII.] CURFEW. 43

auctioneer was selling horses in the same place.
Nearly the same set of negroes, men, women, and
boys, neatly dressed, were paraded there, day after
day. I was glad to find that some settlers from the
North, who had resided here many years, were an
noyed at the publicity of this exhibition. Such
traffic, they say, might as well be carried on quietly in
a room. Another resident, who had come from Ken
tucky, was forming a party, who desire to introduce
into Alabama a law, like one now in force in Ken
tucky, that no negroes shall henceforth be imported.
By that statute, the increase of slaves has, he says,
been checked. A case had lately occurred, of a dealer
who tried to evade the law by bringing forty slaves
into Kentucky, and narrowly escaped being fined
600 dollars for each, but had the ingenuity to get off
by pretending that he was ignorant of the prohibi
tion, and was merely passing through with them to
Louisiana. " By allowing none to come in, while so
many are emigrating to the West and Texas, we may
hope," he said, " very soon to grow white."

Every evening, at nine o'clock, a great bell, or cur
few, tolls in the market-place of Montgomery, after
which no coloured man is permitted to be abroad without
a pass. This custom has, I understand, continued ever
since some formidable insurrections, which happened
many years ago, in Virginia and elsewhere. I was glad
to find that the episcopal clergyman at Montgomery
had just established a Sunday school for the negroes.
I also hear that a party in this church, already com
prising a majority of the clergy, are desirous that the
negro congregations should be represented in their

44 PROTRACTED MEETING. [CHAP. XXII.

triennial conventions, which would be an. important
step towards raising the black race to a footing of
equality with the whites. In these times when many
here are entertaining a hostile feeling towards Great
Britain, and when the government is lending itself
to the excitement, I find the ministers of the Epis
copal Church peculiarly free from such a spirit, and
cherishing a desire for peace and a friendly disposi
tion towards the English. The Methodists had just
been holding a protracted meeting in Montgomery,
and such is the effect of sympathy and of the spirit
of competition, that the religious excitement had
spread to all the other sects.

CHAP. XXIII.] MONTGOMERY TO MOBILE. 45

CHAP. XXIII.

Voyage from Montgomery to Mobile. — Description of a large
River Steamer. — Shipping of Cotton at Bluffs. — Fossils
collected at Landings. — Collision of Steamer with the Boughs
of Trees. — Story of a German Stewardess. — Emigration of
Stephanists from Saxony. — Perpetuation of Stephanist and
Mormon Doctrines. — Distinct Table for Coloured and White
Passengers. — Landing at Claiborne by Torchlight. — Fossil
Shells.

Wednesday, Jan. 28. 1846. — THE steamer Ama
ranth was lying at the bluff at Montgomery on
the Alabama river, and was advertised to sail for
Mobile, a navigation of more than 300 miles, at
ten o'clock in the morning. From information ob
tained here, I had determined to follow up my
geological inquiries by going next to Tuscaloosa, on
the Black Warrior river, about 100 miles distant
by land, in a north-westerly direction. Every one
agreed, however, that it was better for me to go 800
miles by water, half of it against the stream, instead
of taking the direct road ; so I determined to go first
to Mobile, due south, and then up the Tombecbee to
the capital of Alabama, being assured that I should
gain, both in time and money, by this great detour.
Should I attempt the straight road at this season, no
one could ensure my making two miles an hour, so
tenaciously does the marlite of the cretaceous forma-

46 SOUTHERN STEAM-BOAT. [CHAP. XXIII.

tion, when it is wet, hold the carriage wheels which
sink into it.

Accustomed to the punctuality of northern steam
ers, we got down with our luggage to the landing at
the hour appointed, but were told they were not
ready. I re-examined a good geological section in
the bluff, till a friend came to me, and regretted I
had come down to the boat so early, for perhaps she
might not sail till the next day. I was much annoyed
at this intelligence, although I had been forewarned
that much less value was set on time in the Southern
States than in the North. At length we went on
board, and, having engaged a good private cabin,
made up our minds to read and write there, and
consider it as our inn. It was the first of these mag
nificent southern river boats we had seen, fitted up
for the two-fold purpose of carrying as many bales of
cotton as can be heaped upon them without their sink
ing, and taking in as many passengers as can enjoy
the luxuries which southern manners and a hot cli
mate require, especially spacious cabins, abundance
of fresh air, and protection from the heat of the sun.
We afterwards saw many larger steam-vessels, and
some of them fitted up in finer style, but none which
made such an impression on our minds as the
Amaranth. A vessel of such dimensions makes a
grand appearance in a river so narrow as the Alabama
at Montgomery ; whereas, if she were a third longer,
she would be comparatively insignificant on the
Mississippi. The principal cabins run the whole
length of the ship on a deck above that on which
the machinery is placed, and where the cotton is

CHAP. XXIII.] SOUTHERN STEAM-BOAT. 47

piled up. This upper deck is chiefly occupied with
a handsome saloon, about 200 feet long, the ladies'
cabin at one end, opening into it with folding doors.
Sofas, rocking-chairs, tables, and a stove are placed in
this room, which is lighted by windows from above.
On each side of it is a row of sleeping apartments, each
communicating by one door with the saloon, while
the other leads out to the guard, as they call it, a
long balcony or gallery, covered with a shade or
verandah, which passes round the whole boat. The
second class, or deck passengers, sleep where they
can on the lower floor, where, besides the engine and
the cotton, there are prodigious heaps of wood, which
are devoured with marvellous rapidity by the furnace,
and are as often restored at the different landings, a
set of negroes being purposely hired for that work.

These steamers, notwithstanding their size, draw
very little water, for they are constructed for rivers
which rise and fall very rapidly. They cannot quite
realise the boast of a Western captain, te that he
could sail wherever it was damp;" but I was as
sured that some of them could float in two-foot
water. The high-pressure steam escapes into the air,
by a succession of explosions alternately from the pipes
of the two engines. It is a most unearthly sound, like
that of some huge monster gasping for breath ; and
when they clear the boilers of the sediment collected
from the river-water, it is done by a loud and pro
tracted discharge of steam, which reminded us of the
frightful noise made by the steam gun exhibited at
the Adelaide Gallery in London. Were it not for
the power derived from the high-pressure principle,

48 SOUTHERN STEAM-BOAT. [CHAP. XXIII.

of blowing out from the boilers the deposit collected
in them, the muddiness of the American rivers would
soon clog the machinery. Every stranger who has
heard of fatal accidents by the bursting of boilers
believes, the first time he hears this tremendous
noise, that it is all over with him, and is surprised to
see that his companions evince no alarm. Habit
soon reconciled us to the sound ; and I was amused
afterwards to observe that the wild birds perched on
the trees which overhung the river, looked on with
indifference while the paddle-wheels were splashing
in the water, and the steam-pipes puffing and gasping
loud enough to be heard many miles off.

After we had been on board a great part of the
day, we at length got under weigh in the afternoon ;
but. what was my surprise when I actually discovered
that we were ascending the stream instead of sailing
down towards Mobile. On asking the meaning of
this proceeding, the mate told me, very coolly, that
the captain had just heard of some cotton ready for
exportation some miles above Montgomery. To this
higher landing we repaired ; but news being sent that
a rival steam-boat was making her way up the river,
the Amaranth set off down stream in good earnest,
moving by aid of her powerful engines and the force
of the mid-current with such velocity, that I could
readily believe that 800 miles by river was shorter
than 100 by land.

The pilot put into my hands a list of the landings
on the Alabama river from AYetumpka to Mobile,
no less than 200 of them in a distance of 434 miles.
4. small part only of these consisted of bluffs, or

CHAP. XXIIL] SHIPPING COTTON AT BLUFFS. 49

those points where the high land comes up to the
river's edge — in other words, where there is no allu
vial plain between the great stream and the higher
country. These spots, being the only 0nes not
liable to inundation, and which can therefore
serve as inland ports when the river is full, or
when the largest boats can sail up and down, are of
great importance in the inland navigation of the
country. A proprietor whose farm is thus advan
tageously situated, usually builds a warehouse, not
only for storing up for embarkation the produce of
his own land, but large enough to take in the cotton
of his neighbours. A long and steeply-inclined plane
is cut in the high bank, down which one heavy bale
after another is made to slide. The negroes show
great dexterity in guiding these heavy packages ; but
occasionally they turn over and over before reaching
the deck of the boat, and sometimes, though rarely,
run off the course and plunge into the river, where
they float till recovered. Had I not been engaged
in geological inquiries, I should probably have had
my patience severely tried by such repeated stoppings
at every river cliff; but it so happened that the
captain always wanted to tarry at the precise points
where alone any sections of the cretaceous and ter
tiary strata were visible, and was often obliged to
wait long enough to enable me to make a tolerably
extensive collection of the most characteristic fossils.
In the present instance — and I shall have by-and-by
to mention other similar ones — Captain Bragdon
was not only courteous, but perfectly understood,
and entered into my pursuits, and had himself col-

VOL. II. D

50 FOSSILS COLLECTED AT LANDINGS. [CHAP. XXIII.

lected organic remains for a friend in the college of
Louisville, Kentucky ; so that while the cotton or
wood were taking on board, he would often assist me
in my labours. Were it not for one serious drawback,
a cruise in a cotton steamer would be the paradise of
geologists. Unfortunately, in the season when the
water is high, and when the facilities of locomotion
are greatest, the base of every bluff is many feet,
and sometimes fathoms, under water, and the lower
portion of a series of horizontal strata is thus entirely
concealed from view. The bluffs which I first exa
mined consisted of a marlite divided into horizontal
layers as regular as those of the lias of Europe, and
which might have been taken for lias but for the
included fossils, which prove them to belong to the
cretaceous formation. At Centreport these unc
tuous marls or calcareous clays are called by the
people soap-stone, and form cliffs 150 feet in per
pendicular height, in which, as well as at Selma,
I collected the large Grypluza costata and the Ostrea
falcata, more than one species of Inoceramus, and
other characteristic fossil shells. At White Bluff,
where the blue marlite whitens, when exposed to the
air, a fine range of precipices covered with wood
forms a picturesque feature in the scenery ; but I
obtained the richest harvest of cretaceous fossils far
below, at a landing called Prairie Bluff.

The banks of the Alabama, like those of the Sa
vannah and Alatamaha rivers, are fringed with canes,
over which usually towers the deciduous cypress,
covered with much pendant moss. The misletoe
enlivens the boughs of several trees, still out of

CHAP. XXIII.] COLLISION WITH TREES. 51

leaf, and now and then, through an opening in the
thicket bordering the river, the evergreen pine-forest
appears in the back-ground. Some of the largest
trees on the banks are sycamores (Platanus occiden-
tdlis), called button-wood, one of which I measured,
and found it to be eighteen feet in circumference.
The old bark is continually peeling off, and the new
is as white as if the trunk of the tree had been
painted.

When it was growing dusk, and nearly all had
retired to their cabins, and some to their beds, we
were startled by a loud crash, as if parts of the wood
work of the steamer were giving way over our head?.
At the same moment a shower of broken glass came
rattling down on the floor of the cabin. As I ex
pected to land in the course of the night at Clai-
borne, I had not taken off my clothes, so I rushed
immediately on deck, and learnt from the captain
that there was no danger. I then went down to tell
the passengers, especially the women, who were na
turally in no small alarm, that all was safe. I found
them, in great consternation, crowded together at
the door of the ladies' cabin, several mothers with
children in their arms. When I returned to see
what had happened, a most singular and novel
scene presented itself. Crash after crash of broken
spars and the ringing of shattered window-glasses
were still heard, and the confusion and noise were
indescribable. " Don't be alarmed ; we have only
got among the trees," said the captain. This, I
found, was no uncommon occurrence when these
enormous vessels are sweeping down at full speed

D 2

52 COLLISION WITH TREES. [CHAP. XXIII.

in the flood season. Strange as it may seem, the
higher the waters rise the narrower is the river
channel. It is true that the adjoining swamps and low
lauds are inundated far and wide ; but the steamers
must all pass between two rows of tall trees which
adorn the opposite banks, and as the branches of
these noble trees stretch half way over the stream,
the boat, when the river has risen forty or sixty feet,
must steer between them. In the dark, when they
are going at the rate of sixteen miles an hour or
more, and the bends are numerous, a slight miscal
culation carries the woodwrork of the great cabin in
among the heads of the trees. In this predicament
I found the Amaranth when I got on deck. Many
a strong bough had pierced right through the cabin-
windows on one side, throwing down the lights, and
smashing the wooden balustrade and the roof of the
long gallery, and tearing the canvas awning from the
verandah. The engine had been backed, or its
motion reversed, but the steamer, held fast by the
trees, was swinging round with the force of the
current. A large body of men were plying their
axes freely, not only cutting off boughs, but treating
with no respect the framework of the cabin itself.
I could not help feeling thankful that no branch had
obtruded itself into our berths. At length we got
off, and the carpenters and glaziers set to work
immediately to make repairs.

The evening before this adventure we had been
sitting for some hours enjoying the privacy of our
own state-room, from the windows of which we had
a good view of the river's bank, when at length my

CHAP. XXIII.] A GERMAN STEWARDESS. 53

wife had thought it polite to visit the ladies' cabin,
as they might otherwise think her unsociable. She
found there a young Irish milliner who had come out
from the county of Monaghan, and was settled at
Sehna, one of the towns on this river, where she said
she was getting on extremely well. There was also
a cracker family, consisting of a squalling child and
its t\vo parents, who were " moving to the Washita
river in Louisiana." The young mother was smoking
a pipe, which her husband, a rough-looking back
woodsman, had politely lighted for her. As this prac
tice was against the regulations, my wife joined the
other ladies in remonstrating, and she immediately
went out to smoke in the open air on the guard. I
had been before amused by seeing a girl, about nine
years old, employed, by way of imitating her elders,
in smoking a paper cigar on the deck, and a mother,
after suckling an infant of two years, give it some
tobacco to chew.

Another inmate of the ladies' cabin was a Ger
man stewardess, who soon found out that my wife
understood her mother tongue, and, being in great
want of sympathy, poured out her tale of suffer
ing in the New World with the simplicity of cha
racter and unreservedness of her countrywomen.
Seven years ago she had been a happy and con
tented peasant at Chemnitz in Saxony, one of a
united family of Lutherans, when she was persuaded
by a priest to embrace the opinions of Martin Stephan,
a preacher of Dresden, who taught that all theolo
gical study should be confined to the Bible ; that
literature and the fine arts, being of human, origin

54 EMIGRATION OF STEPPIAN1STS. [CHAP. XXIII.

and worldly in their nature, ought to be despised ;
that no one could enjoy freedom of conscience in
Germany ; and that the only path to salvation was
to follow him, and emigrate to North America. He
himself was to be their temporal and spiritual chief,
and to him they were to deliver up all their property.
In November, 1838, 700 victims of this impostor
embarked from Bremen, including six pastors and
four schoolmasters. One of the transports, the
Amelia, carrying about sixty emigrants, including
children, a crazy old ship, was never heard of again,
and doubtless foundered on the Atlantic. The other
carried Stephan and the rest of his followers to New
Orleans, from whence they ascended the Mississippi,
and founded a settlement, called Wittenberg, on a
rich, aguish flat, bordering the Missouri, above St.
Louis. Here one fourth of their number were swept
off by fever, and Stephan, who had deserted a wife
and nine children in Germany, was detected carrying
on a licentious intercourse with some of the women of
the new community. Before, however, this scandal
became notorious, he contrived to make off with all
the money which had been entrusted to him to buy
land for the new colony. Hanne Rottgen, the young
woman who related this story, went, as soon as she
recovered from the ague, to St. Louis, her eyes
having at length been opened, like those of many
other Stephanists, to the fraud of which they had been
the dupes. She was immediately employed to attend a
hospital filled with numbers of her poor country people
of both sexes, who had been scalded by the bursting of
the boiler of a large steam-boat. After witnessing

CHAP. XXIII.] STEPHANISTS AND MOKMONS. 55

the terrible sufferings and death of not a few of these
emigrants, she had engaged herself as stewardess in
several vessels, and at length in the Amaranth.
" But what became of Stephan ? " asked my wife.
" He escaped entirely," she said, " for you know,
madam, there is no law in this country as there is in
Saxony ; but for all that, this is the land for the poor
to thrive in. They pay me twenty dollars a month,
and I am saving money fast ; for, though home-sick,
I cannot, after all my follies, return and throw myself
penniless on my relations." Here she began to shed
tears and to be much affected, wondering whether
her mother was still alive. She had written to ask
her forgiveness, as she had been her darling, and in
spite of her prayers and entreaties had left her almost
heart-broken. " I thought it my duty to go ; for
how should we poor peasants not be deceived when
so many of our clergy were led astray by the cunning
of that artful man ? I have written to my two sis
ters to tell them how bitterly I repent, and to ask
them to pardon me."

When I afterwards talked of this adventure in a
steamer on the Mississippi, a fellow traveller ex
claimed, "But would you believe it, there are still
many Stephanists ? " ' "Why not," said I, "are
there not also many thousand Mormons ? The fraud
of Stephan was not more transparent than that of
Joseph Smith or his vision, and the story he related
so circumstantially of records engraven on metallic
plates, shining like gold, which were delivered to him
by the angel of the Lord on the 22d day of Septem
ber, 1827."

n 4

56 STEPHANISTS AND MORMONS. [CHAP. XXIII.

Are we then to despair of the progress of the
human mind in inquiries in which it must ever
take the deepest interest, because in a land where
there are so many schools, and so many millions
of readers, a free press, arid religious toleration,
it is so hard to extinguish a belief in the grossest
impostures? By no means — in the doctrines
taught by Stephan and Smith there was a mixture of
some fiction with much truth ; they adopted nearly
all the highest truths of theology common to the pre
vailing religions of the world, with the addition of
nearly all which Christians believe. In each sect the
difficulty consists in clearing away a greater or less
amount of human error and invention from the divine
truths which they obscure or conceal. The multi
tude are taught by their spiritual guides in three
fourths of Christendom, that they are not to inquire
for themselves. Even of the Protestant minority,
who profess that it is their right and duty to exercise
their own judgment, how many are there who annex
the condition "provided they arrive at the conclusions
to which the Church has come, without which they
cannot be saved ! " What more would a Stephanist or
Mormon preacher ask, than the privilege of borrow
ing and inculcating these maxims ? — and how, if the
use of them be freely granted, and they have motives
for perpetuating some peculiar sectarian dogmas, is
the delusion ever to end ?

In a Southern steamer abundant opportunities are
afforded of witnessing the inconveniences arising out
of the singular relation subsisting between the ne-
goes, whether free or slave, and the white race.

CHAP. XXIII.] DEMOCRACY AND SLAVERY. 57

The succession of breakfasts, dinners, and suppers
entailed by it appears endless. In a Northern boat,
after the passengers and officers of the ship have
dined, the few servants who waited on them have
their meal ; but here we had five distinct repasts
set out, one after the other. First, the cabin pas
sengers dine ; then come the white nurses, children,
and officers of the ship ; thirdly, the deck pas
sengers, being white, answering to our steerage ;
fourthly, the white waiters, waited upon by co
loured men ; fifthly, coloured passengers, free or
slave, and coloured waiters. It sometimes happens
that a free negro who has made a good deal of
money is on board ; he must wait till all the white
aristocracy, including the waiters, are served, and
then take his turn with the lowest of the blacks.
To a European this exclusiveness seems the more
unnatural and offensive in the Southern States, be
cause they make louder professions even than the
Northerners of democratic principles and love of
equality. I must do them the justice, however, to
admit, that they are willing to carry out their prin
ciples to great lengths when the white race alone is
concerned. I heard of a newly -arrived Irish ditcher
at Chehaw, who was astonished when invited to sit
down at table with his employer, a proprietor in the
neighbourhood, who thought it necessary to recog
nise him as an equal. On one occasion, when I
visited a lawyer at his country-house in Alabama
— one accustomed to the best society of a large city,
and the ladies of whose family were refined and cul
tivated — he felt it incumbent on him, to my great

D 5

58 LANDING AT CLAIBORNE. [CHAP. XXIII

discomfiture, to invite the driver of my gig, a half-
caste Indian, who travelled without any change
of clothes, to sit down with us at table. He was of
a dark shade, but the blood was Indian, not African,
and he was therefore one of the Southern aristocracy.
The man was modest and unobtrusive, and scarcely
spoke ; but it need scarcely be said, that his pre
sence checked the freedom of conversation, and I
was glad when his duties in the stable called him

o

away.

In the course of the night we were informed that
the Amaranth had reached Claiborne. Here we
found a flight of wooden steps, like a ladder, lead
ing up the nearly perpendicular bluff, which was
150 feet high. By the side of these steps was a
framework of wood, forming the inclined plane down
which the cotton bales were lowered by ropes.
Captain Bragdon politely gave his arm to my wife,
and two negroes preceded us with blazing torches of
pine-wood, throwing their light on the bright shining
leaves of several splendid magnolias which covered
the steep. We were followed by a long train of
negroes, each carrying some article of our baggage.
Having ascended the steps, we came to a flat terrace,
covered with grass, the first green sward we had
seen for many weeks, arid found there a small, quiet
inn, where we resolved to spend some days, to make
a collection of the fossil tertiary shells, so well
known to geologists as abounding in the strata of
this cliif. About 400 species, belonging to the
Eocene formation, derived from this classic ground,
have already been named, and they agree, some of

CHAP. XXIII.] FOSSIL REMAINS. 59

them specifically, and a much greater number in
their generic forms, with the fossils of the middle
division of the deposits of the same age of London
and Hampshire.*

The remains of the zeuglodon have been also
found, by Mr. Hale, in this cliff; but, although I
met with many leaves of terrestrial plants, I could
neither obtain here, nor in any part of the United
States, a single bone of any terrestrial quadruped,
although we know that many of that class inhabited
Europe at this period. That some of these may be
discovered in America, I can hardly doubt ; but the
fact is worthy of remark, as connected with the
weight due to negative evidence. When strata have
been formed far from land, so as to afford few, if
any, indications of land plants, we must not look for
indications of air-breathing quadrupeds, nor infer
their non-existence, if it be so difficult to discover
them even at Claiborne, where the land, at the
period of the deposition of the marine strata, cannot
have been far distant, f

* They correspond with the middle or Bracklesham series of
Prestwich's triple division. See " Quart. Journ. of Geol. Soc.,"
voL iii. May, 1847.

f Since writing the above, I hear that Mr. Hale, of Mobile,
has met with some bones of land quadrupeds in these strata.
For remarks on the strata at Claiborne, see a paper by the
Author, "Quart. Journ. of Geol. Society of London," vol. iv.
p. 10. June, 1848.

D 6

60 MOVERS TO TEXAS. [CHAP. XXIV-

CHAP. XXIV.

Claiborne, Alabama. — Movers to Texas. — State Debts and
Liabilities. — Lending Money to half -settled States. — Rumours
of War with England. — Macon, Alabama. — Sale of Slaves. —
Drunkenness in Alabama. — Laws against Duelling. — Jealousy
of Wealth. — Emigration to the West. — Democratic Equality
of Whites. — Skeleton of Fossil Whale or Zeuglodon. —
Voyage to Mobile.

THE morning after our arrival at Claiborne, we
found at the inn a family of "movers" on their way
to Texas, sitting in the verandah enjoying the warm
sunshine after a shower of rain. At this season,
January 29th, the thermometer stood at 80° Fahren
heit in the shade, and the air was as balmy as on an
English summer day. The green sward was covered
with an elegant flower, the Houstonia serpyllifolia,
different from the H. cerulea, so common in the New
England meadows. Before the house stood a row of
Pride-of-India trees (Melia azedarach), laden with
bunches of yellow berries. I had been often told
by the negroes that the American robin (Turdus
migratorius) "got drunk" on this fruit, and we had
now an opportunity of witnessing its narcotic pro
perties ; for we saw some children playing with one
of these birds before the house, having caught it
after it had been eating freely of the berries. My
wife, seeing that the robin was in no small danger of

CHAP. XXIV.] MOVERS TO TEXAS. 61

perishing, bought it of the children for some sugar
plums, and it soon revived in our room, and flew out of
the window. In the evening we enjoyed a sight of
one of those glorious sunsets, the beauty of which in
these latitudes is so striking, when the clouds and
sky are lighted up with streaks of brilliant red,
yellow, and green, which, if a painter should repre
sent faithfully, might seem as exaggerated and gaudy
as would the colours of an American forest in
autumn, when compared with European woods.

The movers, who were going to Texas, had come
down 200 miles from the upper country of Alabama,
and were waiting for some others of their kindred
who were to follow with their heavy waggons. One
of these families is carrying away no less than forty
negroes, and the cheerfulness with which these slaves
are going they know not where with their owners,
notwithstanding their usual dislike to quit the place
they have been brought up in, shows a strong bond
of union between the master and "his people." In
the last fifteen months, 1300 whites, and twice that
number of slaves, have quitted Alabama for Texas
and Arkansas, and they tell me that Monroe county
has lost 1 500 inhabitants. " Much capital," said one
of my informants, " is leaving this State, and no won
der ; for if we remain here, we are reduced to the
alternative of high taxes to pay the interest of money
so improvidently borrowed from England, or to suffer
the disgrace of repudiation, which would be doubly
shameful, because the money was received in hard cash,
and lent out, often rashly, by the State, to farmers for
agricultural improvements. Besides," he added, " all

62 STATE DEBTS. [CHAP. XXIV.

the expenses of Government were in reality defrayed
during several years by borrowed money, and the
burthen of the debt thrown on posterity. The
facility with which your English capitalists, in
1821, lent their cash to a State from which the In
dians were not yet expelled, without reflecting on
the migratory nature of the white population, is as
tonishing ! The planters who got grants of your
money, and spent it, have nearly all of them moved
off and settled beyond the Mississippi.

"First, our Legislature negotiates a loan ; then bor
rows to pay the interest of it ; then discovers, after
some years, that five out of the sixteen millions lent
to us have evaporated. Our democrats then stig
matise those who vote for direct taxes to redeem
their pledges as ' the high taxation men.' Possibly
the capital and interest may eventually be made
good, but there is some risk at least of a suspension
of payment. At this moment the State is selling
land forfeited by those to whom portions of the bor
rowed money were lent on mortgage, but the value
of property thus forced into the market, is greatly
depreciated."

Although, since my departure in 1846, Alabama
has not repudiated, I was struck with the warn
ing here conveyed against lending money to a new
and half-formed community, where everything is
fluctuating and on the move — a State from which
the Indians are only just retreating, and where few
whites ever continue to reside three years in one
place, — where thousands are going with their negroes
to Louisiana, Texas, or Arkansas, — where even the

CHAP. XXIV.] WAR WITH ENGLAND. 63

County Court Houses and State Capitol are on the
move, the Court House of Clarke county, for ex
ample, just shifted from Clarkesville to Macon, and
the seat of Legislature about to be transferred from
Tuscaloosa to Montgomery. In the midst of such in
stability, a feeling of nationality, or State pride, cannot
easily be fostered. Nevertheless, the resources, both
mineral and agricultural, of so vast a territory as
Alabama, a fifth larger in area than the whole of
England proper, may enable them with moderate
economy to overcome all their difficulties.

Often was the question put to us, "Are you
moving?" But at the small tavern at Claiborne it
was supposed that I might be the Methodist minister
whom they were expecting to come from the North,
to preach a trial sermon. Two Alabamans, who, as
I afterwards learnt, were under this persuasion,
were talking beside me of the chances of a war with
England, and praised the British ministers for their
offer of mediation. They condemned the folly of
the Government at Washington for not accepting it,
and agreed that the trade of Mobile would suffer
seriously, if they came to blows with the English.
" Calhoun," said one of them, " has pronounced in
favour of peace ; but they say that the Governor
General of Canada is spending a mint of money on
fortifications." " It is satisfactory," replied his com
panion, " to think that we have not yet spent a dollar
on preparations ; yet I doubt not, if we had to fight,
that the English would get the worst of it." " Yes,"
said his friend, " we have whipped them twice, and
should whip them a third time."

64 INNS OF SOUTHERN STATES. [CHAP. XXIV.

I am bound to state, that never once, where I was
known to be an Englishman, were any similar speeches,
uncourteous in their tone towards my country,
uttered in my hearing.

On the table of the inn at Claiborne, I found a
book entitled " Walsh's Appeal from the Judgment
of Great Britain," in which all the provocations given
to the Americans by English travellers, and the
daily and periodical press of Great Britain, were
brought together in one view. It is at least in
structive, as showing that a disposition to run down
our Transatlantic brethren was quite as marked, and
perhaps even more conspicuous, before any of the
States had repudiated, than after the financial crisis of
1841. So long as such an unfriendly and disparaging
tone is encouraged, England does well to keep up a
larger military force in Canada, and a larger navy
than would otherwise be called for. It is only to be
regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer can
not set down as a separate item, the charge for in
dulging in anti- American prejudices, for it is possible
that John Bull, patient as he is of taxation, might
doubt whether the luxury was worth its cost. When
the landlord saw me making an extract from Walsh,
he begged me to accept the book ; the second occa
sion in this tour in which mine host had pressed me
to take a volume out of his library, which he had seen
me reading with interest.

There is a considerable uniformity in the scale of
charges in country inns in the Southern States. Great
hotels in large cities are more expensive, and small
inns in out-of-the-way places, where there were few

CHAF. XXIV.] MACON, ALABAMA. 65

comforts, considerably cheaper. We never made any
bargains, and observed that the bill was always
equitably adjusted according to the accommodation
provided.

From Claiborne we crossed the Alabama river,
and were hospitably received by Mr. Blount, to
whom I had a letter of introduction from Mr.
Hamilton Couper. While my wife stayed with
Mrs. Blount at Woodlands, he took me in his
carriage through the forest, to the county town of
Macon, where he had business as a magistrate.
Macon (Alabama) happened to lie directly in my
way to Clarkesville, where I wished to examine the
geology of the region where the fossil skeletons of the
gigantic zeuglodon had been procured. The district
we passed through was situated in the fork of the
Alabama and Tombeckbee rivers, where the abo
riginal forest was only broken here and there by a
few clearings. To travel with an accomplished and
agreeable resident proprietor, who could entirely
sympathise with my feelings and opinions in a district
so recently deserted by the Indians, was no small ad
vantage. When I got to Macon, my attention was
forcibly called to the newness of things, by my
friend's pointing out to me the ground where there
had been a bloody fight with the Chocktaws and
Chickasaws, and I was told how many Indians had
been slaughtered there, and how the present clerk of
the Circuit Court was the last survivor of those who
had won the battle. The memory of General Jackson
is quite idolized here. It was enough for him to give
public notice in the papers that he should have great

66 SALE OF SLAVES. [CHAP. XXIV.

pleasure in meeting his friends at a given point on a
given day, and there was sure to be a muster of
several hundred settlers, armed with rifles, and pre
pared for a desperate fight with 5000 or 7000
Indians.

At Macon I was fortunate enough to meet with Mr.
William Pickett, a friend of Mr. Blount's, who, after
returning from the wars in Texas, had most actively
aided Mr. Koch in digging up the skeleton of the
fossil whale, or zeuglodon, near Clarkesville. As I
was anxious to know the true position of that re
markable fossil, and to ascertain how much of it had
been obtained in a single locality, I gladly accepted
Mr. Pickett's offer, to act as guide in this excursion.
On repairing to the stable for the horse destined to
draw our vehicle, we were met with a singular piece
of intelligence. The stable-boy who had groomed it
in the morning was " up for sale." Without his
assistance we could not start, for this boy had the
key of the harness-room. So I determined to go to
the auction, where I found that a sale of land and
negroes was going on, in consequence of the State
having foreclosed one of those mortgages, before
alluded to, on which public money borrowed from Eu
ropean capitalists had been lent by the State, for agri
cultural improvements. I first saw an old man sold for
150 dollars ; then a boy, seventeen years old, knocked
down for 535 dollars, on which a bystander remarked
to me, " They are selling well to-day." Next came
on the young man in whose immediate release I was
more especially interested. He stepped forward, hat
in hand, with an easy natural air, seeming to be very

CHAP. XXIV.] DRUNKENNESS IN ALABAMA. 6<

indifferent to the scene around him, while the
auctioneer began to describe him as a fine griff (which
means three parts black), twenty -four years old, and
having many superior qualities, on which he enlarged
in detail. There was a sharp bidding, which lasted
only a few minutes, when he was sold for 675 dollars.
Mr. Pickett immediately asked him to get ready our
horse, and, as he came away with us, began to joke
with him, and told him " they have bid a hundred
dollars more for you than I would have given ; " to
which he replied, very complacently, " My master,
who has had the hire of me for three years, knew
better than to let any one outbid him." I discovered,
in short, that he had gone to the sale with a full con
viction that the person whom he had been serving
was determined to buy him in, so that his mind was
quite at ease, and the price offered for him had made
him feel well satisfied with himself.

I witnessed no mal-treatment of slaves in this State,
but drunkenness prevails to such a degree among their
owners, that I cannot doubt that the power they exer
cise must often be fearfully abused. In the morning the
proprietor of the house where I lodged was intoxicated,
yet taking fresh drams when I left him, and evidently
thinking me somewhat unpolite when I declined to
join him. In the afternoon, when I inquired at the
house of a German settler, whether I could see some
fossil bones discovered on his plantation, I was told
that he was not at home ; in fact, that he had not re
turned the night before, and was supposed to be lying
somewhere drunk in the woods, his wife having set
out in search of him in one direction, and his sister

68 LAWS AGAINST DUELLING. [CHAP. XXIV.

in another. In the Congress at Washington I had
seen one of the representatives of this State, the
worse for liquor, on his legs in the House, and I
afterwards heard of his being killed in a brawl in
Alabama; yet every one here speaks of the great
reform which the Temperance movement has made,
it being no longer an offence to decline taking a
dram with your host.

When the conversation at Macon turned on duel
ling, I remarked to one of the lawyers, that a new
bill had just been passed by the State of Mississippi,
inflicting political disfranchisement as a penalty on
every one concerned, whether as first or second, in a
duel. He laughed, and said, " We have a similar
statute here, but it is nugatory, for the forfeited rights
are always restored by the Legislature, as a matter of
course, if the offenders can prove that there was no
unfair play in the fight." Notwithstanding this
assertion, such enactments are not without their sig
nificance, and I believe that the example of New
England and the progress of civilisation is rapidly
changing the tone of public opinion in regard to this
barbarous practice. Soon after I left Macon, the
news reached us of a fatal duel at Richmond, in
Virginia, between two newspaper editors, one of
whom, in the prime of life, and leaving a family de
pendent on him, was killed ; and where the coroner's
jury had given a verdict of murder, although the
survivor was afterwards acquitted. The newspaper
comments on this tragedy, even in some of the
Southern States, were admirable. The following ex
tract may be taken as an example : — " Mr. P ,

CHAP. XXIV.] JEALOUSY OF WEALTH. 69

a man of fifty years' experience, had been called a

coward by a young man, Mr. Thomas R . This

touched his honour, which must be vindicated by
putting his duty as a son, a father, a citizen, a Chris
tian, and a man at stake. The point to be proved

by being murdered, was that Tom II 's opinion

was incorrect, and that Mr. P was a man of

honour and of courage. Mr. P is dead. Did his

conduct prove that he was a brave or wise man ? Is
his reputation better, or is it worse for all this ? If
he could rise from the dead, and appear again in the
streets of Richmond, would he be counted more a
man of courage or honour, than if he had never taken

the least notice of T. R or his opinion ? Mr.

R — - lives, and has his opinion still, and other
people have also their opinion of him," &c.

I heard many anecdotes, when associating with
small proprietors in Alabama, which convinced me
that envy has a much ranker growth among the
aristocratic democracy of a newly settled Slave State
than in any part of New England which I visited.
I can scarcely conceive the ostracism of wealth or
superior attainments being carried farther. Let
a gentleman who has made a fortune at the bar, in
Mobile or elsewhere, settle in some retired part of
the newly cleared country, his fences are pulled
down, and his cattle left to stray in the woods, and
various depredations committed, not by thieves, for
none of his property is carried away, but by neigh
bours who, knowing nothing of him personally, have
a vulgar jealousy of his riches, and take for granted
that his pride must be great in proportion. In a

70 JEALOUSY OF WEALTH. [CHAP. XXIV,

recent election for Clarke county, the popular candi
date admitted the upright character and high qualifi
cations of his opponent, an old friend of his own, and
simply dwelt on his riches as a sufficient ground for
distrust. " A rich man," he said, " cannot sympa
thise with the poor." Even the anecdotes I heard,
which may have been mere inventions, convinced me
how intense was this feeling. One, who had for
some time held a seat in the Legislature, finding
himself in a new canvass deserted by many of his
former supporters, observed that he had always voted
strictly according to his instructions. " Do you
think," answered a former partisan, " that they would
vote for you, after your daughter came to the ball in
them fixings ?" His daughter, in fact, having been
at Mobile, had had a dress made there with flounces
according to the newest Parisian fashion, and she
had thus sided, as it were, with the aristocracy of the
city, setting itself up above the democracy of the
pine woods. In the new settlements there the small
proprietors, or farmers, are keenly jealous of thriving
lawyers, merchants, and capitalists. One of the
candidates for a county in Alabama confessed to
me that he had thought it good policy to go every
where on foot when soliciting votes, though he could
have commanded a horse, and the distances were
great. That the young lady, whose " fixings " I
have alluded to, had been ambitiously in the fashion,
I make no doubt; for my wife found that the cost of
making up a dress at Mobile was twenty dollars, or
four times the ordinary London price ! The material
costs about the same as in London or Paris. At

CHAP. XXIV.] INCONVENIENCES IN BACKWOODS. 71

New Orleans the charge for making a gown is equally
high.

I often rejoiced, in this excursion, that we had
brought no servants with us from England, so strong
is the prejudice here against what they term a white
body-servant. Besides, it would be unreasonable to
expect any one, who is not riding his own hobby,
to rough it in the backwoods. In many houses I
hesitated to ask for water or towels, for fear of giving
offence, although the yeoman with whom I lodged
for the night allowed me to pay a moderate charge
for my accommodation. Nor could I venture to
beg any one to rub a thick coat of mud off my boots
or trousers, lest I should be thought to reflect on
the members of the family, who had no idea of in
dulging in such refinements themselves. I could
have dispensed cheerfully with milk, butter, and
other such luxuries ; but I felt much the want of
a private bed-room. Very soon, however, I came to
regard it as no small privilege to be allowed to have
even a bed to myself. On one occasion, when my
host had humoured my whims so far in regard to
privacy, I felt almost ashamed to see, in consequence,
a similar sized bed in the same room, occupied by my
companion and two others. When I related these in
conveniences afterwards to an Episcopal clergyman, he
told me that the bishop and some of his clergy, when
they travel through these woods in summer, and the
lawyers, when on the circuit or canvassing for votes
at elections, have, in addition to these privations, to
endure the bites of countless musquitos, fleas, and
bugs, so that I had great reason to congratulate

72 EMIGRANTS TO THE WEST. [CHAP. XXIV.

myself that it was now so cold. Moreover, there
are parties of emigrants in some of these woods,
where women delicately brought up, accustomed to be
waited on, and with infants at the breast, may now
be seen on their way to Texas, camping out, although
the ground within their tent is often soaked with
heavy rain. " If you were here in the hot season,"
said another, " the exuberant growth of the creepers
and briars would render many paths in the woods,
through which you now pass freely, impracticable,
and venomous snakes would make the forest dan
gerous."

Calling on a proprietor to beg him to show me
some fossil bones, he finished by offering me his
estate for sale at 3500 dollars. He said he had been
settled there for twenty years with his wife, longer
than any one else in the whole country. He had no
children ; and when I expressed wonder that he
could leave, at his advanced age, a farm which he
had reclaimed from the wilderness and improved so
much, he answered, " I hope to feel more at home
in Texas, for all my old neighbours have gone there,
and new people have taken their place here."

The uncertainty of the cotton crops, and the sudden
fluctuations in the value of cotton from year to year,
have been the ruin of many, and have turned almost
every landowner into a merchant and speculator. The
maize, or Indian corn, appears to be almost as pre
carious a crop, for this year it has entirely failed in
many places owing to the intense summer heat. I
passed some mills in which the grain, cob, and husk
were all ground up together for the cattle and hogs,

CHAP. XXIV.] DEMOCRATIC EQUALITY. 73

and they are said to thrive more on this mixture
than on the grain alone.

The different stages of civilisation to which fami
lies have attained, who live here on terms of the
strictest equality, is often amusing to a stranger, but
must be intolerable to some of those settlers who
have been driven by their losses from the more
advanced districts of Virginia and South Carolina,
having to begin the world again. Sometimes, in
the morning, my host would be of the humblest
class of "crackers," or some low, illiterate German
or Irish emigrants, the wife sitting with a pipe in
her mouth, doing no work and reading no books.
In the evening, I came to a neighbour, whose library
was well stored with works of Frencli and English
authors, and whose first question to me was, (f Pray
tell me, who do you really think is the author of the
Vestiges of Creation?" If it is difficult in Europe,
in the country far from towns, to select society on a
principle of congeniality of taste and feeling, the
reader may conceive what must be the control of
geographical circumstances here, exaggerated by
ultra-democratic notions of equality and the pride of
race. Nevertheless, these regions will probably
bear no unfavourable comparison with such parts of
our colonies, in Canada, the Cape, or Australia, as
have been settled for an equally short term of years,
and I am bound to say, that I passed my time agree
ably and profitably in Alabama, for every one, as I
have usually found in newly peopled districts, was
hospitable and obliging to a stranger. Instead of
the ignorant wonder, very commonly expressed in

VOL. II. E

74 FOSSIL WHALE, [CHAP. XXIV.

out-of-the-way districts of England, France, or Italy,
at travellers who devote money and time to a search
for fossil bones and shells, each planter seemed to vie
with another in his anxiety to give me information
in regard to the precise spots where organic remains
had been discovered. Many were curious to learn
my opinion as to the kind of animal to which the
huge vertebra?, against which their ploughs some
times strike, may have belonged. The magnitude,
indeed, and solidity of these relics of the colossal
zeuglodon, are such as might well excite the asto
nishment of the most indifferent. Dr. Buckley
informed me, that on the estate of Judge Creagh,
which I visited, he had assisted in digging out one
skeleton, where the vertebral column, almost un
broken, extended to the length of seventy feet, and
Dr. Emmons afterwards showed me the greater part
of this skeleton in the Museum of Albany, New
York. On the same plantation, part of another back
bone, fifty feet long, was dug up, and a third was
met with at no great distance. Before I left Ala
bama, I had obtained evidence of so many localities
of similar fossils, chiefly between Macon and Clarkes-
ville, a distance of ten miles, that I concluded they
must have belonged to at least forty distinct in
dividuals.

I visited, with Mr. Pickett, the exact spot where
he and Mr. Koch disinterred a portion of the skeleton
afterwards exhibited in New York under the name
of Hydrarchos, or " the Water- king." The bones were
imbedded in a calcareous marly stratum of the Eocene
formation, and I observed in it many casts of the

CHAP. XXIV.] OR ZEUGLODON. 75

chambers of a large nautilus, which were at first
mistaken by Koch for the paddles of the huge
animal. Portions of the vertebral column, exhibited
by him, in 1845, at New York and Boston, were
procured in Washington county, fifteen miles dis
tant in a direct line from this place, where the head
was discovered.* Some single vertebra, which I
found here, were so huge and so impregnated with
carbonate of lime, that I could not lift them from
the ground without an effort. Professor Jeffries
Wyman was the first who clearly pointed out that
the bones, of which the factitious skeleton called
Hydrarchos was made up, must have belonged to
different individuals. They were in different stages
of ossification, he said, some adult, others immature,
a state of things never combined in one and the same
individual. Mr. Owen had previously maintained,
that the animal was not reptilian, but cetacean, be
cause each tooth was furnished with double roots,
implanted in corresponding double sockets. After
my return from America, a nearly entire skull of
the zeuglodon was found by Mr. S. F. Holmes and
Professor L. R. Gibbes, of Charleston, S. C., and it
was found to have the double occipital condyles, only
met with in mammals, and the convoluted tympanic
bones which are characteristic of cetaceans, so that
the real nature of this remarkable extinct species of
the whale tribe has now been placed beyond all
doubt.

Feb. 5. -- On my return from this excursion,

* See " American Journ. of Science," New Series, vol. i.
p. 312.

E 2

76 VOYAGE TO MOBILE. [CHAP. XXIV.

I rejoined my wife at Mr. Blount's, and we then
went back to the inn at Claiborne to wait for a
steamer bound for Mobile. The first large vessel
which touched for a moment at the landing, came
up the river from that city, and stopped to know if
there were any passengers. The answer was, " No,
what news ? " To which they replied, " Cotton up one
eighth — no war." They were off in an instant, and,
a few hours later, when it was dark, another large
vessel was hailed coming down stream. We were
glad to find that it was the Amaranth, commanded
by our old friend Captain Bragdon, who had sailed
up and down, more than 800 miles, in the interval
since we saw him. Once more we descended the
steep cliff, on the slope of which we had spent many
pleasant hours, gathering hundreds of beautifully
preserved shells, and saw it illuminated by a blaze
of torch-light.

Between Claiborne and Mobile, there are about
100 miles of river navigation, our course being nearly
due south. About half way, we passed, in the night,
the junction of the Tombeckbee and Alabama rivers,
and, in the morning, saw in all directions a low flat
country, which continued till we reached the metro
polis of Alabama.

CHAP. XXV.] MOBILE TO TUSCALOOSA. 77

CHAP. XXV.

Voyage from Mobile to Tuscaloosa. — Visit to the Coal-Field of
Alabama. — Its Agreement in Age with the ancient Coal of
Europe. — Absenteeism in Southern States. — Progress of
Negroes. — Unthriftiness of Slave-Labour. — University of
Tuscaloosa. — Churches. — Bankruptcies. — Judges and Law
Courts. — Geology on the Tombechbee River. — Artesian
Wells. — Limestone Bluff of St. Stephen's. — Negro shot by
Overseer. — Involuntary Efforts of the Whites to civilise the
Negroes. — New Statute in Georgia against Black Mechanics.
— The Effects of speedy Emancipation and the free Com
petition of White and Black Labourers considered.

Feb. 8. 1846. — THE Tuscaloosa steamer was just
ready to sail the next morning from Mobile, up the
great western tributary of the Alabama, called the
Tombeckbee (or more familiarly " the Bigby ") ; I
determined, therefore, to embark in her for the capital
of the State, about 400 miles distant by water to the
north, where I wished to explore the coal-field in
which the coal used for gas and fuel at Mobile is pro
cured, and to ascertain its geological age. Our steamer
was 170 feet long, and made about ten miles an hour
against the stream. She carried stores of all kinds to
the upper country, but was not heavily laden ; and, on
her return, is to bring down a large freight of cotton.
By means of the high pressure principle and the
horizontal movement of the piston, she draws only a

78 THE TOMBECKBEE RIVER. [CHAP. XXV.

few feet water, notwithstanding her great length.
These steamers never appear to such advantage as
when stemming an adverse current, for the boat can
then be steered with more precision,, and less time is
lost at the landings ; at each of these they can go up
direct to the bank, whereas, in descending, they have
to turn round and reascend the stream before they
can stop. There were also rafts laden with huge
piles of wood ready to be taken in tow at different
points, the logs being thrown on board by our ne
groes, while the steamer was going on at full speed.
The empty raft is then turned adrift, and is easily
piloted down stream by two men, a manoeuvre which
could not be practised when vessels are going in the
opposite direction. All the chairs in the cabin of
the Tuscaloosa were so constructed as to be capable
of floating, and acting as life-preservers — a useful
precaution on a river, whatever may be thought of
such safe-guards in an ocean steamer.

The river Tombeckbee was so high that the trees
of both banks seemed to be growing in a lake. Be
fore dark, we came to the limestone bluff at St.
Stephen's, more than sixty miles due north of Mobile,
and nearly 150 miles by the windings of the river.
The tide is still slightly perceptible, even at this dis
tance from the sea, and the water never rises during
a flood more than five or six feet above its ordinary
level ; whereas, higher up, at Demopolis, the extreme
rise is "not less than fifty feet, and at Tuscaloosa,
sixty-nine feet. At the latter place, indeed, we
found the waters so high, that the falls were con
verted into mere rapids. The magnificent scale of

CHAP. XXV.] TUSCALOOSA. 79

the navigation on these southern rivers in the rainy
season, contrasts remarkably with the want of similar
facilities of water communication in Texas and the
more western countries bordering the Gulf of Mexico.
We admired the canes on the borders of the river
between Tuscaloosa and Demopolis, some of which I
found to be thirty feet high. Whether this mag
nificent reed, which is said sometimes to grow forty
feet high, is a distinct species, or merely a variety of
Miegia macrosperma, which I had seen from six to
ten feet high, as far north as Kentucky and North
Carolina, botanists are not yet agreed.

Tuscaloosa is situated, like Augusta, Milledgeville,
and Columbus, at the falls of a river, though, in this
instance, the falls do not occur, as usual at the junc
tion of the granitic rocks, with the tertiary or cre
taceous strata, but at the point where the latter first
meet the carboniferous formation. The lower beds
of the horizontal cretaceous series in contact with the
inclined coal-measures, consist of gravel, some of the
quartzose pebbles being as large as hen's eggs, and
they look like an ancient beach, as if the cretaceous
sea had terminated here, or shingle had been accu
mulated near a shore.

There is a nourishing college at Tuscaloosa, stand
ing upon a hill 450 feet above the level of the sea.
Here I was welcomed by the professor of chemistry,
Mr. Brumby, who had the kindness to set out im
mediately with me (Feb. 10.) to examine the coal
fields lying immediately north of this place. Starting
in a north-easterly direction, we first entered a hilly
country formed of sandstone, grit, and shale of the

E 4

80 COAL-FIELD OF ALABAMA. [CHAP. XXV.

coal formation, precisely like the strata in which
coal occurs in England. These hills were covered
with long-leaved pines, and the large proportion
they bear to the hard wood is said to have been
increased by the Indian practice of burning the
grass ; the bark of the oak and other kinds of hard
wood being more combustible, and more easily in
jured by fire, than that of the fir tribe. Everywhere
the young seedlings of the long-leaved pine were
coming up in such numbers, that one might have sup
posed the ground to have been sown with them ; and
I was reminded how rarely we see similar self-sown
firs in English plantations. When we had gone
about twenty miles north* east of Tuscaloosa, we came
to a higher country, where nearly all the pines dis
appeared, and were replaced by oak, hiccory, sumach,
gum trees, sassafras, and many others. In some
clearings here, as in Georgia and the Carolinas, the
quantity or cordage of wood fit for charcoal produced
in thirty years by the new growth, is said, from its
greater density, to have equalled the wood contained
in the aboriginal forest.

Near the banks of the Black Warrior river, we
examined several open quarries of coal, where the
edges of the beds had been dug into by different pro
prietors, no regular mining operations having as yet
been attempted. Even at the outcrop the coal is of
excellent quality, and highly bituminous, and I soon
satisfied myself that the strata were not of the age of
the Richmond coal before described * , but were
as ancient as that of the Alleghany Hills, or of

* Ante, vol. i. p. 283.

CHAP. XXV.] COAL-FIELD OF ALABAMA. 81

Western Virginia. In the beds of black shale cover
ing each coal-seam, were impressions of fossil plants,
precisely similar to those occurring in the ancient
coal-measures of Europe and America. Among these
we found more than one species of Calamite, several
ferns of the genera Sphenopteris and Neuropteris,
the trunks of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, the stems
and leaves of Aster -ophyllite, and in other beds the
characteristic root called Stigmaria, not uncommon.*

According to Professor Brumby, this coal-field of
the Warrior river is ninety miles long from north to
south, and from ten to thirty miles in breadth, and in
cludes in it some coal-seams not less than ten feet
thick. It forms a southern prolongation of the great
Appalachian coal-field, with which I was unacquainted
when I compiled my map, published in 1845, of the
geology of North America. f Its geographical situa
tion is peculiarly interesting ; for, being situated in
lat. 33° 10' north, it constitutes at present the extreme
southern limit to which the ancient carboniferous vege
tation has been traced in the northern hemisphere,
whether on the east or west side of the Atlantic.

Continuing our route into the upland country, we
entered, about thirty-three miles N. E. of Tuscaloosa,
a region called Rook's Valley, where rich beds of
ironstone and limestone bid fair, from their proximity
to the coal, to become one day a source of great
mineral wealth. At present the country has been
suffered to retrograde, and the population to grow less

* See " Quart. Journ. of Geol. Soc.," vol. ii. p. 278., and for
a list of the plants, by Mr. C. J. F. Bunbury, p 282. ibid.
f See " Travels," &c., vol. ii.
E 5

82 ABSENTEEISM IN SOUTHERN STATES. [CHAP. XXV.

numerous than it was twenty years ago. owing to
migrations to Louisiana and Texas, and partly to the
unthriftiness of slave-labour.

We travelled in a carriage with two horses, and could
advance but a few miles a day, so execrable and often
dangerous was the state of the roads. Occasionally
we had to get out and call at a farm-house to ask
the proprietor's leave to take down his snake-fence,
to avoid a deep mud-hole in the road. Our vehicle
was then driven over a stubble field of Indian corn,
at the end of which we made our exit, some fifty
yards on, by pulling down another part of the fence.
In both places the labour of rebuilding the fence,
which consists simply of poles loosely placed together,
and not nailed, was entailed upon us, and caused
no small delay.

One of the evils, tending greatly to retard the pro
gress of the Southern States, is absenteeism, which is
scarcely known in the North. The cheapness of
land, caused by such rapid emigration to the South and
West, and the frequent sales of the estates of insol
vents, tempts planters to buy more land than they can
manage themselves, which they must therefore give
in charge to overseers. Accordingly, much of the
property in Alabama belongs to rich Carolinians, and
some wealthy slave-owners of Alabama have estates
in Mississippi. With a view of checking the increase
of these " pluralities," a tax has recently been imposed
on absentees. In Alabama, as in Georgia, I found
that the coloured people were more intelligent in the
upper country, and I listened with satisfaction to
complaints of their setting themselves up, and being

CHAP. XXV.] PROGRESS OF NEGROES. 83

less content than formerly with their lot. That men
of colour can sometimes make large fortunes in trade,
was proved to me by a fact which came accidentally
to my knowledge. One of them, by standing security
for a white man, had lately lost no less than 17,000
dollars, or 3400 guineas ; yet he was still prospering,
and kept a store, and, being a free man, would wil
lingly have sent his son to the college of Tuscaloosa,
had he not been prevented by the prejudices of a
white aristocracy, ostentatiously boastful of its love of
equality. In consequence of similar impediments,
many thriving artisans of the coloured race remain
uneducated, and are obliged to have white men to
write for them and collect their debts ; and I found
that many cabinet-makers, carpenters, builders, and
other mechanics earning high wages, who, in New
England, would send their sons to college, do not
contribute here even to the maintenance of common
schools, their children not being permitted by law to
learn to read and write. I cannot believe, however,
that this state of things can endure many years, for I
found that an excellent sabbath school had been
established by the Presbyterians in Tuscaloosa, for
the children of negroes. There are two coloured men
in this town, who, having a dash of Indian as well as
negro blood in their veins, have become the owners
of slaves.

Frequent mention was made during our stay in
Alabama, of a negro named Ellis, a blacksmith, who
had taught himself Greek and Latin. He is now
acquiring Hebrew, and I was sorry to hear that the
Presbyterians contemplate sending him as a mission-

E 6

84 COLOURED DOMESTICS. [CHAP. XXV.

ary to Liberia. If it were an object in the South to
elevate the blacks, he might be far more instrumental
in forwarding the cause of civilisation and Chris
tianity by remaining at home, for the negroes like a
preacher of their own race.

The coloured domestic servants are treated with
great indulgence at Tuscaloosa. One day some of
them gave a supper to a large party of their friends
in the house of a family which we visited, and they
feasted their guests on roast turkeys, ice-creams,
jellies, and cakes. Turkeys here cost only seventy-
five cents, or about three shillings the couple, pre
pared for the table ; the price of a wild turkey, an
excellent bird, is twenty-five cents, or one shilling.
After calculating the interest of the money laid out
in the purchase of the slaves, and the price of their
food, a lawyer undertook to show me that a negro
cost less than an English servant ; "but, as two blacks
do the work of only one white, it is a mere delusion,"
he said, " to imagine that their labour is not dearer."
It is usual, moreover, not to exact the whole of their
time for domestic duties. I found a footman, for
example, working on his own account as a bootmaker
at spare hours, and another getting perquisites by
blacking; the student's shoes.

O

That slave labour is more expensive than free, is
an opinion which is certainly gaining ground in the
higher parts of Alabama, and is now professed openly
by some Northerners who have settled there. One
of them said to me, " Half the population of the
South is employed in seeing that the other half do
their work, and they who do work, accomplish half

CHAP. XXV.] FREE AND SLAVE LABOUE. 85

what they might do under a better system." " We
cannot," said another, " raise capital enough for new
cotton factories, because all our savings go to buy
negroes, or, as has lately happened, to feed them,
when the crop is deficient." A white bricklayer had
lately gone from Tuscaloosa to serve an apprentice
ship in his trade at Boston. He had been earning
there 2J dollars a day, by laying 3000 bricks daily.
A Southern planter, Avho had previously been ex
ceedingly boastful and proud of the strength of one of
his negroes (who could, in fact, carry a much greater
weight than this same white bricklayer), was at first
incredulous when he heard of this feat, for his pattern
slave could not lay more than 1000 bricks a day.

During my absence on the geological excursion
above mentioned, through forests recently abandoned
by the Indians, and where their paths may still be
traced, I found that my wife had made many agree
able acquaintances at Tuscaloosa. Two of the ladies
she had seen (New Englanders, who had married
Southerners), were reading the works of Schiller and
Goethe in the original for their amusement. My
companion, the Professor of Chemistry, was not the
only one from whom I obtained much scientific in
formation, and we enjoyed the pleasure, one clear
night, of looking through a telescope recently sent
from London, and were shown by Mr. Barnard, the
teacher of astronomy, some double stars and southern
constellations not visible in England.

The annual expense of a student in the University
is 300 dollars, or sixty guineas a year, including
board. A gentleman, whose family consisted of eight

86 CHURCHES. [CHAP. XXV.

individuals, with eight negro servants, told me that
he could not live respectably for less than 1700
dollars a year (340 guineas). Yet he paid no less
than 40 dollars, or eight guineas, a year, for a pew in
the Presbyterian church, holding six persons, which
will give some idea of the liberal support afforded,
under the voluntary system, to the ministers of re
ligion. Among the professors here, there are Bap
tists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and I was told of
one that he was not a member of any church, but a
regular attendant at the Baptist or Presbyterian
meeting. On Sunday, we heard the Bishop of Ala
bama preach, the congregation here being reckoned
the second in the State. The first is at Mobile, and
there are about ten in all. The service was read by
another clergyman, and as, according to the usual
custom in America, there was no clerk, the Bishop
read the responses and gave out the psalms, seeming
to us, at first, to be performing the office of clerk.
It often struck me as an advantage in the United
States, that the responses are never read by an il
literate man, as happens not uncommonly in our
country parishes, and the congregation joins in the
service more earnestly when the part which pro
perly belongs to them does not devolve on a regular
functionary. A few days later, when I was on my
way, in a steamer, to Mobile, I conversed with an
Episcopal clergyman, a high churchman, whose pro
fession I had recognised by the strictness of his
costume. He told me he meant to visit England,
and, with that view, had for some months abstained
entirely from the chewing of tobacco, having been

CHAP. XXV.] BANKRUPTCIES. 87

told it would be considered a breach of good manners
there. His physician, also, had assured him, that
this habit, which he had taken pains to acquire when
a boy, because he thought it manly, though much
against his natural taste, was injuring his health.
He seemed to know the names of almost every bishop
and dignitary of the English Church, their incomes
and shades of opinion, and regretted that Archbishop
Whately had taken such low ground in regard to the
apostolic succession. " The bishop of this diocese,"
he said, "receives about 800Z. a year, and has to
pay his own travelling expenses, but in the older
States the bishops have higher salaries." Episcopal
clergymen usually receive about 500 dollars (or
100 guineas) in country parishes, and four times
that sum in large towns, or even more. Upon the
whole, he thought them well paid, in proportion to
the average scale of fortunes in the United States,
and he was convinced, that as the wealthiest class
are so often Episcopalians, his church is a gainer in
worldly advantages as well as spiritual influence, by
being wholly unconnected with the State.

In the afternoon, the Presbyterian minister of
Tuscaloosa delivered a good discourse on the neces
sity of a higher standard of honour in commercial
affairs. Channing had said, that they who become
insolvent by over-trading, often inflict more misery
than highwaymen and thieves ; and this preacher
affirmed that for each hundred persons engaged in
trade in Alabama, there had been ninety-seven bank
ruptcies. One of the citizens, who was scandalised
at this assertion, afterwards raised the question,

88 JUDGES AND LAAV COURTS. [CHAP. XXV.

whether it was true, and I asked if any one of the
party could name a tradesman in their town who
had not failed once in the last twenty years. They
were only able to mention two.

I was surprised at the number of lawyers at
Tuscaloosa who enjoyed the title of Judge, and
equally amused when the cause was explained to me.
False notions of economy have from time to time
induced the democracy to lower the salaries of the
judges, especially in the inferior courts. The con
sequence has been, that as the State can no longer
command the services of the best lawyers, the bench
has grown weaker than the bar, and the authority of
judicial decisions has been impaired. Hence the in
creased number of appeals to the Supreme Court of
the State now sitting at Tuscaloosa. Yet, in spite
of this augmentation of business, the income of the
judges in this court also has been lowered from 3000
to 2500 dollars ; although lawyers in good practice
in Mobile have been known to make 10,000 or
14,000 dollars a year. It is by no means uncommon,
therefore, for one who has a large family, to give up
the bench and return to the bar ; but, in that case,
the title of Judge is still given to him by courtesy,
and is much prized, especially by northern men,
who are willing to make a sacrifice for this honour
by serving a few years on the bench and then re
tiring from it.

I have before alluded to the deep ravines recently
cut through incoherent strata in Georgia, after the
natural wood has been felled.* One of these modern

* Ante, p. 25.

CHAP. XXV.] GEOLOGY. 89

gullies may now be seen intersecting most incon
veniently the main street of Tuscaloosa, and several
torrents are cutting their way backwards through
the "cretaceous" clay, sand, and gravel of the hill on
which the Capitol stands. They even threaten in a
few years to undermine that edifice. I had observed
other recent ravines, from seventy to eighty feet deep,
in the Eocene strata between Macon and Clarkes-
ville (Alabama), where the forest had been felled a
few years before.

On my way back from Tuscaloosa to Mobile, I had
a good opportunity of examining the geological struc
ture of the country, seeing various sections, first of
the cretaceous, and then lower down of the tertiary
strata. The great beds of gravel and sand above
alluded to, forming the inferior part of the cretaceous
series, might from their want of consolidation be
mistaken for much newer deposits, if their position
on the Tombeckbee, as well as on the Alabama river
at Montgomery, were not perfectly clear. They
pass beneath the great marlite formation, full of cre
taceous shells, which gives rise to the prairie soils
before described*, as nearly destitute of natural wood,
and crossing Alabama in an east and west direction.
These I examined at Erie, at Demopolis, and at
Arcola, where they contain hippurites and other
characteristic fossils. The depth to which they have
sunk Artesian wells through them in many places
(between 500 and 1000 feet), is astonishing. One
boring through blue marl and limestone at Erie, in

* Ante, p. 42.

90 ARTESIAN WELLS. [CHAP. XXV.

Greene county, was 469 feet deep, and the well
yielded 350 gallons of water per minute at the sur
face. The water rises forty feet above the surface,
and can be made to reach fifty feet, though in di
minished quantity. Here, as in Europe, the tempe
rature of the earth's crust is found to increase as we
descend, the water being sensibly warmer than that
of the air, so much so that in cold weather it sends
forth steam. Each new excavation at Erie robs the
wells previously bored of part of their supply. The
auger with which they perforate the soil is four
inches in diameter, and the average cost of excavation
sixty-two cents, or about 2s. 6d. per foot, for the
whole depth of 469 feet. No solid rock has been
pierced here, the strata consisting throughout of soft
horizontally stratified blue limestone. They have
also pierced these same rocks, at a distance of three
miles from Demopolis (a town situated at the junction
of the Tombeckbee and Black Warrior rivers), to the
depth of 930 feet without gaining the water, yet
they do not despair of success, as sand has just been
reached.

At Arcola, the proprietor presented me with se
veral cretaceous fossils, and some irregular tubular
bodies, the origin of which he wished to have ex
plained. I immediately recognised them as identical
with the vitreous tubes found at Drigg, in Cumber
land, in hills of shifting sand, which have been de
scribed and figured in the Transactions of the Geolo
gical Society of London.* They have a glazed and

* Vol. ii. p. 528. and vol. v. p. 617., 1st series.

CHAP. XXV.] BLUFF OF ST. STEPHEN'S. 91

vitrified interior, and bodies of similar form and
structure were first supposed by Saussure to have
been due to the passage of lightning through sand,
a theory now generally adopted.

If any geologist retains to this day the doctrine
once so popular, that at remote periods marine de
posits of contemporaneous origin were formed every
where throughout the globe with the same mineral
characters, he would do well to compare the succes
sion of rocks on the Alabama river with those of the
same date in England. If there were no fossils, he
might suppose the Lower cretaceous beds of loose
gravel to be the newest tertiary, the main body of
the chalk to be lias, and the soft limestone of St.
Stephen's, which is tertiary, to be the representative
of chalk. When I arrived at the last-mentioned
rock, or the white calcareous bluff of St. Stephen's,
it was quite dark, but Captain Lavargy, who com
manded the vessel, was determined I should not be
disappointed. He therefore said he would stop and
take in a supply of wood at the place, and gave
me a boat, with two negroes amply provided with
torches of pine-wood, which gave so much light that
I was able to explore the cliff from one end to the
other, and to collect many fossils. The bluff was
more than 100 feet high, and in parts formed of an
aggregate of corals resembling nummulites, but
called, by A. D'Orbigny, orbitoides.

I had seen the same " orbitoidal " limestone in the
interior of Clarke county, forming knolls, on which
many cedars or junipers were growing, reminding
me greatly of parts of the English South Downs,

92 BLUFF OF ST. STEPHEN'S. [CHAP. XXV.

covered with yew trees or juniper, where the pure
calcareous soil of the chalk reaches the surface.

When I looked down from the top of the precipice
at St. Stephen's, the scene which presented itself was
most picturesque. Near us was the great steam-boat,
throwing off a dense column of white vapour, and
an active body of negroes throwing logs on board
by torch-light. One of my companions had clam
bered with me, torch in hand, to the top of the bluff;
the other was amusing himself in the boat below by
holding another blazing torch under large festoons
of Spanish moss, which hung from the boughs of a
huge plane tree. These mossy streamers had at
length been so dried up by the heat, that they took
fire, and added to the brilliant illumination. My
fellow passengers were asleep during this transaction,
but congratulated me the next morning on having
had the command of the vessel during the night.

On board the steamer were three gentlemen of
respectable families and good standing in society,
who had been ruined by their drunken habits. They
had all been brought up to the bar, and two of them
were married. One had become quite imbecile ; and
I saw the captain and clerk interfere to prevent him
from taking more spirits. We heard many lamenta
tions at the prevalence of this vice in Alabama, and
were told of a skilful physician who had lost all his
practice by giving way to intemperance. While one
of the passengers was conversing with me on this
subject, he called my attention to an overseer just
coming on board, who, not long ago, had shot a
negro, a ringleader in a conspiracy. The affair, he

CHAP. XXV.] NEGRO SHOT BY OVERSEER. 93

said, had not reached a desperate point, and might
have been better managed, had he not been a pas
sionate man. I was going to express my indigna
tion at the idea of such an agent continuing to be
entrusted with power, when I saw him approaching
us. His countenance was by no means prepossessing,
and I involuntarily withdrew. To my surprise, my
companion, whose general opinions had pleased me
much, greeted and shook hands with his acquaint
ance with apparent cordiality.

This adventure, and my meeting with the slave-
stealer on board the " General Clinch," before re
lated * , were the two cases which most shocked
my feelings in the course of my present tour in
Georgia and Alabama. To inquire into the condition
of the negroes, and the evils arising out of the relation
of master and slave, was not the object of my visit ;
but when I afterwards related to an Abolitionist in
Massachusetts, how little actual suffering had ob
truded itself on my notice, he told me that great
pains must have been taken by the planters to con
ceal from me the true state of things, while they had
taken care to propitiate me by hospitable attentions.
I was glad, however, to find my experience borne
out by that of a Scotch weaver, William Thomson,
of Stonehaven, who travelled in the year 1841-42
for his health in the Southern States. He supported
himself as he went along by manual labour, and lived
on intimate terms with persons of a different class of
society from those with whom I had most intercourse.

* Ante, vol. i. p. 309.

94 SLAVERY IN SOUTHERN STATES. [CHAP. XXV.

On his return home he published a small book, in
which he says, " It will appear, to those who knew
my opinions on slavery before I visited America,
that, like most others who can judge dispassionately,
I have changed my opinion considerably." He gives
a detailed account of his adventures in the regions
which I traversed in Alabama, Georgia, and many
other States, and concludes by observing, — " After
witnessing negro slavery in mostly all the slave-
holding States, — having lived for weeks in cotton
plantations, observing closely the actual condition of
the negroes, — I can assert, without fear of contra
diction from any man who has any knowledge of
the subject, that I have never witnessed one-fifth
of the real suffering that I have seen in manufac
turing establishments in Great Britain." In refer
ence to another topic, he affirms " that the members
of the same family of negroes are not so much scat
tered as are those of working men in Scotland, whose
necessities compel them to separate at an age when
the American slave is running about gathering health
and strength."*

I am aware that there is some danger, when one
hears the philanthropist declaiming in terms of gross
exaggeration on the horrors of slavery and the crimes
of the planters, of being tempted by a spirit of con
tradiction, or rather by a love of justice, to coun
teract misrepresentation, by taking too favourable a
view of the condition and prospects of the negroes.
But there is another reason, also, which causes the tra-

* Tradesman's Travels in the United States, &c., in the years
1840-42, p. 182.

CHAP. XXV.] INCEEASE OF NEGROES. 95

veller in the South to moderate his enthusiasm for
emancipation. He is forced continually to think of
the responsibility which would be incurred, if several
millions of human beings were hastily set aside, like
so many machines, by withdrawing from them sud
denly the protection afforded by their present mo
nopoly of labour. In the opening of the market
freely to white competitors, before the race is more
improved, consists their danger.

Yet, on taking a near view of the slave question,
we are often thrown into opposite states of mind and
feeling, according as the interests of the white or
negro race happen, for the moment, to claim our
sympathy. It is useless now to look back and wish,
for the sake of civilisation, that no Africans had ever
crossed the Atlantic. Their number in the Union
now exceeds three millions, and, as they have doubled
in the last twenty-five years, we must expect, unless
some plan can be devised to check their increase,
that they will amount, before the close of this cen
tury, to twelve millions, by which time the white
population will have augmented to eighty millions.
Notwithstanding this increase of negroes, were it
not for disturbing causes, to which I shall presently
advert, I should cherish the most sanguine hopes of
their future improvement and emancipation, and even
their ultimate amalgamation and fusion with the
whites, so highly has my estimate of their moral and
intellectual capabilities been raised by what I have
lately seen in Georgia and Alabama. Were it not
for impediments which white competition and po
litical ascendency threaten to throw in the way of

96 CIVILISATION OF NEGEOES. [CHAP. XXV.

negro progress, the grand experiment might be fairly
tried, of civilising several millions of blacks, not by
philanthropists, but by a steadier and surer agency—
the involuntary efforts of several millions of whites.
In spite of prejudice and fear, and in defiance of
stringent laws enacted against education, three mil
lions of a more enlightened and progressive race are
brought into contact with an equal number of la
bourers lately in a savage state, and taken from a
continent where the natives have proved themselves,
for many thousand years, to be singularly unpro-
gressive. Already their task-masters have taught
them to speak, with more or less accuracy, one
of the noblest of languages, to shake off many old
superstitions, to acquire higher ideas of morality,
and habits of neatness and cleanliness, and have
converted thousands of them to Christianity. Many
they have emancipated, and the rest are gradually
approaching to the condition of the ancient serfs of
Europe half a century or more before their bondage
died out.

All this has been done at an enormous sacrifice of
time and money, an expense, indeed, which all the
governments of Europe and all the Christian mis
sionaries, whether Romanist or Protestant, could
never have effected in five centuries. Even in the
few States which I have already visited since I
crossed the Potomac, several hundred thousand whites
of all ages, among whom the children are playing
by no means the least effective part, are devoting
themselves with greater or less activity to these in
voluntary educational exertions.

CHAP. XXV.] LAW AGAINST BLACK MECHANICS. 97

It had previously been imagined that an impassable
gulf separated the two races ; but now it is proved
that more than half that space can, in a few gene
rations, be successfully passed over, and the humble
negro of the coast of Guinea has shown himself to
be one of the most imitative and improvable of human
beings. Yet the experiment may still be defeated,
not so much by the fanaticism of abolitionists, or the
prejudices of those slave-owners who are called per-
petualists, who maintain that slavery should be per
manent, and that it is a blessing in itself to the negro,
but by the jealousy of an unscrupulous democracy
invested with political power. Of the imminent na
ture of this peril, I was never fully aware, until I
was startled by the publication of an act passed by
the Legislature of Georgia during my visit to that
State, December 27. 1845. The following is the
preamble and one of the clauses : —

" An act to prohibit coloured mechanics and ma
sons, being slaves, or free persons of colour, being
mechanics or masons, from making contracts for the
erection of buildings, or for the repair of buildings,
and declaring the white person or persons directly or
indirectly contracting with or" employing them, as
well as the master, employer, manager, or agent for
said slave, or guardian for said free person of colour,
authorising or permitting the same, guilty of a mis
demeanor," and prescribing punishment for the vio
lation of this act.

" Section 1. — Beit enacted by the Senate and House
of Representatives of the State of Georgia in General
Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the au-

VOL. II. F

98 LAW AGAINST BLACK MECHANICS. [CHAP. XXV.

thority of the same, That from and after the 1st day
of February next, each and every white person who
shall hereafter contract or bargain with any slave,
mechanic, or mason, or free person of colour, being a
mechanic or mason, shall be liable to be indicted for
a misdemeanor ; and, on conviction, to be fined, at
the discretion of the Court, not exceeding two hun
dred dollars."

Then follows another clause imposing the like
penalties on the owners of slaves, or guardians of
free persons of colour, who authorise the contracts
prohibited by this statute.

I may first observe, in regard to this disgraceful
law, which was only carried by a small majority in
the Georgian Legislature, that it proves that not a few
of the negro race have got on so well in the world in
reputation and fortune, and in skill in certain arts, that
it was worth while to legislate against them in order
to keep them down, and prevent them from entering
into successful rivalry with the whites. It confirms,
therefore, most fully the impression which all I saw
in Georgia had left on my mind, that the blacks are
steadily rising in social importance in spite of slavery ;
or, to speak more correctly, by aid of that institution,
assuming, as it does, in proportion as the whites be
come civilised, a more and more mitigated form. In
the next place I shall endeavour to explain to the
English reader the real meaning of so extraordi
nary a decree. Mr. R. H. Wilde, formerly senator
for Georgia, told me that he once knew a coloured
freeman who had been brought up as a saddler, and
was a good workman. To his surprise he found him

CHAP. XXV.] DEGRADED POSITION OF NEGROES. 99

one day at Saratoga, in the State of New York,
acting as servant at an hotel. f( Could you not get
higher wages," he inquired, " as a saddler ?" " Yes,"
answered he ; " but no sooner was I engaged by a
' boss,' than all the other workmen quitted." They
did so, not because he was a slave, for he had long
been emancipated, but because he was a negro. It
is evident, therefore, that it requires in Georgia the
force of a positive statute to deprive the negro,
whether he be a freeman or slave, of those advan
tages from which, in a free State like New York,
he is excluded, without any legislative interference.

I have heard apologists in the North endeavouring
to account for the degraded position which the negroes
hold, socially and politically, in the Free States, by say
ing they belong to a race which is kept in a state of
slavery in the South. But, if they really desired to
accelerate emancipation, they would begin by setting
an example to the Southern States, and treating the
black race with more respect and more on a footing of
equality. I once heard some Irish workmen complain in
New York, "that the niggers shut them out from
all the easiest ways of getting a livelihood ; " and many
white mechanics, who had emigrated from the North
to the Slave States, declared to me that every opening
in their trades was closed to them, because black arti
sans were employed by their owners in preference.
Hence, they are now using in Georgia the power
given to them by an exclusive franchise, to pass dis
abling statutes against the blacks, to prevent them
from engaging in certain kinds of work. In several
States, Virginia among others, I heard of strikes,

p 2

100 EFFECTS OF [CHAP. XXV.

where the white workmen bound themselves not to
return to their employment until the master had
discharged all his coloured people. Such combina
tions will, no doubt, forward the substitution of
white for negro labour, and may hasten the era of
general emancipation. But if this measure be pre
maturely adopted, the negroes are a doomed race,
and already their situation is most critical. I found
a deep conviction prevailing in the minds of expe
rienced slave-owners, of the injury which threatened
them ; and, more than once, in Kentucky and else
where, in answer to my suggestions, that the time
for introducing free labour had come, they said, " I
think so ; we must (jet rid of the negroes." " Do
you not think," said I, " if you could send them all
away, that some parts of the country would be de
populated, seeing how unhealthy the low grounds
are for the whites?" "Perhaps so," replied one
planter, " but other regions would become more pro
ductive by way of compensation ; the insalubrity of
the Pontine marshes would be no excuse for negro
slavery in Italy. All might end well," he added,
" were it not that so many anti-slavery men in the
North are as precipitate and impatient as if they
believed, like the Millerites, that the world was
coming to an end."

One of the most reasonable advocates of immediate
emancipation whom I met with in the North, said to
me, " You are like many of our politicians, who can
look on one side only of a great question. Grant the
possibility of these three millions of coloured people,
or even twelve millions of them fifty years hence,

CHAP. XXV.] IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION. 101

being capable of amalgamating with the whites, such
a result might be to you perhaps, as a philanthropist
or physiologist, a very interesting experiment ; but
would not the progress of the whites be retarded, and
our race deteriorated, nearly in the same proportion
as the negroes would gain ? Why not consider the
interests of the white race by hastening the abolition
of slavery. The whites constitute nearly six-sevenths
of our whole population. As a philanthropist, you
are bound to look to the greatest good of the two
races collectively, or the advantage of the whole
population of the Union."

F 3

102 RETURN TO MOBILE. [CHAP. XXVI.

CHAP. XXVI.

Return to Mobile. — Excursion to the Shores of the Gulf of
Mexico. — View from Lighthouse. — Mouth of Alabama River.
— Gnafhodon inhabiting Brackish Water. — Banks of these
Fossil Shells far Inland. — Miring of Cattle. —Yellow Fever
at Mobile in 1839. — Fire in same Year. — Voyage from Mo
bile to New Orleans. — Movers to Texas. — Lake Pontchar-
train. — A rrivul at New Orleans. — St. Louis Hotel. — French
Aspect of City. — Carnival. — Procession of Masks.

Feb. 21. 1846. — THERE had been some very cold
weather in the beginning of the month in the upper
country, the thermometer at Tuscaloosa having
been down as low as 17° Fahr. ; yet, on our return to
Mobile, we saw the signs of approaching spring, for
on the banks of the Alabama river the deciduous
cypress and cotton trees were putting out their
leaves, and the beautiful scarlet seed-vessels of the
red maple (Acer Drummondii) enlivened the woods.

Once more at Mobile, I was impatient to see,
for the first time, the shores of the Gulf of Mexico,
and therefore lost no time in making an excursion to
the mouth of the Alabama river. I was fortunate
in having as my companion the Rev. Dr. Hamilton,
minister of the principal Presbyterian congregation,
who was well acquainted with the natural history of
this region. He drove me first to the lighthouse,

CHAP. XXVI.] VIEW FROM LIGHTHOUSE. 103

where, from the top of the tower, we had a splendid
view of the city to the north, and to the south the
noble Bay of Mobile, fourteen miles across. The
keeper of the lighthouse looked sickly, which is not
surprising, as he is living in a swamp in this region
of malaria. It was his first year of residence, and the
second year is said to be most trying to the consti
tution. The women, however, of his family, seemed
healthy. We then went to the sea-side, two miles to
the eastward, and found the waters of the bay smooth
and unrippled, like an extensive lake, the woods
coming down everywhere to its edge, and the live oaks
and long-leaved pines, with the buck-eye and several
other trees just beginning to put forth their young
leaves. As the most northern countries I had
visited in Europe — Norway and Sweden — were
characterised by fir trees mingled with birch, I was
surprised to find the most southern spot I had yet
seen, a plain only a few feet above the level of
the sea, almost equally characterised by a predomi
nance of pines. On the ground I observed a species
of cactus, about one foot high, and the marshy spots
were covered with the candleberry (Myrica caro-
linensis), resembling the species so common in the
North, in the scent of its aromatic leaves, but thrice
as high as I had seen it before. The most common
plant in flower was the English chickweed ( Cerastium
vulgare), a truly cosmopolite species.

A prodigious quantity of drift timber, of all sizes,
and in every stage of decomposition, lay stranded far
and wide along the shore. Many of the trunks had
been floated a thousand miles and more down the

F 4

104 MARINE SHELLS. [CHAP. XXVI.

Mississippi and its tributaries, and, after escaping by
one of the many mouths of the great river, had
drifted one hundred and fifty miles eastward to this
spot. The fact of their long immersion in salt water
was sometimes proved by a dense coat of encrusting
barnacles, the only marine shells we could find here,
for the mollusks proper to this part of the bay are
such as belong to fresh or brackish water of the
genera Cyrena, Gnathodon, and Neritina. Just before
our visit, a north wind had been blowing and driving
back the sea water for some days, and the bay was
so freshened by the Alabama river pouring in at this
season a full stream, that I could detect no brackish
taste in the water. It is, in fact, so sweet here, that
ships often resort to the spot to take in water. Yet
there is a regular tide rising three feet every six
hours, and, when the wind blows from the south, the
waters are raised six or seven feet.

After walking over a large expanse of ripple-
marked sands, we came to banks of .rnud, inhabited
by the bivalve shell called Gnathodon, some of
which we dug up alive from a depth of about two
inches from the surface. This part of the Bay of
Mobile is now the most northern locality of this re
markable brackish- water genus, but dead shells of
the same species are traced many miles inland, form
ing banks three or four feet thick. They are called
clams here in popular language, and, being thick and
strong, afford a good material for road-making. From
the same mud bank we dug out a species of Cyrena>
the only accompanying shell. In some places not
far off, a Neritina is also .met with. As a geologist,

CHAP. XXVI.] MIRING OF CATTLE. 105

I was much interested by observing the manner in
which these shells were living in the mud of the
delta of the Alabama river. The deposits formed
by the advance of this and other deltas along the
northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, will be here
after characterised by such shells in a fossil state, just
as, in the Pampas, Mr. Darwin and M. A. D'Orbigny
found the brackish-water shell, called Azara labiata,
marking far inland the position of ancient estuaries.
And as, in South America, " the Pampean mud," de
scribed by Mr. Darwin *, is filled with the skeletons
of the extinct Megatherium, Toxodon, and other
strange mammalia, so in the modern delta of the
Alabama, the quadrupeds now inhabiting the south
ern shores of the United States will hereafter be
met with buried in the same assemblage of deposits
of mud and sand as the Gnathodon. I was told that
in a great morass which we saw near the lighthouse
some cattle had lately perished, and for many days
the turkey buzzards have been snatching parts of
the dead carcases out of the mud, watching their
opportunity the moment the dogs, which are also
preying on them, retire. Formerly the wolves used
to prowl about these swamps in search of similar
booty, tearing up portions of the mired cattle, and
in this manner we may expect that, while some
skeletons, which have sunk deep into the softer mud,
may be preserved entire, the bones of others will be
scattered about where the wolves have gnawed them,
or birds of prey have picked off the flesh.

* Geolog. Obs. on S. America (1846), p. 99.

F 5

106 BANKS OF FOSSIL SHELLS. [CHAP. XXVI.

On our way back to the town, at places a mile
and a half from the sea, I examined some large banks
of fossil shells of the Gnathodon, lying as if they had
been washed up by the waves at a time when the
coast-line extended only thus far south. I also found
that the city of Mobile itself was built upon a similar
bed of shells, in which no specimens of the Neritina
occurred ; but I was told by Mr. Hale, that he has
met with them in banks much farther in the interior,
and, as he truly remarked, they refute the theory
which would refer such accumulations to the Indians,
who, it is well known, were accustomed to feed on
the Gnathodon. The distinct stratification seen in
some of the heaps of shells and sand at Mobile, also
satisfied me that they were thrown up by the action
of water. Mr. Hale gave me a map, in which he
had laid down the localities of these beds of fossil
Gnathodon,, some of which he has traced as far as
twenty miles into the interior, the accumulations in
creasing in thickness in the most elevated and inland

O

situations, and containing there an intermixture of
the Neritince with the Cyrena, which last seems only
to occur in the recent banks of mud and sand. Mr.
Hale observes, " that the inland heaps of shells often
rise so far above the level of the highest tides, that
it seems difficult to account for their position simply
by the advance of the delta, and without supposing
that there has been a slight upheaval of the land."

In the gardens at Mobile, there were jonquils and
snowdrops in flower, and, for the first time, we saw
that beautiful evergreen, the yellow jessamine (Gel-
semium sempervirens), in full bloom, trailed along the

CHAP. XXVI.] YELLOW FEVER. 107

wall of Dr. Hamilton's house. Its fragrance is de
licious, more like that of our bind-weed than any
other scent I could remember. It had not been in
jured by the late frost, although the thermometer at
Mobile had been eight degrees below the freezing
point.

The citizens are beginning to flatter themselves
that the yellow fever has worn itself out at Mobile,
because the hot season of 1845 was so healthy both
here and at New Orleans. Some medical men, in
deed, confessed to me, that as the wind blew for
many weeks from the north, passing over the marshes
north of the city during the summer, without giving
rise to the usual epidemic, all their former theories
as to the origin of the pestilence have been refuted.
It may still hold true, that to induce the disease,
three causes must concur, namely, heat, a moist
ground, and a decaying vegetation ; but it seems clear
that all these may be present in their fullest intensity,
and yet prove quite inoccuous. The dangerous
months are July, August, and September, and great
is the anxiety of those who then remain in the city.
It is fearful to witness the struggle between the love
of gain, tempting the merchant to continue at his
post, and the terror of the plague, which causes him
to stand always prepared for sudden flight. In 1839,
such was the dismay, that only 3000 out of a popu
lation of 16,000 tarried behind in the city. Dr.
Hamilton, one of those who staid, told me that he
knew not a single family, a member of which was
not attacked by the disease. Out of the 3000, 800

F 6

108 FIRE AT MOBILE. [CHAP. XXVI.

died. All the clergy remained faithful to their
duties, and many of them perished.

The yellow fever is not the only scourge which
has frequently devastated Mobile. I found it slowly
recovering, like so many other American cities, from
the ravages of a great fire, which, in 1839, laid the
greater part of it in ashes. The fire broke out in so
many places at once, as to give too much reason to
suspect that it was the work of incendiaries seeking
plunder.

Feb. 23. — The distance from Mobile to New Or
leans is 175 miles by what is called the inland pas
sage, or the channel between the islands and the
main land. We paid five dollars, or one guinea each,
for berths in the " James L. Day " steamer, which
made about nine miles an hour. Being on the low-
pressure principle, she was so free from noise and
vibration, that we could scarcely believe we were
not in a sailing vessel. The stunning sounds and
tremulous motions of the boats on the Southern
rivers are at first so distracting, that I often won
dered we could sleep soundly in them. The " James
L. Day" is 185 feet long, drawing now 5-J- feet
water, and only seven feet when fully freighted. We
sailed out of the beautiful Bay of Mobile in the
evening, in the coldest month of the year, yet the air
was warm, and there was a haze like that of a sum
mer's evening in England. Many gulls followed our
ship, enticed by pieces of bread thrown out to them by
the passengers, some of whom were displaying their
skill in shooting the birds in mere wantonness. The
stars were brilliant as the night came on, and we

CHAP. XXVI.] MOVERS TO TEXAS. 109

passed between the islands and main land, where the
sea was as smooth as a lake.

On board were many " movers," going to Texas
with their slaves. One of them confessed to me,
that he had been eaten out of Alabama by his negroes.
He had no idea where he was going, but after set
tling his family at Houston, he said he should look
out for a square league of good land to be had cheap.
Another passenger had, a few weeks before, returned
from Texas, much disappointed, and was holding
forth in disparagement of the country for its want of
wood and water, declaring that none could thrive
there unless they came from the prairies of Illinois,
and were inured to such privations. " Cotton," he
said, " could only be raised on a few narrow strips of
alluvial land near the rivers, and as these were not
navigable by steamers, the crop, when raised, could
not be carried to a market." He also comforted the
mover with the assurance, " that there were swarms
of buffalo flies to torment his horses, and sand flies to
sting him and his family." To this the undismayed
emigrant replied, " that when he first settled in
Alabama, before the long grass and canes had been
eaten down by his cattle, the insect pests were
as great as they could be in Texas." He was, I
found, one of those resolute pioneers of the wilder
ness, who, after building a log-house, clearing the
forest, and improving some hundred acres of wild
ground by years of labour, sells the farm and mi
grates again to another part of the uncleared forest,
repeating this operation three or four times in the
course of his life, and, though constantly growing

1 10 LAKE PONTCIIARTKA1N. [CHAP XXVI.

richer, never disposed to take his ease. In pursuing
this singular vocation, they who go southwards from
Virginia to North and South Carolina, and thence to
Georgia and Alabama, follow, as if by instinct, the
corresponding zones of country. The inhabitants of
the red soil of the granitic region keep to their oak
and hiccory, the " crackers " of the tertiary pine-
barrens to their light-wood, and they of the newest
geological formations in the sea-islands to their fish
and oysters. On reaching Texas, they are all of
them at fault, which will surprise no geologist who
has read Ferdinand Koemer's account of the form
which the cretaceous strata assume in that country,
consisting of a hard, compact, siliceous limestone,
which defies the decomposing action of the atmosphere,
and forms table-lands of bare rock, so entirely un
like the marls, clays, and sands of the same age in
Alabama.

On going down from the cabin to the lower deck, I
found a slave-dealer with sixteen negroes to sell, most
of them Virginians. I heard him decline an offer of 500
dollars for one of them, a price which he said he could
have got for the man before he left his own State.

Next morning at daylight, we found ourselves in
Louisiana. We had already entered the large la
goon, called Lake Pontchartrain, by a narrow pas
sage, and, having skirted its southern shore, had
reached a point six miles north of New Orleans.
Here we disembarked, and entered the cars of a rail
way built on piles, which conveyed us in less than an
hour to the great city, passing over swamps in which
the tall cypress, hung with Spanish moss, was flou-

CHAP. XXVI.] NEW ORLEANS. Ill

rishing, and below it numerous shrubs just burst
ing into leaf. In many gardens of the suburbs, the
almond and peach trees were in full blossom. In
some places the blue-leaved palmetto, and the leaves
of a species of iris (/m cuprea\ were very abundant.
We saw a tavern called the " Elysian Fields Coffee
House," and some others with French inscriptions.
There were also many houses with porte-cocheres,
high roofs, and volets, and many lamps suspended
from ropes attached to tall posts on each side of the
road, as in the French capital. We might indeed
have fancied that we were approaching Paris, but for
the negroes and mulattos, and the large verandahs
reminding us that the windows required protection
from the sun's heat.

It was a pleasure to hear the French language
spoken, and to have our thoughts recalled to the
most civilised parts of Europe by the aspect of a
city, forming so great a contrast to the innumerable
new towns we had lately beheld. The foreign ap
pearance, moreover, of the inhabitants, made me feel
thankful that it was possible to roam freely and
without hindrance over so large a continent, — no
bureaus for examining and signing of passports, no
fortifications, no draw-bridges, no closing of gates at
a fixed hour in the evening, no waiting till they are
opened in the morning, no custom-houses separating
one State from another, no overhauling of baggage
by gensdarmes for the octroi, and yet as perfect a
feeling of personal security as I ever felt in Ger
many or France.

The largest of the hotels, the St. Charles, being

112 ST. LOUIS HOTEL. [CHAP. XXVI.

full, we obtained agreeable apartments at the St.
Louis, in a part of the town where we heard French
constantly spoken. Our rooms were fitted up in the
French style, with muslin curtains and scarlet dra
peries. There was a finely proportioned drawing-
room, furnished a la Louis Quatorze, opening into
a large dining-room with sliding doors, where the
boarders and the " transient visitors," as they are
called in the United States, met at meals. The
mistress of the hotel, a widow, presided at dinner,
and we talked French with her and some of the at
tendants ; but most of the servants of the house were
Irish or German. There was a beautiful ball-room,
in which preparations were making for a grand
masked ball, to be given the night after our arrival.

It was the last day of the Carnival. From the
time we landed in New England to this hour, we
seemed to have been in a country where all, wrhether
rich or poor, were labouring from morning till night,
without ever indulging in a holiday. I had some
times thought that the national motto should be
" All work and no play." It was quite a novelty
and a refreshing sight to see a whole population
giving up their minds for a short season to amuse
ment. There was a grand procession parading the
streets, almost every one dressed in the most gro
tesque attire, troops of them on horseback, some in
open carriages, with bands of music, and in a variety
of costumes, — some as Indians, with feathers in
their heads, and one, a jolly fat man, as Mardi Gras
himself. All wore masks, and here and there in the
crowd, or stationed in a balcony above, we saw per-

CHAP. XXVI.] THE CARNIVAL. 113

sons armed with bags of flour, which they showered
down copiously on any one who seemed particularly
proud of his attire. The strangeness of the scene
was not a little heightened by the blending of ne
groes, quadroons, and mulattos in the crowd ; and
we were amused by observing the ludicrous surprise,
mixed with contempt, of several unmasked, stiff,
grave Anglo -Americans from the North, who were
witnessing, for the first time, what seemed to them so
much mummery and torn-foolery. One waggoner,
coming out of a cross street, in his working-day dress,
drove his team of horses and vehicle heavily laden
with cotton bales right through the procession, caus
ing a long interruption. The crowd seemed deter
mined to allow nothing to disturb their good humour ;
but although many of the wealthy Protestant citizens
take part in the ceremony, this rude intrusion struck
me as a kind of foreshadowing of coming events,
emblematic of the violent shock which the invasion
of the Anglo-Americans is about to give to the old
regime of Louisiana. A gentleman told me, that
being last year at Home, he had not seen so many
masks at the Carnival there ; and, in spite of the in
crease of Protestants, he thought there had been
quite as much "flour and fun" this year as usual.
The proportion, however, of strict Romanists is not so
great as formerly, and to-morrow, they say, when
Lent begins, there will be an end of the trade in
masks ; yet the butchers will sell nearly as much
meat as ever. During the Carnival, the greater
part of the French population keep open house, espe
cially in the country.

114 CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL. [CHAP. XXVII.

CHAP. XXVII.

Catholic Cathedral, New Orleans. — French Opera. — Creole
Ladies. — Quadroons. — Marriage of Whites with Quadroons.

— St. Charles Theatre. — English Pronunciation. — Duellisfs
Grave. — Ladies'1 Ordinary. — Procession of Fire Companies-

— Boasted Salubrity of New Orleans. — Goods selling at
Northern Prices. — Mr. Wilde. — Roman Law. — Shifting of
Capital to Baton Rouge. — Debates in Houses of Legislature. —
Convention and Revision of the Laivs. — Policy of Periodical
State Conventions. — Judges cashiered. — Limitation of their
Term of Office.

New Orleans, February, 1846. — WALKING first over
the most ancient part of the city, called the First
Municipality, we entered the Place d'Armes, and
saw on one side of the square the old Spanish
Government House, and opposite to it the Cathedral,
or principal Catholic church, both in an antique style
of architecture, and therefore strikingly unlike any
thing we had seen for many months. Entering the
church, which is always open, we found persons on
their knees, as in Catholic countries, although it was
not Sunday, and an extremely handsome quadroon
woman coming out.

In the evening we went to the French Opera, and
were much pleased with the performance, the orchestra
being the best in America. The audience were very
quiet and orderly, which is said not to be always

CHAP. XXVII.] CREOLE LADIES. 115-

the case in some theatres here. The French Creole
ladies, many of them descended from Norman ances
tors, and of pure unmixed blood, are very handsome.
They were attired in Parisian fashion, not over dressed,
usually not so thin as the generality of American
women ; their luxuriant hair tastefully arranged,
fastened with ornamental pins, and adorned simply
with a coloured riband or a single flower. My wife
learnt from one of them afterwards, that they usually
pay, by the month, a quadroon female hairdresser, a
refinement in which the richest ladies in Boston
would not think of indulgiug. The word Creole is
used in Louisiana to express a native-born Ame
rican, whether black or white, descended from old
world parents, for they would not call the abo
riginal Indians, Creoles. It never means persons of
mixed breed ; and the French or Spanish Creoles
here would shrink as much as a New Englander
from intermarriage with one tainted, in the slightest
degree, with African blood. The frequent alliances
of the Creoles, or Louisianians, of French extraction
with lawyers and merchants from the Northern States,
help to cement the ties which are every day binding
more firmly together the distant parts of the Union.
Both races may be improved by such connection, for
the manners of the Creole ladies are, for the most
part, more refined ; and many a Louisianian might
justly have felt indignant if he could have overheard
a conceited young bachelor from the North telling
me " how much they were preferred by the fair sex
to the hard-drinking, gambling, horse-racing, cock-
fighting, and tobacco-chewing Southerners." If the

.116 QUADROONS. [CHAP. XXV1J.

Creoles have less depth of character, and are less
striving and ambitious than the New Englanders, it
must be no slight source of happiness to the former
to be so content with present advantages. They
seem to feel, far more than the Anglo-Saxons, that
if riches be worth the winning, they are also worth
enjoying.

The quadroons, or the offspring of the whites and
mulattos, sat in an upper tier of boxes appropriated
to them. When they are rich, they hold a peculiar
and very equivocal position in society. As children,
they have often been sent to Paris for their edu
cation, and, being as capable of improvement as any
whites, return with refined manners, and not unfre-
quently with more cultivated minds than the ma
jority of those from whose society they are shut out.
By the tyranny of caste they are driven, therefore,
to form among themselves a select and exclusive set.
Among other stories illustrating their social relation
to the whites, we were told that a young man of the
dominant race fell in love with a beautiful quadroon
girl, who was so light-coloured as to be scarcely dis
tinguishable from one of pure breed. He found
that, in order to render the marriage legal, he was
required to swear that he himself had negro blood
in his veins, and, that he might conscientiously take
the oath, he let some of the blood of his betrothed
into his veins with a lancet. The romance of this
tale was however greatly diminished, although I fear
that my inclination to believe in its truth was
equally enhanced, when the additional circumstance
was related, that the young lady was rich.

CHAP. XXVII.] ST. CHARLES THEATRE. 117

Some part of the feeling prevailing in New
England, in regard to the immorality of New Or
leans, may be set down to the fact of their theatres
being open every Sunday evening, which is no indi
cation whatever of a disregard of religion on the
part of the Catholics. The latter might, with as
much reason, reflect on the Protestants for not keep
ing the doors of their churches open on week-days.
But as a great number of the young mercantile men
who sojourn here are from the North, and separated
from their families, they are naturally tempted to
frequent the theatres on Sundays ; and if they do so
with a sense that they are violating propriety, or
acting against what in their consciences they think
right, the effect must be unfavourable to their moral
character.

During our stay here we passed a delightful even
ing in the St. Charles theatre, seeing Mr. and Mrs.
Kean in the " Gamester" and " The Follies of a
Night." Her acting of Mrs. Beverley Avas perfec
tion ; every tone and gesture full of feeling, and
always lady-like, never overwrought in the most
passionate parts, Charles Kean's acting, especially
in Richard, has been eminently successful during his
present tour in the United States.

While at New Orleans, Mrs. Kean told my wife
she had been complimented on speaking English so
well ; and some wonder had been expressed that she
never omitted or misplaced her h's. In like manner,
during our tour in New England, some of the
natives, on learning that we habitually resided in
London, exclaimed that they had never heard us

118 ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION. [CHAP. XXVII.

confound our v's and w's. " The Pickwick Papers "
have been so universally read in this country, that
it is natural the Americans should imagine Sam
Weller's pronunciation to be a type of that usually
spoken in the old country, at least in and about the
metropolis. In their turn, the English retaliate amply
on American travellers in the British Isles : — " You
don't mean to say you are an American ? Is it pos
sible ? I should never have discovered it, you speak
English so well ! " — " Did you suppose that we had
adopted some one of the Indian languages ?" - — " I
really never thought about it ; but it is wonderful to
hear you talk like us ! "

Looking into the shop-windows in New Orleans,
we see much which reminds us of Paris, and abund
ance of articles manufactured in the Northern States,
but very few things characteristic of Louisiana.
Among the latter I remarked, at a jeweller's, many
alligators' teeth polished and as white as ivory, and
set in silver for infants to wear round their necks to
rub against their gums when cutting their teeth, in
the same way as they use a coral in England.

The tombs in the cemeteries on the outskirts of
the town are raised from the ground, in order that
they may be above the swamps, and the coffins are
placed in bins like those of a cellar. The water is seen
standing on the soil at a lower level in many places ;
there are often flowers and shrubs round the tombs,
by the side of walks made of shells of the Gna-
thodon. Over the grave of one recently killed in a
duel was a tablet, with the inscription — " Mort,
victime de 1'honneur ! " Should any one propose to

CHAP. XXVIL] LADIES' ORDINARY. 119

set up a similar tribute to the memory of a duellist
at Mount Auburn, near Boston, a sensation would
be created which would manifest how widely dif
ferent is the state of public opinion in New England
from that in the " First Municipality."

Among the signs of the tacit recognition of an
aristocracy in the large cities, is the manner in which
persons of the richer and more refined classes asso
ciate together in the large hotels. There is one
public table frequented by bachelors, commercial tra
vellers, and gentlemen not accompanied by their
wives and families, and a more expensive one, called
the Ladies' Ordinary, at which ladies, their husbands,
and gentlemen whom they invite, have their meals.
Some persons who occupy a marked position in so
ciety, such as our friend the ex-senator, Mr. Wilde,
often obtain leave by favour to frequent this ordi
nary ; but the keepers of the hotels grant or decline
the privilege, as they may think proper.

A few days after the Carnival we had another
opportunity of seeing a grand procession of the na
tives, without masks. The corps of all the different
companies of firemen turned out in their uniform,
drawing their engines dressed up with flowers, ri
bands, and flags, and I never saw a finer set of young
men. We could not help contrasting their healthy
looks with the pale, sickly countenances of "the
crackers," in the pine-woods of Georgia and Alabama,
where we had been spending so many weeks. These
men were almost all of them Creoles, and thoroughly
acclimatised ; and I. soon found that if I wished to
ingratiate myself with natives or permanent settlers

120 SALUBRITY OF NEW ORLEANS. [CHAP. XXVII.

in this city, the less surprise I expressed at the
robust aspect of these young Creoles the better.
The late Mr. Sydney Smith advised an English
friend who was going to reside some years in Edin
burgh to praise the climate : — " When you arrive
there it may rain, snow, or blow for many days, and
they will assure you they never knew such a season
before. If you would be popular, declare you think
it the most delightful climate in the world." When
I first heard New Orleans commended for its salu
brity, I could scarcely believe that my companions
were in earnest, till a physician put into my hands
a statistical table, recently published in a medical
magazine, proving that in the year 1845 the mor
tality in the metropolis of Louisiana was 1'850,
whereas that of Boston was 2-250, or, in other
words, while the capital of Massachusetts lost 1
out of 44 inhabitants, New Orleans lost only 1 in 54 ;
"yet the year 1845," said he, " was one of great heat,
and when a wider area than usual was flooded by
the river, and exposed to evaporation under a hot
sun."

It appears that when New Orleans is empty in the
summer — in other words, when all the strangers,
about 40,000 in number, go into the country, and
many of them to the North, fearing the yellow fever,
the city still contains between 80,000 and 100,000
inhabitants, wrho never suffer from the dreaded dis
ease, whether they be of European or African origin.
If, therefore, it be fair to measure the salubrity of
a district by its adaptation to the constitutions of
natives rather than foreigners, the claim set up for

CHAP. XX VII.] GOODS AT NORTHERN PRICES. 121

superior healthiness may be less preposterous than at
first it sounded to my ears. I asked an Irishman if
the summer heat was intolerable. " You would have
something else to think of in the hot months," said
he, " for there is one set of musquitos who sting
you all day, and when they go in towards dusk,
another kind comes out and bites you all night."

The desertion of the city for five months by so
many of the richer residents, causes the hotels, and
the prices of almost every article in shops, to be very
dear during the remainder of the year. " Goods
selling at northern prices" is a common form of ad
vertisement, showing how high is the usual cost of
all things in this city. The Irish servants in the
hotel assure us that they cannot save, in spite of their
high wages, for, whatever money they put by soon
goes to pay the doctor's bill, during attacks of chill
and fever.

Hearing that a Guide-book of New Orleans had
been published, we wished to purchase a copy, al
though it was of somewhat ancient date for a city of
rapid growth. The bookseller said that we must
wait till he received some more copies from New
York, for it appears that the printing even of books
of local interest is done by presses 2000 miles distant.
Their law reports are not printed here, and there is
only one newspaper in the First Municipality, which
I was told as very characteristic of the French race ;
for, in the Second Municipality, although so much
newer, the Anglo-Americans have, during the last ten
years, started ten newspapers.

We were very fortunate in finding our old friend,

VOL. II. G

122 ROMAN LAW. [CHAP. XXVII.

Mr. Richard Henry Wilde, residing in the same
hotel, for he had lately established himself in New
Orleans, and was practising in the courts of civil
law with success. The Roman law, originally in
troduced into the courts here by the first settlers,
was afterwards modified by the French, and assimi
lated to the Code Napoleon, and finally, by modern
innovations, brought more and more into accordance
with the common law of England. Texas, in her
new constitution, and even some of the older States,
those of New England not excepted, have borrowed
several improvements from the Roman law. Among
these is the securing to married women rights in
property, real and personal, so as to protect them
from the debts of their husbands, and enable them
to dispose of their own property.

Mr. Wilde took me to the Houses of the Legisla
ture, where a discussion was going on as to the pro
priety of changing the seat of government from New
Orleans to some other place in Louisiana, for it had
been determined, though by a majority of one only,
in a convention appointed for that purpose, that they
should go somewhere else, to a place at least sixty
miles distant from the metropolis. I remarked, that
the accessibility of New Orleans was so great, and
so many must be drawn to it by business, that the
determination to seek out a new site for a capital,
seemed to me incomprehensible. " You will wonder
still more," he replied, " when I tell you, that when
the convention had been some time at Baton Rouge to
frame the new constitution, they thought it advisable
to adjourn to New Orleans, where they could consult

CHAP. XXVII.] HOUSES OP LEGISLATURE. 123

with lawyers who were attending the courts, and with
the principal merchants, and where they might have
access to good libraries, and be in daily communica
tion by steam with all parts of the State. In short,
they found that for the faithful discharge of their
task, they stood in need of a great variety of informa
tion which they could obtain nowhere so readily as
in the metropolis. Yet it seems never to have struck
them that our future law-makers might, with equal
profit to the State, derive knowledge from the same
sources."

In the House of Representatives, English is spoken
exclusively, but in the Senate many were addressing
the House in French, and when they sat down an
interpreter rose and repeated the whole speech over
again in English. An orator was on his legs, main
taining that Baton Rouge had the best claims to be
come the future capital, a proposition soon afterwards
adopted by the majority. Another contended that
Donaldsonville ought to be the place, as it would suit
the convenience of 26,000 white male citizens, whilst
Baton Rouge would only favour the interest of 12,000.
This line of argument seemed to me to contain in it
an implied censure on the abandonment of New
Orleans, but that was no longer an open question.
When I afterwards saw the insignificant village of
Donaldsonville, I could not help being diverted at
the recollection of the inflated terms in which its fu
ture prospects had been dwelt upon. The speaker
said, " He liked to lift the veil off the face of futurity
and contemplate the gigantic strides to wealth, popu
lation, and power, which that city was destined to

G 2

124 CHANGING SITE OF CAPITAL. [CHAP. XXVII.

make ; he liked to behold it in imagination, as it will
be in reality, built up from the bank of the river to
the margin of the lake, sustaining and supporting a
happy, industrious, and enterprising population of
millions, and being at the same time the great em
porium of the trade and commerce of the world."

Although I talked much with Louisianians of dif
ferent classes in society, as to their reasons for
changing the site of the capital, I never could satisfy
myself that I had fathomed the truth, and suspect
that a spirit of envy and antagonism of country
against town lies more at the bottom of the measure
than they were willing to confess, aggravated, per
haps, in this case, by the rivalry of two races. No
one pretended that they wished to retreat to a
village, from fear that the populace, or mob, of New
Orleans might control the free action of the repre
sentative body. Some told me, that as their mem
bers received pay, they were desirous of taking away
from them all temptations to protract the session,
which the charms of a luxurious metropolis afforded.
They also affirmed that, by living in so dear a place,
their representatives acquired extravagant notions in
regard to the expenditure of public money, and that
they were exposed to the influence of rich merchants
and capitalists, who gave them good dinners, and
brought them round to their opinions.

I asked if a convention for remodelling the con
stitution had been called for. My informants were
generally disposed to think that the time had arrived
when such a re-cast of the old system had become
unavoidable. The recurrence, they said, of such

CHAP. XXVII.] JUDGES CASHIERED. 125

conventions every twenty-five or thirty years, might
seem to European politicians to imply a wish to per
petuate an experimental state of things ; but where
the population had quadrupled since the last con
vention, — where thousands of *ite^nigrants had poured
in from various States, the majority of them speaking
a new language, and introducing a new code of laws,
into the Second Municipality, — where circumstances
connected with their social, religious, political, and
financial affairs had so altered, — in a word, where
they were unavoidably in a transition state, the best
way of guarding against revolutionary movements
was to settle on some fixed periods for revising the
constitution, and inquiring whether any organic
changes were indispensable.

Among other violent proceedings, I found that
the late convention had cashiered all the judges of
the Supreme Court, although they had been ap
pointed for life, or " quamdiu se bene gesserint," and
with very high salaries. They were to have no re
tiring pensions, and this I remarked was an iniquity,
as some of them had doubtless given up a lucrative
practice on the faith of enjoying a seat on the bench
for life. Some lawyers agreed that the measure was
indefensible, and said they presumed that, in the end,
the democratic party would elect all the judges
annually, by universal suffrage. I met, however,
with optimists who were ready to defend every act
of the convention. Several of the judges, they said,
were superannuated, and it would have been invi
dious to single them out, and force them to resign.
It was better to dismiss the whole. " As for re-

G 3

126 TEEM OF OFFICE. [CHAP. XXVII.

tiring pensions, we hold, with your Jeremy Ben-
tham, that no man can acquire a vested right in a
public injury. Men are apt, when they have re
tained possession of an office for a great part of their
lives, to think they own it." " But what is to be
come of the judges," said I, " who are thus cast off
without pensions ? " " Old Judge A ," he re
plied, " owns a plantation, and will go and farm it.
Judge B— - will probably get a professor's chair in
the new Law University ; " and so he went on, pro
viding for all of them. "In future," he continued,
" our judges are to be appointed by the Governor
and Senate, with good salaries, for eight years ; those
first named being for two, four, six, and eight years,
so that they may go out in rotation ; but members
of the Legislature cannot be raised to the bench, as in
Great Britain." I objected, that such a system
might render a judge who desired to be re-elected
subservient to the party in power, or at least open
to such an imputation. " No doubt," he rejoined ;
"as in the case of your judges, who may be pro
moted to higher posts on the bench. As to the
corrupting influence of their dependance on a legis
lature chosen by a widely-extended suffrage, many
of your mayors and aldermen are elected for short
terms, and exercise judicial functions in England."

CHAP. XXVIII.] YELLOW FEVER. 127

CHAP. XXVIII.

Negroes not Attached by Yellow Fever. — History of Mr. Wilde's
Poem. — The Market, New Orleans. — Motley Character of
Population. — Levee and Steamers. — First Sight of Mississippi
River. — View from the Cupola of the St. Charles. — Site of
New Orleans. — Excursion to Lake Pontchartrain. — Shell
Road. — Heaps of Gnathodon. — Excavation for Gas- Works.
— Buried Upright Trees. — Pere Antoine's Date-palm.

BEFORE we left New Orleans Mr. Wilde received a
message from his negroes, whom he had left behind
at Augusta, in Georgia, entreating him to send for
them. They had felt, it seems, somewhat hurt and
slighted at not having been sooner permitted to join
him. He told us that he was only waiting for a
favourable season to transplant them, for he feared
that men of colour, when they had been acclimatised
for several generations in so cool a country as the
upper parts of Alabama and Georgia, might run
great risk of the yellow fever, although the medical
men here assured him that a slight admixture of
negro blood sufficed to make them proof against this
scourge.

" No one," he said, " feels safe here, who has not
survived an attack of the fever, or escaped unharmed
while it has been raging." He mentioned the belief
of some theorists, that the complaint was caused by
invisible animalcules, a notion agreeing singularly

G 4

128 MR. WILDE'S POEM. [CHAP, xxvin.

with that of many Romans in regard to the malaria
of Italy.

The year following this conversation, our excellent
friend was himself carried off by this fatal disease.
He is well known to the literary world as the author
of a work on the " Love and Madness of Tasso,"
published in 1842, and perhaps still more generally
by some beautiful lines, beginning " My life is like
the summer rose," which are usually supposed to have
derived their tone of touching melancholy, from his
grief at the sudden death of a brother, and soon after
of a mother, who never recovered the shock of her
son's death. As there had been so much controversy
about this short poem, we asked Mr. Wilde to relate
to us its true history, which is curious. He had
been one of a party at Savannah, when the question
was raised whether a certain professor of the Univer
sity of Georgia understood Greek ; on which one of
his companions undertook to translate Mr. Wilde's
verses, called " The Complaint of the Captive," into
Greek prose, so arranged as to appear like verse, and
then see if he could pass it off upon the Professor as
a fragment of Alcasus. The trick succeeded, al
though the Professor said that not having the works
of Alcaeus at hand, he could not feel sure that the poem
was really his. It was then sent, without the know
ledge of Mr. Wilde and his friends, to a periodical at
New York, and published as a fragment from Alca3us,
and the Senator for Georgia was vehemently attacked
by his political opponents, for having passed off a
translation from the Greek as an original composition
of his own.

CHAP. XX VIII.] MR. WILDE'S POEM. 129

Soon after this affair, Captain Basil Hall men
tioned in his " Schloss Hainfeld" (chap, x.), that the
Countess Purgstall had read the lines to him, and
would not tell him who was the author, but he had
little doubt that she had written them herself. The
verses had become so popular that they were set to
music, and the name of Tampa, a desolate sea-beach
on the coast of Florida, was changed into Tempe,
the loveliest of the wooded valleys of Greece, in the
concluding stanza : —

" My life is like the prints which feet

Have left on Tampa's desert strand ;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,

All trace will vanish from the sand.
Yet, as if grieving to efface
All vestige of the human race,
On that lone shore loud moans the sea, —
But none, alas ! shall mourn for me ! " «

In the Countess's version Zara had been substi
tuted for Tampa.

During our stay in New Orleans, Mr. Wilde in
troduced us to his friend Mr. Clay, the Whig candi
date in the late presidential election, and I was glad
of the opportunity of conversing with this distin
guished statesman. In the principal episcopal church
we were very fortunate in hearing Dr. Hawkes
preach, and thought the matter and manner of his
discourse deserving of his high reputation for pulpit
eloquence.

One morning we rose early to visit the market of
the First Municipality, and found the air on the

G 5

130 THE MARKET, NEW ORLEANS. [CHAP. XXVIII.

bank of the Mississippi filled with mist as dense as a
London fog, but of a pure white instead of yellow
colour. Through this atmosphere the innumerable
masts of the ships alongside the wharf, were dimly
seen. Among other fruits in the market we ob
served abundance of bananas, and good pine -apples,
for 25 cents (or a shilling) each, from the West In
dies. There were stalls where hot coffee was selling
in white china cups, reminding us of Paris. Among
other articles exposed for sale, were brooms made of
palmetto leaves, and waggon-loads of the dried Span
ish moss, or Tillandsia. The quantity of this plant
hanging from the trees in the swamps surrounding
New Orleans, and everywhere in the delta of the
Mississippi, might suffice to stuff all the mattrasses
in the world. The Indians formerly used it for ano
ther purpose — to give porosity or lightness to their
building materials. When at Natchez, Dr. Dicke-
son showed me some bricks dug out of an old
Indian mound, in which the tough woody fibre of
the Tillandsia was still preserved. When passing
through the stalls, we were surrounded by a popu
lation of negroes, mulattos, and quadroons, some
talking French, others a patois of Spanish and
French, others a mixture of French and English, or
English translated from French, and with the French
accent. They seemed very merry, especially those
who were jet black. Some of the Creoles also, both
of French and Spanish extraction, like many natives
of the south of Europe, were very dark.

Amidst this motley group, sprung from so many
races, we encountered a young man and woman, arm-

CHAP. XXVIII.] LEVEE AND STEAMERS. 131

in-arm, of fair complexion, evidently Anglo-Saxon,
and who looked as if they had recently come from the
North. The Indians, Spaniards, and French standing
round them, seemed as if placed there to remind us
of the successive races whose power in Louisiana had
passed away, while this fair couple were the repre
sentatives of a people whose dominion carries the
imagination far into the future. However much
the moralist may satirise the spirit of conquest, or
the foreigner laugh at some vain-glorious boasting
about " our destiny," none can doubt that from this
stock is to spring the people who will supersede every
other in the northern, if not also in the southern
continent of America : —

" Iminota manebunt

Fata tibi ....

Romanes rerum dominos."

Soon after our arrival we walked to the levee, or
raised bank of the Mississippi, and, ascending to the
top of the high roof of a large steamer, looked down
upon the yellow muddy stream, not much broader
than the Thames at London. At first I was disap
pointed that the " Father of Waters" did not present
a more imposing aspect; but when I had studied
and contemplated the Mississippi for many weeks, it
left on my mind an impression of grandeur and vast-
ness far greater than I had conceived before seeing
it. We counted thirty-four large steam-ships lying
at the wharf, each with their double chimneys, and
some of truly magnificent dimensions. The vessel
we had chanced to enter, had her steam up and was

G 6

132 VIEW OF CITY. [CHAP. XXVIII.

bound for St. Louis, and we were informed that she
would convey us to that city, a distance of 1100
miles in five days, against the current, for eighteen
dollars, or 4/., board included.

We next went, for the sake of obtaining a general
view of the city and its environs, to the top of the
cupola of the St. Charles Hotel, the most conspi
cuous building in New Orleans, finished in 1836,
the lofty dome of which is of a beautiful form.
Within the memory of persons now living, there
were to be seen on the site of this massive edifice,
ducks and other water birds, swimming about in
pools of water, in a morass. The architect began
the foundation by placing horizontally on the mud
a layer of broad planks 21 inches thick, in spite of
which, the heavy building has sunk slightly in some
places, but apparently without sustaining material
injury.

If a traveller has expected, on first obtaining an
extensive view of the environs of this city, to see an
unsightly swamp, with scarcely any objects to relieve
the monotony of the flat plain save the winding river
and a few lakes, he will be agreeably disappointed.
He will admire many a villa and garden in the
suburbs, and in the uncultivated space beyond the
effect of uneven and undulating ground is produced
by the magnificent growth of cypress and other
swamp timber, which have converted what would
otherwise have formed the lowest points in the land
scape into the appearance of wooded eminences.
From the gallery of the cupola we saw the well-
proportioned, massive square tower of St. Patrick's

CHAP. XXVIII.] SITE OF NEW ORLEANS. 133

Church, recently built for the Irish Catholics, the
dome of the St. Louis Hotel, and immediately below
us that fine bend of the Mississippi, where we had
just counted the steamers at the wharf. Here, in a
convex curve of the bank, there has been a constant
gain of land, so that in the last twenty-five years no
less than three streets have been erected, one beyond
the other, and all within the line of several large
posts of cedar, to which boats were formerly at
tached. New Orleans was called the Crescent City,
because the First Municipality was built along this
concave bend of the Mississippi. The river in this
part of its course varies in breadth from a mile to
three-quarters of a mile, and below the city sweeps
round a curve for eighteen miles, and then returns
again to a point within five or six miles of that from
which it had set out. Some engineers are of opinion
that as the isthmus thus formed is only occupied by
a low marsh, the current will in time cut through
it, in which case the First Municipality will be
deserted by the main channel. Even should this
happen, the prosperity of a city which extends con
tinuously for more than six miles along the river
would not be materially affected, for its site has been
admirably chosen, although originally determined in
some degree by chance. The French began their
settlements on Lake Pontchartrain because they
found there an easy communication with the Gulf
of Mexico. But they fixed the site of their town
on that part of the great river which was nearest to
the lagoon, so as to command, by this means, the
navigation of the interior country.

134 SHELL EOAD8 [CHAP. XXVIII.

March 5. 1846. — From New Orleans I made a
short excursion with Dr. Carpenter and Dr. M'Cor-
mac to Lake Pontchartrain, six miles to the north
ward. We went first along the " shell road " by the
Bayou St. John's, and then returned by the canal.
The shell road, so called from the materials used in
its construction, namely, the valves of the Gnaihodon
cuneatus, before mentioned, is of a dazzling white
colour, and in the bright sunshine formed a strong
contrast with the vegetation of the adjoining swamps.
Yet the verdure of the tall cypresses is somewhat
dimmed by the sombre colour of the grey Spanish
moss hanging everywhere from its boughs like dra
pery. The rich clusters of scarlet and purplish fruit
of the red maple (Acer Drummondii) were very con
spicuous, and the willows have just unfolded their
apple-green leaves. The swamp palmetto ( Chamce-
rops adansonia) raises its fan-shaped leaves, ten feet
high, although without any main trunk, like the sea-
island palmetto before described. Several of them
are surmounted by spikes bearing seeds. Among
the spring flowers we gathered violets ( Viola cucul-
lata\ the elegant Houstonia serpyllifolia., which we
had first seen at Claiborne, and a white bramble
(Rubus trivialis), the odour of which resembles that
of our primrose. The common white clover, also,
is most abundant here, as on the banks of the Mis
sissippi, below New Orleans ; yet it is not a native of
Louisiana, and some botanists doubt whether any
of the European species now growing wild in this
State are indigenous.

Lake Pontchartrain is about fifteen feet below

CHAP. XXVIII.] HEAPS OF GNATHODOX. 135

high water, and two feet below the lowest water of
the Mississippi. It is said to have become sensibly
shallower in the last forty years, its depth being now
fourteen or fifteen feet only, for it receives annual
supplies of mud from the Mississippi, poured into it
by one of its mouths, called the Iberville river.

The south-east wind sometimes drives the salt
water into the great lagoon, and raises its level from
five to ten feet. On a mud-bank near the shore
I observed the living Gnathodon, accompanied by a
modiola (Dreissena ? ), and -there was a small bank
of dead shells on the southern borders of the lake,
which may have been thrown up by the waves in a
storm, the valves of most of them being separate.
I learnt that the road materials before spoken of
were procured from the east end, where there is an
enormous mound of dead shells, a mile long, fifteen
feet high, and from twenty to sixty yards broad.
Dr. Riddell, Director of the Mint at New Orleans,
estimates the height of some of these shell-banks
north of the lake, at twenty feet above its level ; yet
he thinks they may have been washed up by the
waves during storms. I suspect, however, that some
change in the relative level of land and sea has taken
place since their accumulation. Dr. M'Cormac in
formed me that he had observed heaps of these same
shells recently cast up along the margin of the bay
called the Sabine Lake, where the waters of the
delta are brackish.

Returning to the bayou, we passed a splendid
grove of live oaks on the Metairie ridge, supposed
by some to be an old bank of the Mississippi. These

136 EXCAVATION FOR GAS-WORKS. [CHAP. XXVIII.

bayous, which traverse the delta and alluvial plain
of the Mississippi in every direction, are some of
them ancient arms of the great river, and others parts
of its main channel which have been deserted. They
are at a lower level than the present bed of the
river, and convey the surface-waters to the sea from
that part of the land which the Mississippi is inca
pable of draining. The bayous are sometimes stag
nant, and sometimes they flow in one direction when
they convey the surplus waters of the Mississippi
to the swamps, and in an opposite direction at seasons
when they drain the swamps.

When we reached the canal which connects Lake
Pontchartrain with New Orleans, we found its sur
face enlivened with the sails of vessels laden with
merchandize. On the stern of one of these I read,
in large letters, a favourite name here — " The
Democrat." Many features of the country re
minded me of Holland. About a mile from the city
we passed a building where there is steam ma
chinery for pumping up water and draining the low
lands.

It is not easy for a geologist who wishes to study
the modern deposits in the delta, to find any natural
sections. I was therefore glad to learn that, in
digging the foundations of the gas-works, an exca
vation had been made more than fifteen feet deep,
and therefore considerably below the level of the
Gulf, for the land at New Orleans is elevated only
nine feet above the sea. The contractors had first
hired Irishmen, with spades, to dig this pit ; but
finding that they had to cut through buried timber,

CHAP. XXVIII.] BURIED UPRIGHT TREES. 137

instead of soil, they were compelled to engage, in
stead, 150 well-practised axe-men from Kentucky.
I am informed that the superintendant of the gas
works, Dr. Rogers, who is now absent in Cuba,
endeavoured to estimate the minimum of time re
quired for the growth of the cypress and other trees,
superimposed one upon the other, in an upright
position, with their roots as they grew, and had
come to the opinion, that eighteen centuries must
have been required for the accumulation. At the
time of my visit the section was too obscure to
enable me to verify or criticise these conclusions ;
but Mr. Bringier, the State surveyor, told me, that
when the great canal, before alluded to, was dug to
the depth of nine feet from Lake Pontchartrain,
they had cut through a cypress swamp which had
evidently filled up gradually, for there were three
tiers of the stumps of trees, some of them very old,
ranged one above the other ; and some of the trunks
must have rotted away to the level of the ground in
the swamp before the upper ones grew over them.
If it be true, as I suspect from these statements,
that the stools of trees which grew in fresh water
can be traced down to a level below the Gulf of
Mexico, we must conclude that the land has sunk
down vertically. Perhaps some part of this sub
sidence might arise from the gradual decay or com
pression of large masses of wood slowly changing into
lignite, for carbonated hydrogen is said to be con
stantly given out from the soil here wherever such
masses of vegetable matter are decomposing ; and
during the excavation of these works much inflam-

138

DATE-PALM.

[CHAP. XXVIII.

niable gas was observed to escape. That such
upright buried trees are not everywhere to be met
with in this part of the delta, I ascertained from
Mr. Bringier, At his house, in the suburbs of
New Orleans, a well has been sunk to the depth of
twenty-seven feet, and the strata passed through
consisted of sandy clay, with only here and there
some buried timber and roots.

Walking through one of the streets of New
Orleans, near the river, immediately north of the
Catholic cathedral, I was surprised to see a fine date-
palm, thirty feet high, growing in the open air. (See
fig- 8.)

Fig. 8.

Pere Antoines Date-palm (Phoenix dactylifera).

Mr. Wilde told me, that in 1829, in the island of

CHAP. XXVIII.] DATE-PALM. 139

Anastatic, opposite St. Augustine, in Florida, he
saw one still taller, probably brought there by the
Spaniards, who have introduced them into the south
of Spain from Africa. The tree is seventy or eighty
years old, for Pere Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest,
who died about twenty years ago, at the age of
eighty, told Mr. Bringier that he planted it himself,
when he was young. In his will he provided, that
they who succeeded to this lot of ground should
forfeit it if they cut down the palm. Wishing to
know something of Pere Antoine's history, I asked
a Catholic Creole, who had a great veneration for
him, when he died. He said it could never be
ascertained, because, after he became very emaciated,
he walked the streets like a mummy, and gradually
dried up, ceasing at last to move ; but his flesh
never decayed, or emitted any disagreeable odour.

If the people here wish to adorn their metropolis
with a striking ornament, such as the northern cities
can never emulate, let them plant in one of their
public squares an avenue of these date-palms.

140 MOUTHS OF MISSISSIPPI. [CHAP. XXIX.

CHAP. XXIX.

Excursion from New Orleans to the Mouths of the River. —
Steam-Boat Accidents. — River Fogs. — Successive Groivths
of Willow on River Bank. — Pilot- Station of the Balize. —
Lighthouse destroyed by Hurricane. — Reeds, Shells, and Birds
on Mud-Banks. — Drift- Wood. — Difficulty of estimating the
annual Increase of Delta. — Action of Tides and Currents. —
Tendency in the old Soundings to be restored. — Changes of
Mouths in a Century inconsiderable. — Return to New Orleans.
— Battle- Ground. — Sugar-Mill. — Contrast of French and
Anglo-American Races. — Causes of Difference. — State and
Progress of Negroes in Louisiana.

Feb. 28. 1846. — BEFORE my arrival at New Or
leans, I had resolved to visit the mouths of the Mis
sissippi, and see the banks of sand, mud, and drift
timber, recently formed there during the annual
inundations. Dr. William Carpenter, although in
full practice as a physician, kindly offered to accom
pany me, and his knowledge of botany and geology,
as well as his amiable manners, made him a most
useful and agreeable companion.*

I had heard much of the dangers of the Missis
sippi, and even before I left New England, some of
my friends, partly in jest, and partly for the sake of

* This excellent naturalist, I regret to say, died soon after
wards, in the prime of life, at New Orleans, in 1848.

CHAP. XXIX.] STEAM-BOAT ACCIDENTS. 141

inspiring me with due caution, in the choice of vessels
and captains, had told me endless stories of the risks
we should run. One of them presented to me a
newspaper, containing a formidable array of last
year's casualties. Fifty vessels had been snagged,
twenty-seven sunk, sixteen had burst their boilers,
fifteen had been run into by other vessels, thirteen
destroyed by fire, ten wrecked, and seven cut through
by ice. This enumeration was followed by an ac
count of the number of persons drowned or injured.
Another friend called my attention to a form of ad
vertisement, not uncommon in the St. Louis papers,
headed thus, " A fine opportunity of going below."
This, he explained, " does not mean going to the bottom,
as you might naturally conclude (although this is by
no means an improbable result of your voyage), but
it merely signifies * going down the river.1 " Ano
ther offered this piece of advice, " When you are
racing with an opposition steam-boat, or chasing her,
and the other passengers are cheering the captain,
who is sitting on the safety valve to keep it down
with his weight, go as far as you can from the engine,
and lose no time, especially if you hear the captain
exclaim, f Fire up boys, put on the resin ! ' Should
a servant call out, ( Those gentlemen who have not
paid their passage will please to go to the ladies'
cabin,' obey the summons without a moment's delay,
for then an explosion may be apprehended." " Why
to the ladies' cabin ? " said I. " Because it is the safe
end of the boat, and they are getting anxious for the
personal security of those who have not yet paid
their dollars, being, of course, indifferent about the

142 STEAM-BOAT ACCIDENTS. [CHAP. XXIX.

rest. Therefore never pay in advance, for should
you fall overboard during a race, and the watch cries
out to the captain, ' A passenger overboard,' he will
ask, ' Has he paid his passage ? ' and if he receives
an answer in the affirmative, he will call out, ' Go
ahead!'"

I shall explain in the sequel why the danger of
accidents, in the present state of the navigation, is
by no means so great as statistical tables make it
appear at a distance ; but certainly my first day's
experience was not of a character to dispose me to
regard the warnings I had received as idle or un
called for. After we had been seated for half an
hour on the deck of the " Wave" steamer, Dr. Carpen
ter was recommended by a friend to go by preference
in a rival boat, just ready to start for the Balize,
which he said was safer. We accordingly went into
her, and she sailed first. Eight hours afterwards,
while we were waiting, as I thought, an unconscion
able time, at a landing, while a Creole proprietor, who
was by no means inclined to be in a hurry, was embark
ing himself and some black servants, we saw the rival
steamer come up very slowly. No sooner had she
joined us, than all her passengers poured into our
steamer, and told us they had been in the greatest
alarm, their steam-pipe having burst ; but, most pro
videntially, they had all escaped without serious
injury. If I had not already sailed about 1500
miles in Southern steam-boats, since leaving South
Carolina, without a mischance, I might have looked
on this adventure as very ominous.

The greater part of New Orleans would be annually

CHAP. XXIX. ] RIVER FOGS. 143

overflowed by the river, but for the "levee," an artificial
embankment, eight or nine feet high, which protects
the city. This levee became less and less elevated
as we descended the stream. We saw the buildings
of several sugar plantations just behind it, at a short
distance from the edge of the bank. When we had
gone about twenty miles, below the bend called the
English turn, I was struck with the resemblance of
the Mississippi to the Savannah, Alabama, and Alata-
maha rivers, where they flow through a broad allu
vial plain, with no bluffs in sight. The swamps on
both sides, although several feet lower than the river-
banks, have the aspect, as before stated, of wooded
eminences.

The distance from New Orleans to the great pilot-
station at the mouth of the river, called the Balize, is
about 80 miles by land, and 110 by water. We had
been told we should reach our destination before
night ; but we were scarcely half way, when we cast
anchor in a dense fog, followed in the course of the
night, by much lightning and rain. We found the
temperature of the water to be 46° Fahrenheit, while
that of the air had varied, in the course of twenty-
four hours, from 50° to 75°. This difference between
the temperature of the water and air, often amount
ing to 30° Fahrenheit, gives rise to the fogs which
prevail at this season. The river flowing from the
north, where there is now much ice and snow, is
always much colder, and I am informed by pilots,
that as far as the Mississippi water can be traced, by
its colour, into the Gulf, it is commonly covered, in
the spring, with dense fog, while the atmosphere is

144 RIVER FOGS. [CHAP. XXIX.

clear on each side. These fogs are generated in the
same manner as ordinary clouds, by the mixture of
two currents of air of different degrees of tempera
ture. The river cools the air in contact with its
surface, and this colder layer of air mingling with the
warmer layer immediately over it, causes the fog to
begin to form close to the water. Hence it is fre
quently confined to the bed of the river, not spread
ing at all over the banks. The upper surface is often
as well defined as if it were a bed of liquid, instead
of vapour, and the cabin, roof, and funnels of a
steamer may be seen moving along perfectly unob-
scured, while the hull and lower parts are as com
pletely hidden as if buried beneath the turbid water
on which it floats. The pilot, too, from the upper
deck, can often see the shore and landmarks with
perfect clearness, and steer his vessel with safety,
while the passengers on the cabin deck can see no
thing beyond the sides of the boat. The fogs form
sometimes whatever be the quarter from which the
wind blows, but are more frequent when it is from
the south, as the air is then the warmest. Pieces of
ice are rarely floated down below Natchez, 350 miles
above the Balize ; but, in some seasons, they have
been known to reach the Gulf itself.

Next morning we weighed anchor, and passed Fort
Jackson, formerly Fort St. Philip, thirty -three miles
above the Balize. At several points, where we stopped
for passengers, Dr. Carpenter and I landed. The wood
consisted of live oaks bearing bunches of misletoe,
cypress hung with Spanish moss, elms, alders, and the
red maple ; also a species of myrica, twenty feet high,

CHAP. XXIX.] PUMICE ON MISSISSIPPI. 145

and numerous wild vines, and other climbers, on the
trees. At Bayou Liere, there was a dense growth
of a fan-palm (Chamcerops adansonia), from eight to
thirteen feet high, and a log-cabin thatched with its
leaves, affording good shelter from the heaviest rain.
On the ground were numerous land-crabs (Gelasi-
mus}, called here fiddlers, which ran into their holes
as we approached, and a few small lizards, and a frog
(Rana pipicus\ which, in the night, had so shrill and
clear a note, that we heard it two miles off. The
spring is so backward that few flowers are in bloom,
and we congratulated ourselves on escaping all an
noyance from musquitos. At the water's edge I
picked up several nuts of the Carya aquatica, and
many pieces of pumice as large as apples, which
must have come from the Rocky Mountains, and are
interesting, as reminding one of the fact, that vol
canic regions are drained by the western tributaries
of the Mississippi. But I could not find a single
empty land-shell, or helix, such as the Rhine and
many other rivers bring down, and am told that none
are met with buried in the recent deposits of the
delta.

The storm of the preceding night had driven many
sea-gulls up the river, which now followed our
steamer, darting down to the water to snatch up
pieces of apple or meat, or whatever we threw to
them. After passing Fort Jackson, all trees disap
peared, except a few low willows. We then entered
that long promontory, or tongue of land, if such it can
be called, which consists simply of the broad river,
flowing between narrow banks, protruded for so many

VOL. II. H

146 WILLOWS ON EIVER BANK. [CHAP. XXIX.

miles into the Gulf of Mexico. Each bank, includ
ing the swamps behind it, are about 200 or 300 yards
wide, covered with dead reeds, among which we saw
many tall, white cranes feeding, as in a flooded mea
dow, and as conspicuous as sheep. The landscape on
either side was precisely similar, and most singular,
consisting of blue sky, below which were the dark-
green waters of the Gulf, lighted up by a brilliant
sun ; then the narrow band of swamp, covered with
dead reeds, and, in the foreground, a row of pale-green
willows, scarcely reflected in the yellow turbid water
of the river. Occasionally large merchant vessels,
some three-masted, were towed up by steam- tugs,
through the slack water, near the bank. How the
river can thus go to sea as it were, and yet continue
for centuries to preserve the same channel, in spite
of storms and hurricanes, which have more than once
in the last hundred years caused the waters of the
Gulf to break over its banks, seems, at first, incom
prehensible, till we remember that we have here a
powerful body of fresh water flowing in a valley
more than a hundred feet deep, with vast mounds of
mud and sand on each side, and that the sea imme
diately adjoining is comparatively shallow.

The growth of willows on that side of the stream
where the land is gaining on the water, is often so
formal and regular, that they look like an artificial
plantation. In the front row are young saplings just
rising out of the ground, which is formed of silt,
thrown down within the last two or three years.
Behind them is an older growth from four to eight feet
high. Still farther back is seen a third row twenty-
five feet high, and sometimes in this manner five

CHAP. XXIX.] THE BALIZE. 147

tiers, each overtopping the other, showing the gradual
formation of the bank, which inclines upwards, be
cause the soil first deposited has been continually
raised during annual floods. While a gain of land is
thus taking place on one side, the river is cutting into
and undermining the opposite bank, often at the rate
of ten feet or more in a year. The most common
willow is Salix niyra, but Dr. Carpenter tells me
there is a rarer species (Salix longifolid) intermixed.
I inquired how it happened that none of these trees
were old, although some part of the banks on which
they grew are known to be of considerable antiquity.
My companion said, " that in marshy places the Salix
nigra is not a long-lived tree, rarely lasting more
than twenty-five or thirty years."

At length, as we approached the Balize, even these
willows ceased to adorn the margin of the river,
which was then simply bounded by mounds of bare
sand. Balize means beacon in Spanish. It ap
pears, that in 1744, the main passage or entrance of
the river was at three small islands, which then ex
isted where this pilot station now stands. It con
tinued to be the principal mouth of the Mississippi
for about a quarter of a century later. The present
village, called the Balize, has a population of more
than 450 souls, among whom there are fifty regularly
appointed pilots, and many more who are aspirants
to that office. The houses are built on piles driven
into the mud-banks, and the greater part of them
moored, like ships, to strong anchors, whenever a
hurricane is apprehended. They have no fear of the
river, which scarcely rises six inches during its

n 2

148 LIGHTHOUSE. [CHAP. XXIX.

greatest floods ; but some winds make the Gulf rise
six feet, as in the year 1812, and so fast has been
the increase of the population of late, that there are
scarcely boats enough, as one of the pilots confessed
to me, to save the people, should the waters rise
again to that elevation. They might, however, es
cape on drift timber, which abounds here, provided
they had time to choose the more buoyant trees ; for
we observed many large rafts of wood so water-logged
that it could scarcely swim, and the slightest weight
would sink it.

Although the chimney of our steamer was not
lofty, it stood higher than the houses ; but in order to
obtain a wider prospect, I went up into the look-out,
a wooden frame-work with a platform, where the
pilots were watching for vessels, with their tele
scopes. From this elevation we saw, far to the south,
the lighthouse, situated at what is now the principal
entrance of the river. The pilots told us, that the
old lighthouse, of solid brickwork, eighty-seven feet
high, erected on "the south point," was destroyed
by a hurricane in the winter of 1839. The keeper
was saved, although he was in the building for forty-
eight hours before it fell, and, during the whole time,
it vibrated frightfully to and fro. Much of the low
banks, then bounding the river, were swept away,
but have since been restored.

To the eastward all was sea ; turning to the north,
or towards New Orleans and the delta, I could dis
cover no more signs of the existence of a continent
than when looking southwards, or towards the light
house. In the wrest, Bird Island, covered with trees,
was more conspicuous. An old pilot told us it

CHAP. XXIX.] HOUSES ON PILES. 149

was inhabited by large deer, and was " very high
land." " How high above the sea?" said I. " Three
or four feet," he replied ; and as if so startling an as
sertion required the confirmation of several witnesses,
he appealed to the by-standers, who assented, saying,
" It is all that, for it was only just covered during
the great hurricane." And well may such an ele
vation command respect in a town where all the
foundations of the houses are under water, and where
the value of each site is measured by the number of
inches or feet within which a shoal rises to the sur
face of the sea.

It was a curious sight to behold seventy or more
dwellings, erected on piles, among reeds half as high
as the houses, and which often grew close to them,
most of the buildings communicating with an out
house by a wooden bridge thrown over a swamp or
pool of water, sometimes fresh and sometimes brack
ish. On one side of the main channel, which our
steamer had entered, was built a long wooden plat
form, made of planks, resting on piles, which served
for a promenade. There we saw the pilots' wives
and daughters, and among them the belles of the
place, well dressed, and accompanied by their pet
dogs, taking their evening walk.

March 1. — Having engaged a boat, Dr. Car
penter and I set out on an excursion to examine the
bayous or channels between the mud banks. The
first stroke of the oars carried us into the midst of
a dense crop of tall reeds. This plant (Armido
phragmitis), is an annual, and inhabits fresh-water
swamps, yet we found many dead barnacles attached

H 3

150 REEDS, SHELLS, AND BIEDS. [CHAP. XXIX.

to them, showing that in the course of the year,
when the river is low, the salt water prevails here, so
that these marine cirripeda have time to be developed
from the embryo state, and to flourish for some
months, till they are killed by the returning fresh
water. We could only detect one shell inhabiting
these mud banks, a species of Neritina. But I am
told that the Gnathodon is found in the brackish
water, a short distance beyond. It was also stated,
that about eighteen miles beyond the south-west and
north-west passes, or extreme mouths of the river,
there are banks of sea-shells of various species.
With the arundo was intermixed a tall rush or reed-
inace (Typhd)9 somewhat resembling the bulrush.
We got out and walked on these banks, on which
fresh water was standing, so cold and benumbing to
the hands, that we had no fear of musquitos. At
almost any other season these insects would have
swarmed here, and tormented us greatly. Even the
alligators were invisible, though some of them had
been out a few days before. Many paths, recently
trodden by racoons, were seen to traverse the reeds,
and there were foot-prints of the civet or mink, and
of wild cats and water-rats in abundance. We put
up several white herons, and many snipes and curlews,
and the boat-tailed grackle ( Quisqualus).

At length returning to the boat, we soon reached a
channel blocked up with drift wood in every stage of
decay, some fresh and sound, but most of it rotten
and water-logged. We walked for hundreds of yards
over natural rafts of this timber, the quantity of
which, they say, has sensibly diminished since the

CHAP. XXIX.] CHARLEVOIX'S MAPS. 151

steamers began to consume so much fuel, for it is now
intercepted in large quantities before it gets to New
Orleans, and cut into logs for the steamers.

We were desirous of obtaining accurate informa
tion from the pilots respecting the recent advance of
land on the Gulf, hoping from such data to calculate
the time when the mouths of the river were at New
Orleans. But I soon found that materials for such
a calculation are not to be procured.

Dr. Carpenter had brought with him Charlevoix's
maps of the river mouths or " passes," published 112
years ago, and referring to the state of things about
130 years ago. We were surprised to find how
accurately this survey represents, for the most part,
the number, shape, and form of the mud-banks and
bayous, or channels, as they now exist around the
Balize. The pilots, to whom we showed the charts,
admitted that one might imagine them to have been
constructed last year, were it not that bars had been
thrown across the mouths of every bayou, because
they are no longer scoured out as they used to be
when the principal discharge of the Mississippi was
at this point. We then went within a mile of the
old Spanish building, called the Magazine, correctly
laid down in Charlevoix's map, and now 600 yards
nearer the sea than formerly, showing that the mud-
banks have given way, or that the salt water has
encroached in times when a smaller body of fresh
water has been bringing down its sediment to this
point.

The south-west pass is now the principal entrance
of the Mississippi, and till lately there was eighteen

H 4

152 DIFFICULTY OF ESTIMATING [CHAP. XXIX.

feet water in it, but the channel has grown shallower
by two feet. When it is considered that a fleet of
the largest men-of-war could sail for a thousand
miles into the interior, were it not for the bars thrown
across the entrance of each of the mouths or passes,
one cannot wonder that efforts should have been
made to deepen the main channel artificially. But
no human undertaking seems more hopeless ; for, after
a great expenditure of money in 1838 and 1839, and
the excavation by means of powerful steam dredges
of a deep passage, the river filled up the entire cavity
with mud during a single flood.

One of the chief pilots told us, that since 1839, or
in six years, he had seen an advance of the prominent
mouths of the river of more than a mile. But Linton,
the oldest and most experienced of them, admitted
that the three passes called the north-east, south-east,
and south-west, had in the last twenty-four years
only advanced one mile each. Even this fact would
furnish no ground for estimating the general rate at
which the delta advances, for on each of these narrow
strips of land, or river-banks, the sea would make ex
tensive inroads whenever the main channel of dis
charge is altered and there is a local relaxation of the
river's power. Every year, as soon as the flood
season is over, the tide enters far up each channel,
scouring out mud and sand, and sweeping away
many a bar, formed during the period of inundation.
Bringier, an experienced surveyor of New Orleans,
told me, that on revisiting the mouths of the Missis
sippi after an interval of forty years, he was sur
prised to observe how stationary their leading features

CHAP. XXIX.] ANNUAL INCREASE OF DELTA. 153

had remained. Mr. D unbar, also an engineer in
great practice in Louisiana, assured me that on com
paring the soundings lately made by him with those
laid down in the French maps of Sieur Diron, pub
lished in 1740, he found the changes to be quite incon
siderable. On questioning the pilots on the subject,
they stated that the changes from year to year are
great, but are no measure whatever of those worked
out in a long period, for there seems to be a tendency
in the action of the tides and river to restore the old
soundings.

Captain Grahame, also a government surveyor, on
comparing the north-east pass with the charts made
a century before, found it had not advanced more
than a quarter of a mile, and that in the same interval
the principal variations at the pass a Loutre had
consisted in the filling up of some bayous. Even if
we could assume that the progress of the whole delta
in twenty-five years was as great as that assigned by
Linton to one or two narrow channels and banks,
it would have taken several thousand years for the
river to advance from New Orleans to the Balize ;
but when we take into our account the whole breadth
of the delta, or that part of it which has advanced
beyond the general coast-line, above 100 miles across,
we must allow an enormous period of time for its
accumulation.

The popular belief in New Orleans, that the pro
gress of the banks near the mouths of the river has
been very rapid, arises partly from the nature of the
evidence given by witnesses in the law courts, in
cases of insurance. When a ship is lost, the usual

H 5

154 TIDES AND CUKRENTS. [CHAP, XXIX.

line of defence on the part of the pilots, whether for
themselves or their friends, is to show that new sand
bars are forming, and shoals shifting their places so
fast, that no blame attaches to any one for running a
vessel aground. To exaggerate, rather than under
rate, the quantity of sediment newly deposited by
the river, is the bias of each witness, although their
statements may in the main be correct ; for in the
contest annually carried on between the river and the
sea, there is unquestionably a vast amount of de
struction and renovation of mud-banks and sand-bars.
In these changes the action of the tide, and the
power of the breakers during storms, and a strong
marine current, all play their part. There seem to
be well-authenticated accounts of anchors cast up
from a depth of several fathoms near the mouths of
the river, and heavy stones sunk sixteen feet deep,
arid found afterwards high and dry on shoals. The
ballast also of several wrecked vessels, the submer
gence of which, in two or three fathoms water, had
been ascertained, have in like manner been thrown
up, above high water mark, on newly formed islands.
All the pilots agree, that when the Mississippi is
at its height, it pours several streams of fresh water,
tinged with yellow sediment, twelve or more miles
into the Gulf, beyond its mouths. These streams
floating over the heavier salt water, spread out into
broad superficial sheets or layers, which the keels of
vessels plough through, turning up a furrow of clear
blue water, forming a dark streak in the middle of
the ship's wake. I infer, therefore, that both in the
summer, when the swollen river is turbid and depo-

CHAP. XXIX.] RETURN TO NEW ORLEANS. 155

siting mud., and in the winter, when the sea is
making reprisals on the delta, there is a large amount
of fine sediment dispersed far and wide, a ad carried
by currents to the deeper and more distant parts of
the Gulf. To this dispersing power I shall recall the
reader's attention in a future chapter, when discussing
the probable antiquity of the delta.

March 2. — We returned to New Orleans in the
same steamer. It is remarkable that for more than 150
miles above the Balize, there is only one of those great
bends in the course of the Mississippi, which are so
general a character of its channel north of New Or
leans. The exception is the great sweep called the
English Turn. Mr. Forshey imputes this difference
in the shape of the bed of the river to the distinct cir
cumstances under which a stream is placed when it
shapes out its course through a deposit raised above
the level of the sea, or when it is forming its bed, as
to the south of New Orleans, below the sea-level.

Above the English Turn, and within a few miles of
the metropolis, I landed on the famous battle-ground,
where the English, in 1815, were defeated, and saw
the swamp through which the weary soldiers were re
quired to drag their boats, on emerging from which,
they were fired upon by the enemy, advantageously
placed on the higher ground, or river-bank. The
blunder of the British commander is sufficiently ob
vious even to one unskilled in military affairs. They
are now strengthening the levee at this point, for the
Mississippi is threatening to pour its resistless current
through this battle-ground, as, in the delta of the

156 SUGAR-MILL. [CHAP. XXIX.

Ganges, the Hoogly is fast sweeping away the cele
brated field of Plassy.

At one of the landings on the left bank of the river,
Dr, Carpenter went with me to see a large sugar-mill,
in the management of which an Anglo-American
proprietor had introduced all the latest improvements.
There was machinery, worked by steam, for pressing
the juice out of the sugar-canes, and large boilers and
coolers, with ducts for the juice to flow down into
enormous vats.

"VYe heard much of the injury done to the sugar
plantations and gardens by the cocoa, or nut grass
( Cypcrus hydra), which I had seen springing up even
in the streets of New Orleans, between the pavement
stones. It increases by suckers as well as by seed ;
but it is only of late years that it has ravaged
Louisiana. If horses be brought from an estate
where this plant is known to exist, their hoofs are
carefully cleaned, lest the soil adhering to them should
introduce some fibres or tubers of this scourge.

Although impatient to return to the city, we could
not help being amused when we learnt that our boat
and all its passengers were to be detained till some
hogsheads of sugar were put on board, some of the
hoops of which had got loose. A cooper had been
sent for, who was to hammer them on. " You may
therefore go over the sugar-mill at your leisure." I
observed that all whose native tongue was English,
were indignant at the small value which the captain
seemed to set on their time ; but the Creole majority,
who spoke French, were in excellent humour. A
party of them was always playing whist in the cabin,

CHAP. XXIX.] FRENCH AND ANGLO-AMERICANS. 157

and the rest looking on. When summoned to dis
embark at their respective landings, they were in no
haste to leave us, wishing rather to finish the rubber.
The contrast of the two races was truly diverting,
just what I had seen in Canada. Whenever we were
signalled by a negro, and told to halt "till Master
was ready," I was sure to hear some anecdote from
an Anglo-Saxon passenger in disparagement of the
Creoles. " North of New Orleans,1' said one of my
companions, " the American captains are beginning
to discipline the French proprietors into more punctual
habits. Last summer, a senator of Louisiana having
forgotten his great-coat, sent back his black servant
to bring it from his villa, expecting a first-rate
steamer, with several hundred people on board, to
wait ten or fifteen minutes for him. When, to his
surprise, the boat started, he took the captain to task
in great wrath, threatening never to enter his vessel
again."

My attention was next called to the old-fashioned
make of the French ploughs. " On this river, as on the
St. Lawrence," said an American, " the French had
a fair start of us by more than a century. They ob
tained possession of all the richest lands, yet are now
fairly distanced in the race. When they get into
debt, and sell a farm on the highest land next the
levee, they do not migrate to a new region farther
west, but fall back somewhere into the low grounds

o

near the swamp. There they retain all their an
tiquated usages, seeming to hate innovation. To
this day they remain rooted in those parts of Louis
iana where the mother country first planted her

158 FRENCH AND ANGLO- AMERICANS. [CHAP. XXIX.

two colonies two centuries ago, and they have never
swarmed off, or founded a single new settlement.
They never set up a steam-engine for their sugar-
mills, have taken no part in the improvement of steam
navigation, and when a railway was proposed in
Opelousas, they opposed it, because they feared it
would ' let the Yankees in upon them.' When a rich
proprietor was asked why he did not send his boy to
college, he replied, ' Because it would cost me 450
dollars a year, and I shall be able to leave my son
three more negroes when I die, by not incurring that
expense.' " Dr. Carpenter informed me, that the
Legislature of Louisiana granted, in 1834, a charter
for a medical college in the Second Municipality,
which now, in the year 1846, numbers one hundred
students, and is about to become the medical depart
ment of a new university. The Creoles were so far
stimulated by this example, as to apply also for a
charter for a French College in the First Munici
pality. It was granted in the same year, but has
remained a dead letter to this day.

One of the passengers had been complaining to
me, that a Creole always voted for a Creole candidate
at an election, however much he differed from him
in political opinions, rather than support an Anglo-
Saxon of his own party. I could not help saying
that I should be tempted to do the same, if I were
of French origin, and heard my race as much run
down as I had done since I left the Balize.

A large portion of the first French settlers in
Louisiana came from Canada, and I have no doubt
Gayarre is right in affirming that they have remained

CHAP. XXIX.] FRENCH AND ANGLO-AMERICANS. 159

comparatively stationary, because they carried out
with them, from the mother country, despotic maxims
of government, coupled with extreme intolerance in
their religious opinions. The bigotry which checked
the growth of the infant colony was signally dis
played, when Louis XIV. refused to permit 400
Huguenot families, who .had fled to South Carolina,
after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, to be
incorporated among the new settlers on the Missis
sippi. *

Notwithstanding the marked inclination of the
Anglo-Saxons to seek no other cause than that of
race to account for the alleged stationary condition
of the Creoles, I was glad to find that one of the
most intelligent citizens of New Orleans took a more
hopeful and less fatalist view of the matter. " I ob
serve," he said, "that those French emigrants who
have come out to us lately, especially the Parisians,
are pushing their way in the world with as much
energy as any of our race ; so I conclude that the
first settlers in Canada and Louisiana quitted Eu
rope too soon, before the great revolution of 1792
had turned the Frenchman into a progressive being."

Among the Creoles with whom I came in contact,
I saw many whose manners were most polite and
agreeable, and I felt as I had. done towards the
Canadian " habitants," that I should have had more
pleasure in associating with them than with a large
portion of their Anglo-American rivals, who, from
a greater readiness to welcome new ideas, are more

* Gayarre, Histoire de la Louisiana, torn. i. p. 69.

160 NEGROES IN LOUISIANA. [CHAP. XXIX.

likely to improve, and will probably outstrip them in
knowledge and power.

When we sat down to dinner in the cabin, one
of the Creoles, of very genteel "appearance, was so
dark that I afterwards asked an American, out of
curiosity, whether he thought my neighbour at table
had a dash of negro blood in his veins. He said he
had been thinking so, and it had made him feel very
uncomfortable during dinner. I was so unprepared
for this manifestation of anti-negro feeling, that I
had difficulty in keeping my countenance. The same
messmate then told me that the slaves had lately
risen on an estate we were just passing, on the right
bank of the river, below New Orleans, but had been
quickly put down. He said that the treatment of
them had greatly improved within the last eight
years, keeping pace steadily with the improved
civilisation of the whites. The Creoles, he said, fed
their negroes well, but usually gave them no beds,
but blankets only to lie down upon. They were
kind in their feelings towards them ; but, owing to
their improvident habits, they secured no regular
medical attendance, and lost more black children
than the American planters.

I afterwards remarked that the growth of New
Orleans seemed to show that a large city may in
crease and nourish in a Slave State ; but Dr. Car
penter and Mr. Wilde both observed, that the white
race has been superseding the negroes. Ten years
ago, say they, all the draymen of New Orleans, a
numerous class, and the cabmen, were coloured. Now,
they are nearly all white. The servants at the great

CHAP. XXIX.] NEGROES IN LOUISIANA. 161

hotels were formerly of the African, now they are of
the European race. Nowhere is the jealousy felt by
the Irish towards the negroes more apparent. Ac
cording to some estimates,, in a permanently resident
population not much exceeding 80,000, there are
only 22,000 coloured persons, and a large proportion
of these are free.

Over a door in the principal street of New Orleans
we read the inscription, " Negroes on sale here." It
is natural that Southerners should not be aware how
much a foreigner is shocked at this public mode of
treating a large part of the population as mere
chattels.

The following is an advertisement copied verbatim
from a Natchez paper : —

" NINETY NEGROES FOR SALE.

" I have about ninety Negroes, just arrived from
Richmond, Virginia, consisting of field hands, house
servants, carriage drivers, two sempstresses, several
very fine cooks (females), and one very fine neat
cook (male), one blacksmith, one carpenter, and some
excellent Mules and excellent Waggons and Harness,
and one very fine Biding Horse — all of which I will
sell at the most reasonable prices. I have made ar
rangements in Richmond, Va., to have regular ship
ments every month, and intend to keep a good stock
on hand of every description of servants during the
season.

" Natchez, October 16-tf JOHN D. JAMES."

In a St. Louis paper, I read, in the narrative of a

162 NEGROES IN LOUISIANA. [CHAP. XXIX.

steam-boat collision, the following passage : — - " We
learn that the passengers, with few exceptions, lost
all their effects ; — one gentleman in particular lost
nine negroes (who were on deck) and fourteen
horses."

Among the laws recently enacted in Louisiana, I
was giad to see one to prevent persons of colour
exiled from other States, or transported for some
offence, from becoming citizens. In spite of such
statutes the negro-exporting portions of the Union
will always make the newer States play in some de
gree the part of penal settlements.

Free blacks are allowed to be witnesses in the
courts here, in cases where white men are concerned,
a privilege they do not enjoy in some free States, as
in Indiana ; but they do not allow free blacks to
come and settle here, and say they have been com
pelled to adopt this precaution by the Abolitionists.

An intelligent Louisianian said to me, " Were we
to emancipate our negroes as suddenly as your Go
vernment did the West Indians, they would be a
doomed race ; but there can be no doubt that white
labour is more profitable even in this climate."
" Then, why do you not encourage it?" I asked.
" It must be the work of time," he replied ; " the
prejudices of owners have to be overcome, and the
sugar and cotton crop is easily lost, if not taken in
at once when ripe ; the canes being damaged by a
slight frost, and the cotton requiring to be picked
dry as soon as mature, and being ruined by rain.
Very lately a planter, five miles below New Orleans,
having resolved to dispense with slave labour, hired

CHAP. XXIX.] NEGROES IN LOUISIANA. 163

one hundred Irish and German emigrants at very high
wages. In the middle of the harvest they all struck
for double pay. No others were to be had, and it
was impossible to purchase slaves in a few days. , In
that short time he lost produce to the value of ten
thousand dollars."

A rich merchant of Pennsylvania, who was boarding
at the St. Louis Hotel, showed me a letter he had
just received from Philadelphia, in which his corre
spondent expressed a hope that his feelings had not
often been shocked by the sufferings of the slaves.
" Doubtless," said the writer, " you must often wit
ness great horrors." The Philadelphia!! then told
me, that after residing here several years, and
having a strong feeling of the evils as well as im
policy of slavery, he had never been forced to see
nor hear of any castigation of a slave in any esta
blishment with which he had intercourse. " Once," he
added, " in New Jersey (a free State) he remembered
having seen a free negro child whipped by its master."
The tale of suffering to which his Pennsylvanian cor
respondent particularly alluded, was not authentic, or,
at least, grossly exaggerated. It had been copied
from the Abolitionist papers of the North into the
Southern papers, sometimes with and sometimes with
out comment ; for such libels are hailed with pleasure
by the Perpetualists as irritating the feeling of that
class of slave-owners who are most anxious to advance
the welfare and education of the negroes.

O

We ascertained that Miss Martineau's story of
Madame Lalaurie's cruelty to her slaves was per
fectly correct. Instances of such savage conduct are

164 NEGROES IN LOUISIANA. [CHAP. XXIX.

rare, as was indeed sufficiently proved by the indig
nation which it excited in the whole city. A New
England lady settled here told me, she had promised
to set free her two female coloured servants at her
death. I asked if she had no fear of their poisoning
her. " On the contrary," she replied, " they would
be in despair were I to die."

One of the families which we visited at New Or
leans was plunged in grief by the death of a little
negro girl, suddenly carried off by a brain fever, in
the house. She was the daughter of a domestic
servant, and the sorrow for her loss was such as
might have been felt for a relation.

CHAP. XXX.] NEW ORLEANS TO PORT HUDSON. 165

CHAP. XXX.

Voyage from New Orleans to Port Hudson. — The Coast, Villas
and Gardens. — Cotton Steamers. — Flat Boats. — Crevasses
and Inundations. — Decrease of Steam-Boat Accidents. —
Snag-Boat. — Musquitos. — Natural Rafts. — Bartram on
buried Trees at Port Hudson. — Dr. Carpenter s Observations.
— Landslip described. — Ancient Subsidence in the Delta fol
lowed by an upward Movement, deducible from the buried
Forest at Port Hudson.

March 10. 1846. — ON leaving New Orleans, I
made arrangements for stopping to examine the bluff
at Port Hudson, 160 miles up the river, where I was
to land in the night, from the Rainbow steamer,
while my wife started in another boat, the Magnolia,
to go direct to the more distant port of Natchez. If a
lady is recommended to the captain of one of these
vessels she feels herself under good protection, and
needs no other escort ; but Mr. Wilde introduced my

wife to Judge , who kindly undertook to take

charge of her, and see her to the hotel at Natchez.
The Rainbow ascended the river at the rate of eleven
miles an hour, keeping near the bank, where the
force of the current was broken by eddies, or where
the backwater was sometimes running in our favour.
Occasionally her speed was suddenly checked, when
it became necessary to cross the stream on reaching
a point where the current was setting with its full

166 THE COAST. [CHAP. XXX.

force against the bank along which we had been
sailing. In spite of such delays, the rate of going up
is only one -third less than going down the stream.
The recent introduction of separate engines to work
each of the wheels greatly economises the time spent
in the landing of passengers. The boat may be turned
round or kept stationary with more facility, when
each wheel can be moved in an opposite direction.
In this part of the Mississippi, and at this season,
the points where passengers can be set ashore are very
numerous, the water being often forty feet deep close
to the banks. But there are certain regular places of
disembarkation, the approach to which is announced
by ringing a large bell.

A great proportion of the trees are still leafless,
the willows, cypresses, and red maples being no more
advanced than I had seen them at Mobile in the third
week of February. The gardens continue to be gay
with the blossoms of the peach and plum-trees. As
our vessel wound its way round one great bend after
another, we often saw directly before us the dome
of the St. Charles and the tower of St. Patrick's,
and were sailing towards them after I thought we
had already taken a last look at them far astern. In
the first seven hours we made sixty miles, including
stoppages. We were passing along what is called
"the coast," or that part of the Mississippi which
is protected by a levee above the metropolis. A great
many handsome country-houses, belonging to the pro
prietors of sugar plantations, give a cultivated aspect
to this region, and the scenery is enlivened by a pro
digious number of schooners and large steamers sail-

CHAR XXX.] FLAT BOATS. 167

ing down from the Ohio and Red Rivers, heavily laden
with cotton. This cotton has already been much
compressed when made up into bales; but it under
goes, at New Orleans, still greater pressure, by steam
power, to dimmish its bulk before embarkation for
Liverpool.

The captain calculated, that within the first seven
hours after we left the wharf, in the Second Munici
pality, we had passed no less than ten thousand bales
going down the river, each bale worth thirty-five
dollars at present prices, and the value of the
whole, therefore, amounting to 350,000 dollars, or
73,5007. sterling. All this merchandise would reach
the great emporium within twenty hours of the time
of our passing it. Before we lost sight of the city,
we saw a large flat boat drifting down in the middle
of the current, steered by means of a large oar at the
stern. It was laden with farm produce, and had come
about two thousand miles, from near Pittsburg, on
the Ohio. I had first observed this kind of craft on
my way to the Balize, meeting near Fort Jackson a
boat without a single inmate, thirty-five feet long,
and built of stout planks, with a good roof. It was
drifting along on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, the
owner having abandoned it after selling his corn and
other stores at the great city. He himself had pro
bably returned to the North in a steamer ; having
found the substantial floating mansion, in which he
had lived for several weeks or months, quite un
saleable, although containing so much good timber
shaped into planks. It is the duty of the wharfinger
at New Orleans to see that the river is not blocked

168 FLAT BOATS. [CHAP. XXX.

up with such incumbrances, and to set them adrift.
After wandering for several hundred miles in the
Gulf, they are sometimes cast ashore at Pensacola.

Soon afterwards, when we were taking in wood at
a landing, I entered another of these flat boats, just
arrived there, and discovered that it was a shop, con
taining all kinds of grocery and other provisions, tea,
sugar, lard, cheese, flour, beef, and whiskey. It was
furnished with a chimney, and I was surprised to see
a large family of inmates in two spacious cabins, for
no one would suspect these boats to be so roomy below
water, as they are usually sunk deep in the river by
a heavy freight. They had a fiddle on board, and
were preparing to get up a dance for the negroes. A
fellow-traveller told me that these pedlars are com
monly called chicken-thieves, and, the day after they
move off, the planters not unfrequently miss many of
their fowls.

Pointing to an old levee with a higher embank
ment newly made behind it, the captain told me,
that a breach had been made there in 1844, through
which the Mississippi burst, inundating the low cul
tivated lands between the highest part of the bank
and the swamp. In this manner, thousands of valu
able acres were inj tired. He had seen the water rush
through the opening at the rate of ten miles an hour,
sucking in several flat boats, and carrying them over
a watery waste into a dense swamp forest. Here the
voyagers might remain entangled among the trees
unheard of and unheeded till they were starved, if
canoes were not sent to traverse the swamps in every
direction in the hope of rescuing such wanderers

CHAP. XXX.] CREVASSES AND INUNDATIONS. 169

from destruction. When we consider how many
hair-breadth escapes these flat boats have experi
enced, — how often they have been nearly run down
in the night, or even in the day, during dense fogs,
and sent to the bottom by collision with a huge
steamer, it is strange to reflect, that at length, when
their owners have caught sight of the towers of
New Orleans in the distance, they should be hurried
into a wilderness, and perish there.

I was shown the entrance of what is called the
Carthage crevasse, formed in May, 1840, and open
for eight weeks, during which time, it attained a
breadth of eighty feet. Its waters were discharged
into Lake Pontchartrain, when nothing was visible
between that great lagoon and the Mississippi but
the tops of tall cypress trees growing in the morass,
and a long, narrow, black stripe of earth, being the
top of the levee, which marked the course of the
river.

The reader may naturally ask why the Mississippi,
when it has once burst through its bank, and taken
this shorter cut to the sea, does not continue in
the same course, reaching the salt water in a few
miles instead of flowing two hundred miles before it
empties itself into the Gulf. I may remark in re
ply, that the great river does not run, as might be
inferred from the description of some of the old
geographers, on the top of a ridge in a level plain,
but in a valley from one hundred to two hundred
and fifty feet deep.

Thus a b c may represent the cavity in which the
river flows, the artificial levees at the top of the banks

VOL. II. I

170 ARTIFICIAL LEVEES. [CHAP. XXX.

being seen at a and b. The banks are higher than
the bottom of the swamps, f g and d e ; because,

Section of channel, bank, levees (a and b), and swamps of Mississippi

River.

when the river overflows, the coarser part of the sedi
ment is deposited at a and b, where the speed of the
current is first checked. It usually runs there with
a gentle current among herbage, reeds, and shrubs ;
and is nearly filtered of its earthy ingredients before
it arrives at the swamps. It is probable that the
Mississippi flows to the nearest point of the Gulf,
where there is a sufficient depth or capacity in the
bed of the sea to receive its vast burden of water and
mud : and if it went to Lake Pontchartrain, it would
have to excavate a new valley like a b c, many times
deeper than the bottom of that lagoon.

The levee raised to protect the low grounds from
inundation, was at first, when we left New Orleans,
only four feet high, so as not to impede our view of
the country from the deck ; but as we ascended, both
the natural bank and the levee became higher and
higher, and by the time we had sailed up sixty-five
miles, I could only just see the tops of tall trees in
the swamps. Even these were only discernible from
the roof of the cabin, or what is called the hurricane
deck, when we had gone 100 miles from New
Orleans.

CHAP. XXX.] SNAG-BOATS. 171

The large waves raised by the rapid movement of
several hundred steamers, causes the undermining
and waste of the banks to proceed at a more rapid
rate than formerly. The roots also of trees growing
at the edge of the stream, were very effective for
merly in holding the soil together, before so much
timber had been cleared away. Now the banks
offer less resistance to the wasting action of the
stream.

The quantity of drift wood floated down the current
has not diminished sensibly within the last twenty
years, but nearly all of it is now intercepted in the
last forty miles above New Orleans, and split up
into logs by the proprietors to supply the furnaces
of steam-boats, which are thus freeing the river
of the heavy masses against which they used formerly
to bump in the night, or round which they were
forced to steer in the day. There has also been
a marked decrease, of late years, in the number of
snags. The trunks of uprooted trees, so called, get
fixed in the mud, having sunk with their heavier
end to the bottom, and remain slanting down the
stream, so as to pierce through the bows of vessels
sailing up. A government report just published,
shows that two snag-boats, each having a crew of
twenty men, one of them drawing four feet, and the
other two feet water, have extracted 700 snags in
four weeks out of the Missouri, and others have been
at work on the Mississippi. When it is remem
bered that some of the most dangerous of these snags
have been known to continue planted for twenty years
in the same spot (so slowly does wood decay under

I 2

172 DECREASE OF [CHAP. XXX.

water), it may readily be conceived how much this
formidable source of danger has lessened in the last
few years. At the season when the river is lowest,
grappling irons are firmly fixed to these snags, and
the whole force of the engines in the snag-boat is
exerted to draw them out of the mud ; they are
then cut into several pieces, and left to float down
the stream, but part of them being water-logged, sink
at once to the bottom.

Several travellers assure me, that serious accidents
are not more common now on the Mississippi and its
tributaries, when there are 800 steamers afloat, than
twenty years ago, when the number of steamers was
less than fifty. The increased security arises, chiefly,
from the greater skill and sobriety of the captains and
engineers, who rarely run races as formerly, and who
usually cast anchor during fogs and in dark nights.
Such precautions have, no doubt, become more and
more imperative, in proportion as the steamers have
multiplied. On the wide Atlantic, the chances of
collision in a fog may be slight, but to sail in so
narrow a channel as that of a river, at the rate of ten
miles an hour, unable to see a ship's length a-head,
with the risk of meeting, every moment, other
steamers coming down at the rate of fifteen miles
an hour, implies such recklessness, that one cannot
wonder that navigators on the western waters have
earned the character of setting small value on their
own and other's lives. Formerly, the most frequent
cause of explosions was a deficiency of water in the
boiler ; one of the great improvements adopted, within
the last five years, for preventing this mischief, is the

CHAP. XXX.] STEAM-BOAT ACCIDENTS. 173

addition of a separate steam apparatus for pumping
up water and securing a regular supply by machinery,
instead of trusting to the constant watchfulness of
the engineers. On the whole, it seems to be more
dangerous to travel by land, in a new country, than
by river steamers, and some who have survived re
peated journey ings in stage-coaches, show us many
scars. The judge who escorted my wife to Natchez,
informed her that he had been upset no less than
thirteen times.

On the left bank, about sixty miles above New
Orleans, stands Jefferson College ; a schoolmaster
from the North, speaking to me of its history, im
puted its want of success to the insubordination of
the youths, the inability of Southern planters to
govern their children themselves, and their unwil
lingness to delegate the necessary authority to the
masters of universities or schools. " But they are
growing wiser," he said, " and vigorous efforts are
making to improve the discipline in the university
of Charlottesville, in Virginia, which has hitherto
been too lax."

We soon afterwards passed a convent on the same
bank, and I heard praise bestowed on the " Sisters
of Charity," for their management of a hospital.

At St. Thomas's Point, about seventy-five miles
above New Orleans, we passed a fine plantation,
which formerly belonged to Mr. Preston, of South
Carolina, a distinguished member of Congress, whose
acquaintance I made in 1842. There are, I am
told, nearly 1000 negroes here, and I am astonished
at the large proportion of the coloured race settled

I 3

174 THUNDER-SHOWER. [CHAP. XXX.

everywhere on the land bordering the river. The
relative value of coloured and white labour was here,
as elsewhere, a favourite theme of conversation, when
there happened to be passengers on board from the
Northern States. The task of three negroes, they
say, in Louisiana, is to cut and bind up two cords of
wood in a day, whereas, a single white man in the
State of New York, prepares three cords daily. In
packing cotton, the negroes are expected to perform
a third less work than a white labourer.

In the afternoon we were overtaken by a heavy
thunder-shower, the water pouring off the eaves of
our cabin roof, in copious streams, into the river,
through numerous spouts or tin pipes. When the
rain abated, I saw a fog slowly stealing over parts of
the stream, for the water was much colder than the
air. For some hours we were unable to proceed, and
the captain informed me, that we should remain
prisoners until the temperature of the Mississippi and
that of the atmosphere were more nearly equalised.
This, he hoped, would happen in one of two ways,
either by a renewal of rain, which would warm the
river, or by the wind veering round from south to
west, which would cool the air. The latter change
soon occurred, and we were instantly released.

I was congratulated by some Northerners at
having escaped the musquitos. The captain said,
u that they who are acclimatised, suffer no longer
from the bites, or scarcely at all, and even the young
children of Creoles are proof against them, although
the face and neck of a new settler, whether young or
old, swell up frightfully. Yet the wild cattle and

CHAP. XXX.] MUSQUITOS. 175

deer have not acquired any hereditary immunity
from this torment, and, to escape it, are seen standing
in the lakes with their heads only above water."
Some passengers assured me, " that when people have
recovered from the yellow fever, the skin, although
in other respects as sensitive as ever, is no longer
affected by a musquito bite, or, if at all, in a very
slight degree ;" and they added, " that last year,
1845, both the yellow fever and the musquitos were
in abeyance, although the heat of the season was
intense."

After we had sailed up the river eighty miles, 1
was amused by the sight of the insignificant village
of Donaldsonville, the future glories of which I
had heard so eloquently depicted.* Its position,
however, is doubtless important ; for here the right
bank is intersected by that arm of the Mississippi,
called Bayou La Fourche. This arm has much the ap
pearance of a canal, and by it, I am told, our steamer,
although it draws no less than ten feet water, might sail
into the Gulf of Mexico, or- traverse a large part of that
wonderful inland navigation in the delta which contri
butes so largely to the wealth of Louisiana. A curious
description was given me, by one of my fellow tra
vellers, of that same low country, especially the region
called Attakapas. It contains, he said, wide se quaking
prairies," where cattle are pastured, and where you
may fancy yourself far inland. Yet, if you pierce
anywhere through the turf to the depth of two feet,
you find sea-fish swimming about, which make their

* Ante, p. 123.
i 4

176 NATURAL RAFTS. [CHAP. XXX.

way in search of food under the superficial sward,
from the Gulf of Mexico, through subterranean watery
channels.

Notwithstanding the quantity of sediment in the
Mississippi, they tell me that its waters are inhabited
by abundance of shad and herring, and in several
places, when I asked the fishermen what they were
catching, they answered, " Sardines."

In the course of the first day we saw the Bayou
Plaquemine on the right, and the Iberville river on the
left bank of the Mississippi, the two arms next above
that of La Fourche. One of those natural rafts of
floating trees which occasionally bridge over the
Western rivers for many years in succession, be
coming covered over with soil, shrubs, and trees,
blocked up till lately the Bayou Plaquemine. The
obstacle was at length removed at the expense of the
State, and the rush of water through the newly
cleared channel was so tremendous, that several en
gineers entertained apprehensions, lest the whole of
the Mississippi should take its course by this channel
to the sea, deserting New Orleans. Mr. Forshey
assured me there was no real ground for such fears,
because the Mississippi, as before hinted*, takes at
present the shortest cut to that part of the Gulf
where it can find a basin deep and capacious enough
to receive it.

During the night we passed Baton Rouge, the

first point above New Orleans where any land higher

and older than the alluvial plain comes up to the

bank to constitute what is termed a bluff. The cliff*

* Ante, p. 170.

CHAP. XXX.] BURIED TREES, PORT HUDSON. 177

there is only a few feet high. The next bluff is at
Port Hudson, 25 miles higher up the river, and 165
miles above New Orleans. I had been urged by
Dr. Carpenter to examine the geology of this bluff,
which I had also wished to do, because Bartram, in
his travels in 1777, discovered there the existence of
a fossil forest at the base of the tall cliff, and had
commented with his usual sagacity on the magnitude
of the geographical changes implied by its structure.
The following are his words, which deserve the more
attention, because the particular portion of the cliff
described by him, has long ago been undermined and
swept away by the Mississippi. " Next morning,"
says Bartram, " we set off again on our return home,
and called by the way at the cliffs, which is a per
pendicular bank or bluff, rising up out of the river
near one hundred feet above the present surface of
the water, whose active current sweeps along by it.
From eight or nine feet below the loamy vegetative
mould at top, to within four or five feet of the water,
these cliffs present to view strata of clay, marl, and
chalk of all colours, as brown, red, yellow, white,
blue, and purple ; there are separate strata of these
various colours, as well as mixed or parti-coloured :
the lowest stratum next the water is exactly of the
same black mud, or rich soil, as the adjacent low
cypress swamps above and below the bluff; and here,
in the cliffs, we see vast stumps of cypress and other
trees which, at this day, grow in these low, wet
swamps, and which range on a level with them.
These stumps are sound, stand upright, and seem to
be rotted off about two or three feet above the spread

i 5

178 BURIED TREES. [CHAP. XXX.

of their roots ; their trunks, limbs, &c. lie in all
directions about them. But when these swampy
forests were growing, and by what cause they were
cut off and overwhelmed by the various strata of
earth, which now rise near one hundred feet above,
at the brink of the cliffs, and two or three times that
height, but a few hundred yards back, are inquiries
perhaps not easily answered. The swelling heights,
rising gradually over and beyond this precipice, are
now adorned with high forests of stately Magnolia,
Liquidambar, Fagus, Quercus, Laurus, Morns, Ju-
ylans, Tilia, Halesia, ^Esculus, Callicarpa, Lirio-
dendron? &c.*

Dr. Carpenter, in 1838, or sixty-one years after
Bartram, made a careful investigation of this same
bluff, having ascertained that in the interval the river
had been continually wearing it away at such a rate
as to expose to view a section several hundred feet
to the eastward of that seen by his predecessor.
I shall first give a brief abstract of Dr. Carpenters
observations, published in Silliman's Journal, f

" About the level of low water, at the bottom of
the bluff, a bed of vegetable matter is exposed, con
sisting of sticks, leaves, and fruits, arranged in thin
horizontal Iamina3, with very thin layers of clay in
terposed. Among the fruits were observed the nuts
of the swamp hickory (Juylans aquatica) very abun
dant, the burr-like pericarp of the sweet gum (Li-
quidambar styraciflua), and walnuts, the fruit of

* Bartram, " Travels in North America," p. 433.
t Vol. xxxvi. p. 118.

CHAP. XXX.] BLUFFS OF PORT HUDSON. 179

jf

Juylans nigra. The logs lying horizontally are those
of the cypress ( Cupressus thyoides), swamp hickory,
a species of cotton wood (Populus), and other trees
peculiar to the low swamps of Louisiana. Besides
these there were a great number of erect stumps of
the large deciduous cypress (Taxodium distichum)
sending their roots deep into the clay beneath. This
buried forest is covered by a bed of clay, twelve feet
thick, and is followed by another superimposed bed of
vegetable matter, four feet thick, containing logs and
branches, half turned into lignite, and erect stumps,
among which there are none of the large cypresses,
as in the lower bed. Among the logs, the water-
oak ( Quercus aquatica) was recognisable, and a pine
with a great deal of bark, and the strobiles of the
Pinus Tceda.

" This upper forest points to the former existence,
on the spot, of one of those swamps, occurring at
higher levels, in which the Cupressus disticka ( Tax-
odium) does not grow. Above the upper layer of
erect stumps are various beds of clay, in all more
than fifty feet thick, with two thin layers of vege
table matter intercalated ; and above the whole more
than twenty feet of sand, the lower part of which
included siliceous pebbles derived from some ancient
rocks, and containing the marks of encrinites and
corals (Favosites)" &c.

Dr. Carpenter, when he published this account in
1838, thought he had detected the distinct marks of
the axe* on some of the logs accompanying the

* Silliman, ibid. p. 119.
i 6

180 BURIED TREES. [CHAP. XXX.

buried stumps ; but he informed me, in 1846, that he
was mistaken, and that the apparent notches were
caused by the gaping open of the bituminised wood,
probably after shrinking and drying, of the truth of
which I was myself convinced, after seeing the speci
mens. That the lowest bed had originally been a
real cypress swamp, was proved beyond all doubt by
the stumps being surrounded by those peculiar knobs
or excrescences called cypress knees, which this tree
throws out from its base, when it grows in a sub
merged soil. These knees sometimes rise up through
the water from a depth of six or eight feet, and are
supposed to supply the roots with air, as they are
never formed when the cypress grows on dry ground.
At the time of my visit, the river was unfortu
nately too high to enable me to see the lowest de
posit containing the memorials of this ancient forest,
the geological interest of which is much enhanced by
its having been seen by Bartram, and again by Car
penter, extending horizontally over a considerable
area. I learnt from several residents at Port Hud
son, and from Captain Sellick, who commanded the
Rainbow, that last season, when the water was low,
the stumps of the buried trees were as conspicuous
as ever at the base of the cliff, which has been much
undermined by the river since the year 1838, when
Dr. Carpenter explored it. The fossil forest was
12 feet under water when I landed, but at higher
levels I saw the trunks of two trees buried in a ver
tical position at different levels, each of them about
2^ feet high. I estimated the height of the entire
cliff to be about 75 feet, consisting in part of stiff

CHAP. XXX.] BLUFFS OF PORT HUDSON. 181

unctuous clay, and partly of loam, but with no chalk,
as stated by Bartram. A small streamlet, artificially
led to the top of the bluff, had, within the last four
years, cut out a ravine no less than sixty feet deep
through the upper loamy beds. In the sections thus
laid open, I saw precisely such deposits as a river
would form in its bed, or in the swamps which it had
occasionally flooded. Near the bottom was a layer
of leaves, resembling those of the bay, with numerous
roots of trees and wood in a fresher state than I ever
saw them in any tertiary formation. Taking a canoe, I
afterwards proceeded to examine that part of the
cliff which extends about a mile down the river's left
bank, immediately below Port Hudson, where it is
between seventy and eighty feet high. The deposits
laid open to view were divisible into three groups, the
topmost consisting of brown clay, the middle of
whitish siliceous sand, and the lower of green clay.
I found some men digging the middle or sandy stratum
for making bricks, and they had just come upon a
prostrate buried tree, black and carbonized, but not
turned into lignite. I counted in it 220 rings of
annual growth. Near it I found two other smaller
fossil trunks, all lying as if they had been drift wood
carried down by a river and buried in sand. One
of the men pointed out to me that the structure of
the wood showed distinctly that they belonged to
three different species, one being oak, another hickory,
and the third sassafras. Their texture seemed cer
tainly that of distinct genera of trees, but for the
accuracy of my informant's determination I cannot
vouch. At this point they told me the bluff has, in

182 LANDSLIP. [CHAP. XXX.

the course of the last eight years, lost ground no less
than 200 feet by the encroachment of the river.

To prove that the present site of the buried forest
before alluded to, must be far from the point where
Bartram or even Carpenter saw it, an account was
given me by the residents here, of several recent land
slips near Port Hudson; one in particular, a few years
ago, when by the caving in of the bank, three acres
of ground, fifty or sixty feet high, composed of clay
and sand, arid covered by a forest, sank down bodily
into the river, and were then gradually washed away.
One of the eye-witnesses related to me that the trees
were at first seen to tremble, then large rents began
to open in the soil deeper and deeper, after which
the movement was such that the boughs of the trees
lashed each other, and acorns and beech nuts were
showered down like hail. A herd of pigs was so
intent in devouring these, that they allowed them
selves to be carried down vertically fifty feet, the
subsidence occupying about five minutes. The outer
edge of the bluff, with some of the swine, fell into the
river, but these swam to the sunk part of the bluffi
and joined their companions. The owners watched
them anxiously till dusk, unable to go to their rescue ;
but at length, to their surprise, they saw a leader,
followed by all the rest, wind his way along narrow
ledges on the face of the precipice, from which the
fallen mass had been detached, and climb up to the
top. Next morning, to their no less astonishment,
they found the herd feeding again on the same peri
lous ground, and saw them again return by the same
path at night.

CHAP. XXX.] ANCIENT SUBSIDENCE OF DELTA. 183

I have dwelt at some length on the geological
phenomena disclosed in the interesting sections of
these bluffs, because I agree with Bartram and Car
penter, that they display a series of deposits similar
to the modern formations of the alluvial plain and
delta of the Mississippi. They lead us, therefore, to
the important conclusion, that there have been changes
in the relative level of land and sea since the esta
blishment, in this part of the continent, of a geogra
phical state of things approximating to that now
prevailing. Then, as now, there were swamps in
which the deciduous cypress and other trees grew,
and became buried in mud, without any intermixture
of sand or pebbles. At that remote period, also,
drift wood was brought down from the upper country,
and enclosed in sandy strata. Although I could not
ascertain the exact height above the level of the sea,
of the fossil cypress swamp at Port Hudson, I pre
sume it is less than thirty feet ; and in order to
explain the superposition of 150 feet of freshwater
sediment, we must imagine the gradual subsidence of
fluviatile strata to a depth far below the level of
the sea, followed by an upward movement to as
great an amount. The depression must have taken
place so slowly as to allow the river to raise the
surface by sedimentary deposition continually, and
never permit the sea to encroach and cover the
area. It is quite conceivable, for example, that
the present delta and alluvial plain should sink 150
feet without the salt water coming up even to
New Orleans, provided the land went down only a
few feet or inches in a century, and provided the

184 ANCIENT SUBSIDENCE OF DELTA. [CHAP. XXX.

ground was raised vertically to the same amount by
fluviatile mud, sand, or vegetable matter. But if the
land should go down even ten or twelve feet at
once, the whole delta would be submerged beneath
the sea. Were the downward movement here sup
posed to be followed by an upheaval to the extent of
about 150 feet, and should the river then cut a chan
nel through the upraised mass, we might expect to
see the modern formation exhibit appearances similar
to those of high antiquity above described at Port
Hudson.

I shall endeavour, in the sequel, to show that oscil
lations of level, like those here assumed to account
for the phenomena at Port Hudson, will explain
other appearances, observable, not only in cliffs
bounding the valley of the Mississippi, but in ancient
alluvial terraces bordering the Ohio, and other tribu
taries of the great river.

CHAP. XXXL] FONTANIA. 185

CHAP. XXXL

Fontania near Port Hudson. — Lake Solitude. — Floating Island.
— Bony Pike. — Story of the DeviVs Swamp. — Embarking by
Night in Steam-Boat. — Literary Clerk. — Old Levees under-
mined. — Succession of upright buried Trees in Bank. — Rac-
courci cut off. — Bar at Mouth of Red River. — Shelly Fresh
water Loam of Natchez. — Recent Ravines in Table- Land. —
Bones of extinct Quadrupeds. Human Fossil Bone. — Ques
tion of supposed co-existence of Man with extinct Mammalia
discussed. — Tornado at Natchez. — Society, Country-Houses
and Gardens. — Landslips. — Indian Antiquities.

AFTER I had examined the bluff below Port Hud
son, I went down the river in my boat to Fontania,
a few miles to the south, to pay a visit to Mr.
Faulkner, a proprietor to whom Dr. Carpenter had
given me a letter of introduction. He received me
with great politeness, and, at my request, accom
panied me at once to see a crescent-shaped sheet of
water on his estate, called Lake Solitude, evidently
an ancient bed of the Mississippi now deserted. It
is one of the few examples of old channels which
occur to the east of the great river, the general ten
dency of which is always to move from west to east.
Of this eastward movement there is a striking monu
ment on the other side of the Mississippi immediately
opposite Port Hudson, called Fausse Riviere, a sheet
of water of the usual horse-shoe form. One of my

186 LAKE SOLITUDE. [CHAP. XXXI.

fellow passengers in the Rainbow had urged me to
visit Lake Solitude, " because," said he, " there is a
floating island in it, well wooded, on which a friend
of mine once landed from a canoe, when, to his sur
prise, it began to sink with his weight. In great
alarm he climbed a cypress tree, which also began
immediately to go down with him as fast as he as
cended. He mounted higher and higher into its
boughs, until at length it ceased to subside, and,
looking round, he saw in every direction, for a dis
tance of fifty yards, the whole wood in motion." I
wished much to know what foundation there could
be for so marvellous a tale. It appears that there
is always a bayou or channel, connecting, during
floods, each deserted bend or lake with the main
river, through which large floating logs may pass.
These often form rafts, and become covered with
soil supporting shrubs and trees. At first such
green islands are blown from one part of the lake to
another by the winds, but the deciduous cypress, if it
springs up in such a soil, sends down strong roots,
many feet or yards long, so as to cast anchor in the
muddy bottom, rendering the island stationary.

Lake Solitude, situated in lat. 31° N. is two miles
and a half in circuit, and is most appropriately named,
being a retired sheet of water, its borders overhung
by the swamp willow, now just coming into leaf, and
skirted by the tall cypress, from which long streamers
of Spanish moss are hanging. On the east it is bounded
by high ground, a prolongation of the bluff at Port
Hudson, on which the hickory, the oak, and many
splendid magnolias, with the beech, walnut, tulip

CHAP. XXXI.] BONY PIKE. 187

tree, and holly, and a variety of beautiful shrubs are
seen. The surface of the lake (except near the shore,
where it is covered with the water lily) faithfully re
flects the trees and sky, presenting, in this respect,
a marked contrast to the yellow waters of the Mis
sissippi. It is inhabited by hundreds of alligators and
countless fish, and so many birds were swimming on
it, or flying over it, that it seemed as if all the wild
creatures which the steamers had scared away from
the main river had taken refuge here. Several alli
gators were lying motionless, with their noses just
above the surface of the water, resembling black logs.
About fourteen years ago, some of them were not
unfrequently seen here measuring fifteen feet in
length, but they now rarely exceed eight feet. I
observed a large gar-fish, or bony pike, called the
alligator gar (Lepidosteus\ leap nearly out of the
water in pursuit of its prey. Its hard shining scales
are so strong and difficult to pierce, that it can
scarcely be shot. It can live longer out of water than
any other fish of this country, having a large cellular
swimming bladder, which is said almost to serve the
purpose of a real lung. One of them has been known
to seize the nostrils of a mule who was drinking, and
only to be shaken off on dry ground, when its whole
body had been dragged into the air.

On the boughs of the willows were perched seve
ral white cranes, while herons, cormorants, and water-
rails were swimming on the lake, their various notes
adding to the wildness of the scene. Shriller than
all, as the evening came on, we heard the voice of
the large bull-frog.

188 THE DEVIL'S SWAMP. [CHAP. xxxi.

As we went back to the house, over the high
ground, we saw three kinds of squirrels and many
birds. So skilful was my companion with his rifle,
that he brought down every bird which came within
shot — owls, rice-birds, woodpeckers, and jays — that
I might examine their plumage. I admired a beauti
ful cluster of the flowers and fruit of the red maple,
about twenty feet above our heads. He offered to
pick them for me, and, without delay, took aim so
dexterously, as to sever the stem from the bough
just below the blossom, without seeming to have in
jured the flower by a single shot. In the course of
our walk, I observed several shrubs, almost hidden
by the luxuriant growth of that most elegant of
climbers, the yellow jessamine ( Gelsemium nitidum),
with its fragrant blossoms.

From these heights south of Port Hudson, we had
a grand view of the great plain of the Mississippi,
far to the south and west, an endless labyrinth of
uninhabited swamps, covered with a variety of tim
ber, and threaded with bayous, one resembling ano
ther so exactly, that many a stranger, who has
entered them in a canoe, has wandered for days
without being able to extricate himself from their
woody mazes. Among these morasses, one called
the Devil's Swamp was in sight, and I found a
curious account of the origin of its name in a MS.
dated 1776, of Caleb Carpenter, a relation of my
New Orleans friend.

A German emigrant having settled near the bank
of the Mississippi, in 1776, felled, with great labour,
some lofty cypresses ; but, happening one day to make

CHAP. XXXI.] THE DEVIL'S SWAMP. 189

a false turn in his canoe, entered, by mistake, a
neighbouring bayou. Every feature was so exactly
like the scene where he had been toiling for weeks,
that he could not question the identity of the spot.
He saw all the same bends, both in the larger and
smaller channels. He made out distinctly the same
trees, among others the very individual cypresses
which he had cut down. There they stood, erect
and entire, without retaining one mark of his axe.
He concluded that some evil spirit had, in a single
night, undone all the labour of many weeks ; and,
seized with superstitious terror, he fled from the
enchanted wood, never to return.

In order that I might not spend an indefinite
time on the Mississippi, I determined to be prepared
for a start in the first chance steamer which might be
bound for Natchez, 140 miles distant, whenever an
opportunity should offer, whether by day or night.
I was told by my host that a trusty black ser
vant had been already appointed to look out for a
steamer, which was to convey some farm produce to
a proprietor far off on the Red River. He proposed,
therefore, to give orders to this negro to wake me if
any boat bound for Natchez should appear in sight
before morning. Accordingly, about an hour after
midnight, I was roused from my slumbers, and went
down over a sloping lawn to the steam -boat landing
on the river's bank. The sky was clear, and it was
bright moonlight, and the distant cries of the owls,
and other night-birds around Lake Solitude, were
distinctly heard, mingled with the chirping of myriads
of frogs. On the low bank my watchman had

190 LITERARY CLERK. [CHAP. XXXI.

lighted a signal fire, and I heard the puffing of a
steamer in the distance ascending the stream. She
soon neared us, and, on being hailed, answered, " La
Belle Creole, bound for Bayou Sara." This port was
far short of my destination, and when we shouted
" Natchez," the captain first asked if we had any wood
to sell, and on learning there was none, sailed away.
I returned to the house, and took another nap of
several hours, when I received a second summons from
my faithful sentinel. The scene was entirely changed ;
it was nearly day-break, and the fogs rising from the
marshes had begun to cover the river. I was in
despair, fearing that our signal fire would not be dis
cerned through the mist. Soon, however, we heard
the loud gasping of the two steam-pipes sounding
nearer and nearer, and a large steamer coming sud
denly close to the landing, was announced as "the
Talma of Cincinnati." In a few minutes I was cross
ing the narrow plank which led from the steep bank to
the vessel, which was actually in motion as I walked
over it, so that I was glad to find myself safe on
deck. They told me I must register my name at the
office. The clerk asked me if I was the author of a
work on geology, and being answered in the affirma
tive, wished to know if I was acquainted with
Mr. Macaulay. On my saying yes, he took out a
late number of the Edinburgh Review, and begged
me to tell him whether the article on Addison was
written by my friend, for he had been discussing this
matter with a passenger that evening. When I had
confirmed this opinion he thanked me, expressing
much regret that he should not see me again, since I

CHAP. XXXL] OLD LEVEES. 191

was to land next day at Natchez before lie should be
up. This conversation lasted but a few minutes, and
in as many more I was in a good berth under a
musquito net, listening to a huge bell tolling in the
fog, to warn every flat-boat to get out of the way, on
peril of being sent instantly to the bottom. In spite
of this din, and that of the steam funnels and ma
chinery, I soon fell asleep for the third time.

When I came on deck next day, all hands were at
work, taking in wood at a landing below Bayou
Sara, where I saw on the top of the river bank, now
sixteen feet high, several striking memorials of the
ravages of former inundations. Besides the newest
levee, there was one which had given way previously
to the great flood of 1844, and a still older one, which,
although once parallel, was now cut off abruptly, and
at right angles to the present course of the river.
They reminded me of the remnant of an oval en
trenchment at the edge of the cliff near Newhaven
in Sussex, and of those paths leading directly to the
brink of precipices overhanging the sea in many
maritime counties in England. Farther on, at
another wooding station, in Adams county, Missis
sippi, I observed a bank eighteen feet in perpendicu
lar height, and said to be forty-five feet high when
the water is at its lowest. It was composed of sand,
or sandy loam, indicating a comparatively rapid de
position. In such loam, no erect stumps and trunks
of trees are met with, the sediment having accumu
lated on the margin of the river in a few years too
fast to allow large trees to grow there. But in
other places, where the bank consisted of fine, stiff clay,

192 UPRIGHT BUEIED TREES. [CHAP. XXXI.

I saw here and there the buried stools of cypresses,
and other trees, in an upright position, with their
roots attached, sometimes repeated at several different
levels in the face of the same bank. I first remarked
one of these at a point forty-five miles above New
Orleans, and they increased in number as we as
cended. When first told of this phenomenon, before
visiting the Mississippi, it appeared to me very diffi
cult of explanation. I soon, however, discovered
that the great river, in its windings, often intersects
the swamps or cypress basins which had been pre
viously filled up with fine mud or vegetable matter,
at various distances from the former river-channel.

Suppose an ancient bed of the Mississippi, or some
low part of the plain, to become fit for the growth of
cypress, yet to be occasionally flooded, so that the
soil is slowly raised by fine mud, drift wood, or
vegetable matter like peat. As the cypress ( Taxodium
distichum) often attains to the age of three or four
centuries, and, according to many accounts, occasion
ally in Louisiana to that of two thousand years, it is
clear that the bottoms of the oldest trees will often
be enveloped in soil several feet deep, before they
die, and rot down to the point where they have been
covered up with mud. In the mean time other trees
will have begun to grow on adjoining spots, at dif
ferent and considerably higher levels, and eventually
some of these will take root in soil deposited directly
over the stump or decayed trunk of some of the first
or oldest series of cypresses. They who have studied
the delta affirm that such successive growths of trees
are repeated through a perpendicular height of twenty-

CHAP. XXXI.] KACCOURCI CUT-OFF. 193

five feet without any change occurring in the level of
the land.*

Proceeding up the river, we soon passed Bayou
Sara on our right hand, and came to the isthmus
called the Raccourci cut-off, across which a trench
nine feet deep has been dug, in the hope that the
Mississippi would sweep out a deep channel. This
" cut-off," should it ever become the main channel,
would enable a steamer to reach, in one mile, a point,
to gain which costs now a circuit of twenty-six miles,
and two and a half hours. Unfortunately, when
they cleared the forest in this spot, the soil of the
new canal was found to consist of a stiff blue clay,
strengthened by innumerable roots of trees, and, in
the flood of 1845, the surplus waters of the Missis
sippi poured through the cut with great velocity, yet
failed to deepen it materially. By shortening the
channel twenty-five miles, the fall of the river would
be augmented, and the engineer flattered himself
that the effect might extend as far up as the mouth
of the Red River. By accelerating the current there
it was hoped that a deeper passage might be kept
open in the sand-bar, which now blocks up the navi
gation of that important tributary for the greater
part of the year.

Some experienced pilots assured me, that the sup
posed shortening of the channel of the Mississippi,
between its junction with the Ohio and New Orleans,
was, in a great degree, a delusion. Instead of the

* See Dickeson and Brown, Silliman's Journal, Second
Series, vol. v. p. 17. Jan. 1848.
VOL. II. K

194 FRESHWATER LOAM [CHAP. XXXI.

boasted gain of fifty miles, they say that not a third
of this distance has been realised. Immediately after
the completion of a new cut-off, the Mississippi
begins to restore the natural curvature of its channel
by eating away one bank and throwing out a sand
bar on the opposite side.

Another fifty miles brought us to the mouth of
the Red River, where I saw the formidable bar,
before alluded to, covered, for the most part, by a
growth of young willows and cotton-wood (Populus
angulata). After leaving the mouth of Red River,
we passed two bluffs on the left or eastern bank, one
that of Fort Adams, a very picturesque line of pre
cipices, the other called Ellis's Cliffs- In both I
observed a predominance of white sand, similar to
that seen in part of the bluff at Port Hudson.

At Natchez (where I rejoined my wife), there is
a fine range of bluffs, several miles long, and more
than 200 feet in perpendicular height, the base of
which is washed by the river. The lower strata,
laid open to view, consist of gravel and sand, desti
tute of organic remains, except some woo/1 and silici-
fied corals, and other fossils, which have been derived
from older rocks : while the upper sixty feet are com
posed of yellow loam, presenting, as it wastes away,
a vertical face towards the river. From the surface
of this clayey precipice are seen, projecting in relief,
the whitened and perfect shells of land-snails, of the
genera Helix, Helicina, Pupa, Cyclostoma, Achatina,
and Succinea. These shells, of which we collected
twenty species, are all specifically identical with
those now inhabiting the valley of the Mississippi.

CHAP. XXXI.] OF NATCHEZ. : 195

The resemblance of this loam to that fluviatile
silt of the valley of the Rhine, between Cologne and
Basle, which is generally called " loess" and " lehm"
in Alsace, is most perfect. In both countries the
genera of shells are the same, and as, in the ancient
alluvium of the Rhine, the loam sometimes passes
into a lacustrine deposit containing shells of the
genera Lymnea, Planorbis, and Cyclas, so I found
at "Washington, about seven miles inland, or east
ward from Natchez, a similar passage of the Ame
rican loam into a deposit evidently formed in a pond
or lake. It consisted of marl containing shells of
Lymnea., Planorbis, Pdludina, Physa, and Cyclas,
specifically agreeing with testacea now inhabiting
the United States. With the land-shells before
mentioned are found, at different depths in the
loam, the remains of the mastodon ; and in clay, im
mediately under the loam, and above the sand and
gravel, entire skeletons have been met with of the
megalonyx, associated with the bones of the horse,
bear, stag, ox, and other quadrupeds, for the most
part, if not all, of extinct species. This great loamy
formation, with terrestrial and fresh-water shells,
extends horizontally for about twelve miles inland,
or eastward from the river, forming a platform about
200 feet high above the great plain of the Mississippi.
In consequence, however, of the incoherent and de
structible nature of the sandy clay, every streamlet
flowing over what must originally have been a level
table -land, has cut out for itself, in its way to the
Mississippi, a deep gully or ravine. This excavating
process has, of late years, proceeded with accelerated

K 2

196 KAVINES IN TABLE-LAND. [CHAP. XXXI,

speed, especially in the course of the last thirty or
thirty-five years. Some attribute the increased
erosive action to partial clearings of the native forest,
a cause of which the power has been remarkably
displayed, as before stated, within the last twenty
years, in Georgia.* Others refer the change mainly
to the effects of the great earthquake of New Madrid,
in 1811 — 12, by which this region was much fis
sured, ponds being dried up and many landslips
caused.

In company with Dr. Dickeson and Colonel Wailes,
I visited a narrow valley, hollowed out through the
shelly loam recently named " the Mammoth ravine,"
from the fossils found there. Colonel Wiley, a pro
prietor of that part of the State of Mississippi, who
knew the country well before the year 1812, assured
me that this ravine, although now seven miles long,
and in some parts sixty feet deep, with its numerous
ramifications, has been entirely formed since the earth
quake. He himself had ploughed some of the land
exactly over one spot which the gully now traverses.

A considerable sensation was recently caused in
the public mind, both in America and Europe, by
the announcement of the discovery of a fossil human
bone, so associated with the remains of extinct qua
drupeds, in " the Mammoth ravine," as to prove that
man must have co-existed with the megalonyx and
its contemporaries. Dr. Dickeson showed me the
bone in question, admitted by all anatomists to be
part of a human pelvis, and being a fragment of

* See ante, p. 25.

CHAP. XXXL] FOSSIL 11UMAN BONE. 197

the os innominatum. He felt persuaded that it had
been taken out of the clay underlying the loam,
in the rapine above alluded to, about six miles from
Natchez. I examined the perpendicular cliffs, which
bound a part of this water-course, where the loam,
unsolidified as it is, retains its vertically, and found
land-shells in great numbers at the depth of about
thirty feet from the top. I was informed that the
fossil remains of the mammoth (a name commonly
applied in the United States to the mastodon) had
been obtained, together with the bones of some
other extinct mammalia, from below these shells
in the undermined cliff. I could not ascertain,
however, that the human pelvis had been actually
dug out in the presence of a geologist, or any prac
tised observer, and its position unequivocally ascer
tained. Like most of the other fossils, it was, I
believe, picked up in the bed of the stream, which
would simply imply that it had been washed out of
the cliffs. But the evidence of the antiquity of the
bone depends entirely on the part of the precipice
from wrhich it was derived. It was stained black, as
if buried in a peaty or vegetable soil, and may have
been dislodged from some old Indian grave near the
top, in which case it may only have been five, ten, or
twenty centuries old ; whereas, if it was really found
in situ at the base of the precipice, its age would
more probably exceed 100,000 years, as I shall en
deavour to show in a subsequent chapter. Such a
position, in fact, if well authenticated, would prove
that man had lived in North America before the
last great revolution in the physical geography of

198 TORNADO AT NATCHEZ. [CHAP. XXXI.

this continent had been accomplished ; in other words,
that our race was more ancient than the modern
valley, alluvial plain, and delta of the Mississippi, —
nay, what is more, was antecedent to the bluffs of
Port Hudson and Natchez, already described. Now
that elevated freshwater formation, as I shall by and
by endeavour to show, is the remnant of a river-
plain and delta of extremely high antiquity ; and it
would follow, if the human race was equally ancient,
that it co-existed with one group of terrestrial mam
malia, and, having survived its extinction, had seen
another group of quadrupeds succeed and replace it.

In our excursion through the forest, from Wash
ington to the Mammoth ravine, I crossed the path
of the last tornado, which occurred May 17. 1840,
one of three which have devastated this region since
the year 1809. They all came from Texas, moving
along from south-west to north-east, and laid waste
a long strip of country, about a mile wide. The
courses of each of the three whirlwinds were within a
few miles of the other, and the last threw down many
houses at Natchez, unroofed others, and levelled to
the ground a railway terminus, causing the abandon
ment of a scheme for a rapid communication between
Natchez, Vicksburg, and the State of Tennessee.
On each side of the path of the tornado the land
was finely timbered ; but where its force had been
expended, old trees lay uprooted, and a growth of
young wood was rising. Many large trunks had
been broken off ten or twelve feet above the ground,
and portions of the solid wood, torn and twisted into
shreds, were still waving in the air.

CHAP. XXXI.] COUNTRY-HOUSES. 199

This tornado checked the progress of Natchez, as
did the removal of the seat of Legislature to Jack
son ; but it has suffered still more, since steam navi
gation has been so much improved, by the all-
absorbing importance acquired by New Orleans as
the great emporium of the whole trade of the Missis
sippi. There are, however, so few bluffs on the
great river, so few places where the channel will
remain constant for ages to the same spot, that I
cannot doubt that this city must, in time, become
large and prosperous.

It augurs favourably of the future prospects of
civilisation in America, that here, as elsewhere, we
found the society most agreeable in places which
have been the longest settled. If the political
opinions and notions of honour cherished by the
majority of the citizens at Natchez, had had their
due weight in the legislation of the State, the fair
fame of Mississippi, and her credit, would have stood
as high as that of any other Southern State. Many
of the country-houses in the neighbourhood are ele
gant, and some of the gardens belonging to them laid
out in the English, others in the French style, In the
latter are seen terraces, with statues and cut ever
greens, straight walks with borders of flowers, termi
nated by views into the wild forest, the charms of
both being heightened by contrast. Some of the
hedges are made of that beautiful North American
plant, the Gardenia, miscalled in England the Cape
jessamine, others of the Cherokee rose, with its
bright and shining leaves. It had already put forth

K 4

200 LANDSLIPS. [CHAP. XXXI,

some of its white flowers, which a month later would
be in full blow. The woods here, when all the trees
are in full foliage, and the tall magnolias in blossom,
must be truly beautiful. But so intense is the heat,
and such the danger of ague and the torment of
musquitos, that, at that season, they who can afford
to move, fly to some higher or more northern retreat.

On the steep slope of the bluffs at Natchez, below
the vertical face of shelly loam, the Judas-tree, or
red- bud (Cercis canadensis), was now in full flower,
displaying a blaze of pink blossoms before it has put
forth any leaves. I saw four landslips on these
bluffs which have occurred within the last ten years,
for the springs which burst from the sand undermine
the clayey loam. They are instructive, as showing
how the bluffs give way as the Mississippi gradually
extends its course eastwards. There is one hollow of
ancient date, caused by a similar undermining, called
the Devil's Punch-bowl, a picturesque, crater-shaped
basin, of about 300 yards diameter at the top, and
100 yards at the bottom, where cypresses and gum-
trees are growing. At the top are seen the cotton-
wood, the maple, and the magnolia, mixed with pines.

The name of Natchez has been derived from an In
dian tribe, and on the highest part of the bluff, on an
eminence called St. Rosalie, are some Indian mounds,
from which Dr. Dickeson has obtained some curious
remains of pottery, showing that some of the abori
ginal inhabitants of the great valley had made much
greater progress in the arts than their descendants
whom the Europeans drove out. One morning, close

CHAP. XXXI.] INDIAN ANTIQUITIES. 201

to the spot where these antiquities were dug up, we
saw a wild-looking group of Indians, whose aspect
gave no token that their contact with Europeans had
tended to revive the spirit of improvement which
must once have animated some of their predecessors
in this region,

202 NATCHEZ TO VIDALIA. [CHAP. XXXII.

CHAP. XXXII.

Natchez. — Vidalia and Lake Concordia. — H yber nation of
Alligator. — Bonfire on Floating Raft. — Grand Gulf. —
Magnolia Steamer. — Vicksburg to Jackson {Mississippi') by
Railway. — Fossils on Pearl River. — Ordinary at Jackson. —
Story of 'Transfer of State-House from Natchez. — Vote by Bal
lot. — Popular Election of Judges. — Voyage from Vicksburg
to Memphis. — Monotony of River Scenery. — Squall of Wind.
— Actors on Board. — Negro mistaken for White. — Man
ners in the Backwoods. — Inquisitiveness. — Spoilt Children.
Equality and Levelling. — Silence of English Newspapers on
Oregon Question.

March 15. 1846. — FROM Natchez we crossed the
river, by the ferry, to Vidalia, situated on the low
river plain, on a level with the base of the bluffs be
fore described. We were accompanied by Mr. Davis,
a large proprietor, who took us to see his negro-
houses, all neatly built and well whitewashed. Even
in this cursory view we could perceive how much the
comfort and bodily wants of the slaves had been
attended to. We had now left the country where
sugar and cotton are the staple products, and had
just entered the region where cotton and Indian corn
are cultivated together. Here, as in Louisiana, the
negroes constitute half, and sometimes more than half,
the population on the borders of the Mississippi.
At Vidalia we were joined by Mr. Forshey, the

CHAP. XXXII.] LAKE CONCORDIA. 203

engineer, who went with us to Lake Concordia, a
fine example of an old bend of the Mississippi, re
cently detached and converted into a crescent-shaped
lake, surrounded by wood. It is a fine sheet of water,
fifteen miles long, if measured by a curved line drawn
through the middle. The old levee, or embankment,
is still seen ; but it is no longer necessary to keep it
in repair, for, a few years ago, the channel which once
connected this bend with the main river was silted
up. Opposite Natchez the depth of the Mississippi
varies from 100 feet to 150 feet, but Lake Con
cordia has nowhere a greater depth than 40 feet.
There are thirteen similar lakes between the
mouth of the Arkansas and Baton Rouge, all near
the Mississippi, and produced by cut-offs ; and so
numerous are the channels which communicate from
one to the other, that a canoe may pass, during the
flood season, from Lake Concordia, and reach the Gulf
of Mexico without once entering the Mississippi.
We were shown a cypress tree on the borders of this
deserted river bend, from under the roots of which,
a few days before the time of our visit, a she alligator
had come out on a warm day, the place of her hybern-
ation appearing to be half in the mud and half in
the water. She brought out Avith her two broods,
one born in the preceding summer, which were six
inches long, and the others, an older set, about a foot
long. When Mr. Forshey approached them, the
young ones yelped like puppies, and the old one
hissed. On the shore of the lake we caught a tortoise,
called here the snapping-turtle, and found that all its
feet had been bitten off, — devoured, our companions

K 6

204 LAKE CONCORDIA. [CHAP. XXXIL

supposed, by predaceous fish. The freshwater shells,
of which we obtained specimens from the lake, belong
to the genera Lymnea, Planorlis, Paludina, Anchy-
lotus, Pliysa, Cyclas, and Unio. We put up flights of
water-fowl of various species, chiefly wild ducks,
which were swimming about. On the top of a pole,
driven into the mud near the margin of the lake, was
perched a kingfisher, and two cormorants were wheel
ing round it, one with a fish in its mouth, which the
other was trying to snatch away. The water, al
though much clearer than the Mississippi, was not
transparent, for it had communicated, during the late
inundations, with the great river. In this manner
sediment is annually introduced into such basins, and
in the course of ages Lake Concordia may become so
shallow as to support a forest of swamp timber.
Some modern concretions of clay and lime, and of
clay containing iron, which I picked up from the
mud of the Mississippi bordering this lake, were so
like those associated with the ancient buried forest
at Port Hudson, and the shelly loam of Natchez, as
to confirm me in the opinion before expressed, that
the cliffs there, although of very high antiquity, cor
respond in origin with the recent fluviatile formations
of the alluvial plain.

March 17. — We established ourselves in the wharf-
boat at Natchez, prepared for a start in the first
steamer which would take us to Grand Gulf, fifty
miles higher up. We amused ourselves by watching
a party of young negro boys, who collected the drift
wood which bordered the river, and, having tied it
together into a raft, heaped some dead branches of

CHAP. XXXIL] BONFIRE ON FLOATING KAFT. 205

trees upon it, placing a layer of shavings under the
pile. Having set it on fire, they pushed it off from
the shore, and exulted as they saw the floating bon
fire, in the dusk of the evening, throwing a glaring
light on the bluffs, town, and shipping. The raft
was carried round and round in the great eddies near
the bank, and the urchins shouted when their love of
mischief was gratified by seeing the alarm of the
boatmen, each of whom was observing the wandering
fire with some anxiety, lest it should come too near
his own craft. In the cabin of the wharf-boat we
found no furniture, but were supplied with two chairs,
which, like the walls and ceiling, were of unpainted
wood. As it grew dark, they brought in a table and
a single candle. We were not sorry when the
Peytona was announced, and we were ushered into
a splendid saloon, 150 feet long, lighted by two
large chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, and
supplied with brilliant gas manufactured on board.
The mattrasses of our beds were elastic, made of
India rubber, no unmeaning luxury, for we were
awakened before morning by the bumping of the
boat against one floating log after another, and, in
spite of the frequent stoppage of the engine, no small
damage was done to the paddle-wheels, which got
entangled with the drift timber. We reached Grand
Gulf when morning had scarcely dawned, and found
the floor of the saloon covered with the sleeping
coloured servants, over whom we had to step. The
river had risen twenty-five feet in two days, and
was more turbid than we had yet seen it.

The bluff at Grand Gulf is about 180 feet high,

206 GRAND GULF. [CHAP, xxxii.

the uppermost 60 feet, composed, as at Natchez, of
yellow loam or loess, beneath which was white
quartzose sand, partially concreted into solid sand
stone, which is quarried here for building. From
the summit the river-plain to the westward seemed
as level, blue, and boundless as the ocean. As w^e
had now travelled two degrees of latitude northward,
the spring was not more advanced than when we left
New Orleans, but the woods crowning the bluffs are
beautiful from the variety of trees, many of them
evergreens, and we were charmed with the melody of
the mocking-birds, and the warm sun brought out
many large and brilliantly coloured butterflies, and
more insects of other kinds than I had yet seen in the
south. Among these were a beetle (P/ianeus carni-
fex), with green and gold wing-cases, and a horn on
the thorax. The name of bug is given to all beetles
{Coleoptera) here, and does not seem to awaken the
same unpleasant associations as it suggests to English
ears. Even the elegant fire-fly is called a lightning-
bug, and ladies who have diamond beetles set in
brooches, ask you to admire their beautiful bugs.
The Londoners, by way of compensation, miscall the
cockroach a black beetle.

From Grand Gulf, we embarked in the Magnolia,
which had brought my wife to Natchez, and, having
since made a trip to St. Louis and New Orleans,
was on its return up the river. It is a new boat,
and, among other improvements, has a separate sleep
ing cabin for the coloured servants. The furniture
in the principal saloon is of fine Utrecht velvet,
and the hanging lustres for gas very brilliant : the

CHAP. XXXII.] MAGNOLIA STEAMEE. 207

beds excellent; but the powerful vibration caused by
the machinery far from agreeable. Our state room
contained a chest of drawers, and cupboards for
hanging up ladies' dresses. Ample time was al
lowed for dinner, and we thought the fare only too
sumptuous. The repast began with turtle soup, and
two kinds of fish; then followed a variety of made
dishes, admirably cooked, and then a course of cocoa-
nut pies, jellies, preserved bananas, oranges, grapes,
and ice-creams, concluding with coffee. The claret
was excellent, and it may seem strange, at first, that
they who indulge in such luxuries, can drink freely
of the opaque, unfiltered water of the Mississippi.
But this fluid has, at least, the merit of being cool
on a hot day, and is believed to be very wholesome.
We found it pleasant to the taste, however untempt-
ing to the sight. Few of the praises bestowed by
Denham on the Thames can be lavished on the
Mississippi ; for, though deep, it is not clear, nor is it
" without o'erflowing, full." Yet, in spite of the oc
casional undermining of forests on its banks, it may
be truly characterised as " strong, without rage ;"
absorbing, as it does, in its course, one great tri
butary after another, several of them scarcely inferior
in width to itself, without widening its channel, and
in this manner carrying down noiselessly to the sea
its vast column of water and solid matter, while
the greater part of its alluvial plain is left undis
turbed.

A settler at Natchez told us he had lived on the
great river long enough to admire it, for the ease
with which it performs its mighty work ; and to fear

208 VICKSBURG TO JACKSON. [CHAP. XXXII.

it, so often had he witnessed the wreck of vessels
and the loss of lives. es If you fall overboard," he
said, "in the middle of the Atlantic, you may rise
again and be saved ; but here you are sucked down
by an eddy, and the waters, closing over you, are so
turbid, that you are never seen again."

March 19. — At Vicksburg, where we next landed,
I found the bluffs, forming the eastern boundary
of the great plain, similar, in their upper part, to
those of Natchez j but beneath the freshwater loam
and sand were seen, at the base of the cliffs, a marine
tertiary deposit, of the Eocene period, in which we col
lected many shells and corals. (See fig. 10. p. 257 ;
and 3. fig. 11. p. 262.)

Leaving my wife to rest at the hotel, I made
a rapid trip by railway, fifty-five miles eastward,
to Jackson, the capital of the State of Missis
sippi. For the first ten miles, the cars traversed
a table-land, corresponding in height with the sum
mit of the bluff at Vicksburg, and preserving an
even surface, except where gullies had been hollowed
out in the soft shelly loam or loess. These are nu
merous, and it had be^n necessary to throw bridges
over many of them so as to preserve the level of the
road. It was curious to observe, in the cuttings
made through the loam, that each precipitous face
retained its perpendicularity, as in natural sections,
although composed of materials wholly unconsoli-
dated. Farther to the east, the Eocene strata, be
longing to the same series, which are seen at the
bottom of the bluffs at Vicksburg, rise up to the
surface from beneath the freshwater loam, which

CHAP. XXXII.] FOSSILS ON PEARL RIVEE. 209

attains an elevation of about 250 feet above the sea,
and then gives place to older rocks.

We passed through large forests of oaks and
beeches, just coming into leaf, in which were some
green hollies. The red-bud, in blossom, was conspi
cuous in some of the woods. In the wet grounds
were cane-brakes, Avillows, and magnolias. I ob
served, in a large clearing, three ploughs following
each other, one guided by a man, and the others
each by a negro woman. When we reached the Big
Black river, twelve miles from Vicksburg, we passed
over a long wooden bridge and viaduct, built on piles,
nearly a mile in length. In about four hours, we
arrived at the town of Jackson. I was wholly with
out letters of introduction, having suddenly deter
mined on this excursion, and knew not the name of a
single individual ; which I regretted the more, as I
had only a few hours of daylight at my disposal, and
was to return by the cars at noon the day following.
1 inquired, as I had often done in France on similar
occasions, for the nearest pJiarmacien^ or chemist, and,
being shown to a shop, asked if they knew any one
who was interested in geology. The chemist in
formed me that Dr. Gist, a physician, lodged in the
floor above, and might assist me. Fortunately, this
gentleman was at home, and, telling me he had read
my work on Geology, he presented me with some
fossil shells and corals collected by him in the neigh
bourhood; and, within ten minutes of my "landing"
from the cars, we were on our way together to ex
plore the dried-up channel of a small tributary of
the Pearl River, where I found a rich harvest of

210 ORDINARY AT JACKSON. [CHAP. XXXII.

fossil marine shells and zoophytes. When we parted,
my excellent guide agreed to accompany me, early
the next morning, many miles in another direction.

On entering my hotel, after dark, I was informed
that supper was ready, and was conducted to a large
ordinary, crowded chiefly by lawyers, who were at
tending the courts here. The landlord, General

A , formerly of the Tennessee militia, played

the part of master of the ceremonies, much to my
amusement. He first obtained silence by exclaiming,
with the loud voice of a herald, " Gentlemen, we are
a great people," and then called out the names of all
the viands on his long table and sideboard, beginning
with <c Beef-steak, with or without onions, roast
turkey, pork, hominy, fish, eggs," &c., and ending
with a list of various drinkables, the last of which
was " tea, foreign and domestic." Curiosity led me
to order the last-mentioned beverage ; but I soon
repented, finding it to be a liquid of a pink colour,
made of the root of the sassafras tree, and having a
very medicinal taste. I was told that many here
drink it for their health ; but the General, seeing
that I did not relish it, supplied me with some good
" foreign " tea. My host then introduced me to
several of the lawyers who sat near me, which gave
me an opportunity of asking whether there was any
truth in the story told me by some of the Whigs at
New Orleans, of the manner in which the seat of
Legislature had been transferred from Natchez to
Jackson. I related the story, which was as follows :
— -"Natchez was the metropolis of the State, and
the chief town of Adams county, which was so

CHAP. XXXIL] TRANSFER OF STATE-HOUSE. 211

wealthy as to pay a third of all the taxes in Missis
sippi. It was a city to which the richest and best-
informed citizens resorted, representing both the
landed and monied interests of the State. It was,
moreover, a centre of communication, because it
commanded the navigation of the great river. That
the Houses of Legislature should meet here, was so
natural and convenient, so fitted to promote good
government, that the democratic party could not be
expected to put up, for many years, with an arrange
ment of affairs so reasonable and advantageous.
They accordingly decided, by a majority, that some
change must be made, and gave orders to a surveyor
to discover the exact geographical centre of the
State. He found it in a wilderness, about fifty miles
in a straight line east of Natchez, and pointed out
an old cypress tree, in the middle of a swamp, acces
sible only by a canoe, as the spot they were in search
of. This was welcome news ; all might now be placed
on a footing of equality, the spot being equally in
accessible and inconvenient for all. When the archi
tect, however, came to build the Capitol, he took the
liberty, instead of erecting the edifice on piles in the
centre of the swamp, to place it on an adjoining
rising ground, from which they had cleared away the
native wood, a serious abandonment of principle, as
it was several hundred yards from the true geo
graphical centre."

When my auditors had done laughing at this Lou
isiana version of a passage in their history, they
said, the tale, after all, was not so exaggerated as it
might have been, considering the vexation under
which the New Orleans Whigs were smarting, in

212 VOTE BY BALLOT. [CHAP. XXXII.

having to go to Baton Rouge. They could show
me, they said, the swamp on the Pearl River, which
must have been alluded to. That river, though
now only boatable, might, they declared, be made
navigable to steam-boats, when the rafts of drift
timber were cleared away, and they might then
have a direct commercial intercourse with the Gulf
of Mexico. The soil, also, surrounding Jackson,
had proved to be very fertile, and the railway had
brought the place within three or four hours of
Natchez, now their port. In short, their town
was flourishing, by aid of natural advantages, and
the patronage of the Legislature and Law Courts.
Next day, after a geological excursion, I was taken
to see the State House and Governor's mansion, both
handsome and commodious, and built in a good style
of architecture, but at great expense, at a time when
the price of labour happened to be unusually high.
I heard much regret expressed at the debts they had
incurred, and at the refusal to acknowledge them in
1841. One lawyer, a member of the Legislature,
declared his conviction that the repudiation of the
State debt would not have been carried in his
county, but for the facility afforded by secret voting.
The same individuals, he said, who openly professed
a more honourable line of conduct, must, out of self
ishness, have taken advantage of the ballot-box to
evade an increase of taxation, otherwise there could
not have been a majority in favour of disowning their
liabilities. This was one of the few instances in
which I heard the ballot condemned in the United
States ; yet the position of the labouring and middle
classes is, comparatively, so independent here, in

CHAP. XXXIL] ELECTION OF JUDGES. 213

relation to their rich employers, that the chief argu
ments relied upon in England in favour of secret
voting, would seem to be inapplicable.

The dependence of the judges, for their election, on
the popular suffrage, appears to have been carried
farther in Mississippi than in any other State. I was
told that rival candidates for the bench and chan
cellorship, have been known to canvass for votes in
taverns, and have been asked what construction they
put on certain statutes relating to banks chartered
by the State, just as, in an ordinary election for re
presentatives, men are asked what are their opinions,
and how they would vote on certain questions. I
met with more men of property in Mississippi who
spoke as if they belonged to an oppressed class, go
verned by a rude, ignorant, and coarse democracy,
than in any other part of my tour. " Many of our
poorest citizens, they said, would freely admit, that
nothing is so difficult, for the individual, as self-
government, and yet hold that nothing is so easy and
safe as self-government for the million, even where
education has been carried no farther than here,
where there are still seven counties without a single
school-house, and large districts where the inhabit
ants have but recently been converted to Christianity
by itinerant Methodists. They forget that even
honourable and enlightened men will sometimes do,
in their corporate capacity, what each individual
would be ashamed to do if he acted singly. " When
I heard these remarks, and reflected that even in
those parts of the State where the whites are most
advanced, as in Adams county, more than half the

214 VICKSBURG TO MEMPHIS. [CHAP. XXXII.

population are slaves, I felt more surprise that
English capitalists had lent so much money to Mis
sissippi, than that they had repented of it. At the
same time there is more hope for the future, for edu
cation must come.

The town of Vicksburg is beautifully situated on
the slope of a wooded blufE, about 180 feet high, and
walks might be made, commanding the river, which
would be delightful. At present no one can roam
along the paths in the suburbs, as they are disgrace
fully filthy.*

We took our passage in the Andrew Jackson
steamer, from Vicksburg to Memphis, a distance of
390 miles, and paid only six dollars each (25 shil
lings), board and lodging included. The monotony
of the scenery on the great river for several hun
dred miles together, is such as to grow wearisome.
Scarcely any vessels with sails are seen, all the old
schooners and smaller craft having been superseded by
the great steam-ships. The traveller becomes tired
of always seeing a caving bank on one side, and an
advancing sand-bar, covered with willows and pop
lars, on the other ; the successive growths of young
trees rising to greater heights, one tier above another,
as before described, below New Orleans. The water,
at this season, is too turbid to reflect the sky or the
trees on its bank. The aspect of things, day after day,
is so exactly similar, that it might seem as necessary

* For observations on the Geology of Jackson and Vicks
burg, see a paper by the Author, Journ. of Geol. Soc. London
vol. iv. p. 15. 1847, and Silliman's Journal, Second Series, vol.
iv. p. 18G. Sept. 1847.

CHAP. XXXIL] MONOTONY OF SCENERY. 215

to take astronomical observations, in order to discover
what progress one has made, as if the voyage were in
mid-Atlantic. That our course is northward, is
indicated by the willows on the banks growing less
green, and a diminishing quantity of grey moss hang
ing from the trees. The red maple has also disap
peared. When I landed at wooding stations, I saw,
on the damp ground beneath the trees, abundance of
mosses, with scarcely a blade of grass, while the only
wild flowers were a few violets and a white bramble.
The young leaves of the poplars are most fragrant in
the night air. We were now in latitude 34° north,
passing the mouths of the Arkansas and White
rivers.

The village of Xapoleon, 212 miles above Vicks-
burg, at the mouth of the Arkansas, had suffered
much by the floods of 1844. Its red, muddy waters
are hardly mixed up thoroughly with the Mississippi
till they reach Vicksburg. They often bring down
much ice into the Mississippi. The White river is
said to be navigable for about six hundred miles
above its mouth.

Our steamer, the Andrew Jackson, bound for Cin
cinnati, carrying a heavy cargo of molasses, was eight
feet deep in the water. To avoid the drift wood,
which impeded her progress, the captain, on arriving
at Island Eighty-four ( for they are all numbered,
beginning from the mouth of the Ohio), determined
to take a short cut between that island and the left
river bank. The lead was heaved, and the decreas
ing depth, from ten feet to eight and a half, was
called oat ; our vessel then grazed the bottom for a

216 ACTORS ON BOARD. [CHAP. XXXII.

moment, but fortunately got off again. There was
so much sameness in the navigation, that such an inci
dent was quite a relief. Soon afterwards, March
23d, some variety was afforded by a squall of wind,
accompanied by lightning. I never expected to see
waves of such magnitude, and was surprised to learn,
that in some reaches, where the water extends ten
miles in a straight line, a strong wind blowing against
the current will cause large steamers to pitch so as
to make many passengers sea-sick ; but this rarely
happens. In the night we had often to draw up to
the bank, wherever a signal-fire was lighted, finding
sometimes a single passenger waiting to be taken on
board.

There wore many actors on board, and, among
others, a pleasing young woman, who turned out to
be the manager's wife, returning with her family of
young children and sick husband from Vicksburg,
where she complained that the drama was at a low
ebb, and where, as in many other cities in the South,
the drunken habits of the inferior actors made the
profession by no means a pleasant one for a woman.
She was longing for an engagement in some " Eastern
theatre," where, she told my wife, she would willingly
take less pay, and would not object to undertake
the part of "first old woman" for eighteen dollars
a week, as most of the actresses, being desirous of
looking young and pretty, compete eagerly for the
character of " first juvenile." She liked much to
act chambermaid, as then she was not expected tc
learn her part so accurately. She had a real feeling
of enthusiasm for her art, and great admiration for

CHAP. XXXII.] NEGRO MISTAKEN FOR WHITE. 217

Mrs. Kean, and spoke with satisfaction of having
once acted second to her when she was Miss Ellen
Tree. During her husband's illness at Vicksburg,
she had been obliged to take the management of the
theatre herself, and had good reason to lament that
the temperance movement had not reached so far
west. The physician, after attending his patient for
many weeks in a fever, remitted to them a bill of
fifty dollars, one only of many similar acts of gene
rosity in the members of this profession which came
to my knowledge in the course of my tour. This
actress had with her a young maid, fairer than many
an English brunette, but who, though a free woman,
did not happen to belong to the white aristocracy.
The stewardess came into the cabin and summoned
her to dinner, and she, doing as she was bid, sat down
at the second table, where the officers of the ship and
the white children were dining. When her repast
was half finished, her master and mistress suddenly
discovered the prodigious breach of decorum which
their attendant was perpetrating, and, calling her
away from the table, began explaining to one lady
after another, especially those with whose children
she had been sitting, that she was really a good girl,
who knew no better. The stewardess also, knowing
she should incur blame, came and apologised for her
mistake, observing that the girl was quite undis-
tinguishable by her complexion from a white. There
was a quadroon lady on board, of very respectable
appearance and manners, who was taking all her
meals in her own state-room, thus avoiding the
risk of meeting with similar indignities. It is not

VOL. II L

218 MANNERS IN THE BACKWOODS. [CHAP. XXXII.

surprising, in such a state of society, that they who
belong to the degraded race, should make every effort
to conceal the fact ; or, if that be impossible, to as
similate themselves, as far as they can, to individuals
of the dominant race. In proportion to the mixture
of white blood, the woolly, short hair of the negro
lengthens and straightens, and the ambition of the
black women is to contend with nature in torturing
their hair, by combing and plaiting, till it resembles,
as near as possible, the flowing locks of the whites.

At one of the wooding stations, a countryman
came on board with his wrife, a half-bred Indian.
She had straight black hair, and a soft mild eye.
She sat at table with us, taking her place on terms
of perfect equality, no distinction of caste being made
in this case.

As I was pacing the deck, one passenger after
another eyed my short-sight glass, suspended by a
riband round my neck, with much curiosity. Some
of them asked me to read for them the name in
scribed on the stern of a steamer so far off that I
doubted whether a good telescope would have en
abled me to do more than discern the exact place
where the name was written. Others, abruptly
seizing the glass, without leave or apology, brought
their heads into close contact with mine, and, looking
through it, exclaimed, in a disappointed and half
reproachful tone, that they could see nothing. Mean
while, the wives and daughters of passengers of the
same class, were sitting idle in the ladies' cabin,
occasionally taking my wife's embroidery out of her
hand, without asking leave, and examining it, with

CHAP. XXXII.] MANNERS IN THE BACKWOODS. 219

many comments, usually, however, in a complimentary
strain. To one who is studying the geology of the
valley of the Mississippi, the society of such com
panions may be endurable for a few weeks. He
ought to recollect that they form the great majority
of those who support these noble steamers, without
which such researches could not be pursued except
by an indefinite sacrifice of time. But we sometimes
doubted how far an English party, travelling for
mere amusement, would enjoy themselves. If they
venture on the experiment, they had better not take
with them an English maid-servant, unless they are
prepared for her being transformed into an equal.
It would be safer to engage some one of that too
numerous class, commonly called " humble com
panions," who might occasionally enter into society
with them. Ladies who can dispense with such as
sistance, will find the maids in the inns, whether
white or coloured, most attentive.

We were not asked more questions in regard to
our private affairs than we had often been accustomed
to submit to when travelling in France and Scot
land. Nor had I any reason to complain ; for when
I had satisfied the curious as to my age, the number
of my children, how we liked the country, and many
other particulars, often asked very abruptly by one
just come 011 board, I had no ceremony in retaliating
on him, and putting to him as many queries in my
turn. Every one must admit that the answers you
commonly receive are most intelligent. Americans
of the higher classes seemed more put out than we
were, when thus catechized.

L 2

220 INQUISITIVENESS. [CHAP. XXXII.

One of them, before we left Boston, as if deter
mined that nothing should surprise us, related many
diverting anecdotes to illustrate the inquisitive turn
of his countrymen. Among other stories he gave a
lively description of a New Englander who was
seated by a reserved companion in a railway car, and
who, by way of beginning a conversation, said, " Are
you a bachelor?" To which the other replied, dryly,
" No, I'm not." — "You area married man?" continued
he. --"No, I'm not." - — " Then you must be a wi
dower ?" — " No, I'm not." Here there was a short
pause ; but the undaunted querist returned to the
charge, observing, " If you are neither a bachelor, nor
a married man, nor a widower, what in the world can
you be?"- — "If you must know," said the other,
" I'm a divorced man ! "

Another story, told me by the same friend, was
that a gentleman being asked, in a stage coach, how
he had lost his leg, made his fellow travellers pro
mise that if he told them they would put no more
questions on the subject. He then said, " It was
bitten off." To have thus precluded them for the rest
of a long journey from asking how it was bitten off,
was a truly ingenious method of putting impertinent
curiosity on the rack.

When my wife first entered the ladies' cabin, she
found every one of the numerous rocking-chairs
filled with a mother suckling an infant. As none of
them had nurses or servants, all their other children
were at large, and might have been a great resource
to passengers suffering from ennui, had they been
under tolerable control. As it was, they were

CHAP. XXXII.] SPOILT CHILDREN. 221

so riotous and undisciplined, as to be the torment
of all who approached them. " How fortunate you
are," said one of the mothers to my wife, " to be
without children ; they are so ungovernable, and, if
you switch them, they sulk, or go into hysterics."
The threat of " I'll switch you," is for ever vocifer
ated in an angry tone, but never carried into execu
tion. One genteel and pleasing young lady sat down
by my wife, and began conversation by saying, " You
hate children, don't you ? " intimating that such were
her own feelings. A medical man, in large practice, in
one of the Southern States, told us he often lost
young patients in fevers, and other cases where ex
citement of the nerves was dangerous, by the habitual
inability of the parents to exert the least command
over their children. We saw an instance where a
young girl, in considerable danger, threw the medi
cine into the physician's face, and heaped most
abusive epithets upon him.

The Director of the State Penitentiary, in Georgia,
told me, that he had been at some pains to trace out
the history of the most desperate characters under his
charge, and found that they had been invariably
spoilt children ; and, he added, if young Americans
were not called upon to act for themselves at so
early an age, and undergo the rubs and discipline of
the world, they would be more vicious and immoral
than the people of any other nation. Yet there
is no country where children ought to be so great
a blessing, or where they can be so easily pro
vided for. Parents have not the excuse of Mrs.
Mac Clarty, in the " Cottagers of Grlenburnie," when

L 3

222 SPOILT CHILDREN. [CHAP. XXXII.

she exclaims, " If I don't give the boy his own way,
what else have I to give him ? " but it is probably
because so many of these Western settlers have risen
recently from Mrs. Mac Clarty's grade in society, that
they have retained her maxims for the management
of their children : for the young people in the families
of the best class of society in the United States, are
often kept in as good order, and are as engaging in
their manners, as they are in any part of Europe.

Many young Americans have been sent to school
in Switzerland, and I have heard their teachers, who
found them less manageable than English or Swiss
boys, maintain that they must all of them have some
dash of wild Indian blood in their veins. English
men, on the other hand, sometimes attribute the same
character to republican institutions ; but, in fact,
they are spoilt long before they are old enough to
know that they are not born under an absolute
monarchy.

Some officers of the army, who had been educated
at Westpoint, a lieutenant in the navy, and a judge,
with his family, from a Southern State, were agree
able companions on this voyage, and differed as much
in manners from the majority of our messmates, as
persons of the same rank in Europe would have done.
There seemed, to us, to be a great want, in such
steamers, of a second cabin, at a price intermediate
between that of the first cabin and the deck. A
poor emigrant, who was roughing it in the latter
place, remarked to me truly, that they were treated
there like dogs, and had nothing but a plank to sleep
upon. He was paying highly for his wife and family,

CHAP. XXXII.] EQUALITY AND LEVELLING. 223

who had places in the first cabin. Among all who
have paid for these, a recognition of perfect equality
is scrupulously exacted. Not only would a man of
rank or ancient family, but one of the most refined
manners, and superior knowledge and education, find
himself treated as entitled to no more deference or
respect than the rudest traveller. Plato's definition
of a man, " bipes implume," " a featherless biped,"
would be most appropriate to one who was journey
ing in such company. To a certain extent, however,
the manners of the ruder members of this society
are improved by such intercourse, and there is some
levelling up as well as levelling down. The European
traveller must also bear in mind, that it would be no
discredit to those who are settling in this wilderness
— especially when Europe pours into it, annually,
her hundreds of thousands of ignorant and disap
pointed emigrants — if the accommodation was of
the rudest kind ; if there were no steamers in whose
machinery the latest improvements had been adopted,
many of them invented in the United States ; and if
the cabin was not provided with good libraries, or
the table covered with newspapers, literary magazines,
and reviews. It is precisely because there is so much
civilisation in the Western States, that foreigners
criticise them unfairly, contrasting their condition
with the highest standard of older countries.

The authority of the captain is absolute, and he
does not hesitate, if any unruly spirit is refractory,
and refuses to conform to the regulations of the ship,
to put him ashore at the nearest place on the bank

L 4

224 ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS. [CHAP. XXXIL

where he can be landed ; but I never happened to see
so strong a measure resorted to.

The newspapers on the cabin table of the Andrew
Jackson had a column headed in capitals, " Five
Weeks later from Europe." The mail packet had
been detained by adverse winds longer than usual,
and the uneasiness respecting the chances of a war
with England, still the subject of debate in Congress,
had risen to a great height. Many lovers of peace
had misgivings lest the English democracy, growing
at last impatient, should express themselves with
violence, and excite the war party here. The first
glance at the news relieved them from anxiety,
for the English were entirely absorbed with Free
Trade, Cheap Bread, and the admission of foreign
grain without duty. The Cabinet were too well
satisfied that the people's attention was drawn
off from foreign affairs to obtrude the American
question unnecessarily on their attention. One of
the politicians on board, who had been reading an
account of the proceedings of the Anti-Corn-Law
League, and the parliamentary debates on the Corn
Duties, confessed to me, that the omission of all
allusion to America — the English being so entirely
occupied with their domestic affairs — wounded his
feelings. " Here we have been talking," he said,
" for three months about nothing else but Oregon,
imagining that the whole world was looking on,
in suspense, at this momentous debate, and even in
Great Britain it has been forgotten for five entire
weeks ! What an absurd figure we are cutting ! "

CHAP. XXXIII.] BLUFFS AT MEMPHIS. 225

CHAP. XXXIII.

Bluffs at Memphis. — New Madrid. — No Inn. — Undermining of
River Bank. — Examination of Country shaken by Earthquake
0/1811-12. — Effects of Passage of Waves through Alluvial
Soil. — Circular Cavities or Sand-Bursts. — Open Fissures,
— Lake Eidalie drained by Shocks. — Borders of Sunk Country,
West of New Madrid. — Dead Trees standing erect. — A
slight Shock felt. — Trade in Peltries increased by Earth
quake. — Trees erect in new-formed Lakes. — Indian Tra
dition of Shocks. — Dreary Forest Scene. — Rough Quarters.
— Slavery in Missouri.

March 24. 1846. — AT length we reached Memphis.,
in the State of Tennessee. The town on which this
ancient and venerable name is conferred appears the
newest of the large places we have yet seen on the
Mississippi. It is growing with great rapidity, stand
ing on a bluff now fifty-two feet above the level of
the water when the river is high. The cliff is the
abrupt termination of deposits similar to those of
freshwater origin, which I have before alluded to at
Natchez and Vicksburg. A mass of yellow loam,
forty- feet thick, reposes on sand with quartz pebbles,
which rests on clay, not visible at the time of my
visit. Such a site for a town, in spite of the slow
undermining of the cliffs, is permanent, by comparison
with the ordinary banks of the river for hundreds of
miles continuously ; for, as a general rule, the stream

226 NEW MADKID. [CHAP. XXXIII.

in the alluvial plain is either encroaching a foot or
more annually, so as to wash away buildings, if there
be any on the bank, or is retreating, so that a port
soon becomes an inland town. The people of Mem
phis are ambitious that their city should be a great
naval arsenal, and there are considerable naval stores
here ; but as frigates require from eighteen to twenty-
three feet water, and men-of-war thirty feet, while
the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi affords at
present no more than sixteen feet water, their
hopes cannot be realised till a ship canal is made
from some point on the Mississippi to the Gulf of
Mexico.

After we left Memphis, we were shown, on the
Tennessee bank of the river, a log cabin, where they
said General Jackson began his career ; one of his
claims to popularity with the democratic party con
sisting in his having risen from a very humble origin.
The advantages of a more liberal education, which a
rival might have possessed who had begun life in
easier circumstances, would not have countervailed, in
the present stage of progress of the Union, the prestige
which attaches to the idea of a man's having made his
way by his own merits.

March 25. — From Memphis we sailed in a smaller
steamer for 170 miles, first between the States of Ten
nessee and Arkansas, and then between Tennessee
and Missouri, and arrived very late at night at New
Madrid, a small village on the western bank of the
river, where I intended to stay and make geolo
gical observations on the region shaken by the great
earthquake of 1811-12. So many of our American

CHAP. XXXI II.] NEW MADRID. 227

friends had tried to dissuade us from sojourning in
so rude a place, that we were prepared for the worst.
In the wharf-boat, at least, I expected to find a bed
for the first night, and proposed to seek accommo
dation elsewhere the next day ; but, to my dismay,
the keeper of this floating tavern told me, when I
landed, that he had just come there, had nothing as
yet " fixed," and could not receive us. I also learnt
that the only inn in New Madrid had been given up
for want of custom. Leaving, therefore, my wife
sitting by the stove in the wharf-boat, and taking a
negro as my guide, I began to pace the dark and
silent streets. First I applied in vain for admittance
at the old tavern, then to a store-keeper in the neigh
bourhood, who informed me that a German baker,
near the river, sometimes took in lodgers. I next
roused this man and his wife from their slumbers;
their only spare room was occupied, but they asked
their lodger if he would give it up to us. No sum of
money would have bribed him to comply, as I was
satisfied when I knew him better, but his good na
ture led him at once to assent cheerfully. We were
soon shown into the apartment, a kind of scullery,
with a mattrass on the floor, on which we slept, and
did not make our appearance next morning till half
past eight o'clock. We then apologised, fearing we
had kept them waiting for breakfast. They said,
good humouredly, they had indeed waited from six
o'clock, and it was now near their dinner time ! The
young German, originally from near Strasburg, a man
of simple manners, regarded himself as belonging to
a different station in society, and would have acted

L 6

228 HUMBLE FARE. [CHAP. XXXIII.

as waiter till we had finished our repast, had not his
wife, a native-born American from the State of In
diana, insisted on his sitting down to table. They
were so poor, that they had no servants, not even a
negro boy or girl, and two children to look after.
The fare was of the humblest kind, bread of Indian
corn, bacon, and thick coffee. Some of the indis
pensable articles of the breakfast table equipage
had been purchased, as we afterwards discovered,
expressly for our use that morning. The lodger,
" Uncle John," was an old bachelor in easy circum
stances, fond of fishing, who had come here to in
dulge in that sport. He was an old pilot, who had
visited half the ports in the Mediterranean, as well
as Great Britain, and was quite a character. He
could tell many a good story of his adventures, and,
like many natives of Louisiana, could bear to be con
tradicted on any point rather than hear the healthi
ness of New Orleans called in question. His man
ners, and those of our host and hostess towards each
other and to us, were very polite, and never ap
proached undue familiarity. Uncle John assured
me that the Mississippi is now flowing where
New Madrid stood in 1811, and that the old grave
yard has travelled over from the State of Missouri
into Kentucky. How this had happened, it was
easy for me to divine when I went out after break
fast to look at the place by daylight.

The river bank is now about twenty-five feet high,
and would be forty-five feet at the lowest water
level. It is giving way rapidly, three houses having
fallen in during the last week, and some proprietors

CHAP. XXXIII.] UNDERMINING OF RIVER-BANK. 229

are in the act of shifting their quarters half a mile
inland. At the bottom of the wasting bank, there
is a semi-fluid quick-sand, which greatly accelerates
the process of destruction. Yesterday, the ruins of
a house, with the wooden fence of a garden, were
precipitated into the river, and some of the wreck
has formed a talus, up which I saw some hogs, after
several unsuccessful attempts, clamber at last into a
garden, where they began to uproot the flowers.
The steam-boats, which are now sailing close to the
bank, will, in a few years, pass freely over the site of
the humble mansion where we had been sleeping ;
and the geographer, in constructing a map half a cen
tury hence, may have to transfer to the State of
Kentucky, the spot where I saw a garden flourish.

I examined the perpendicular face of the bank
with some interest, as exemplifying the kind of de
posits which the Mississippi throws down near its
margin. They differ in no way from accumulations
of sand and loam of high antiquity with which the
geologist is familiar ; some beds are made up of hori
zontal layers, in others they are all slanting, or in
what is called cross-stratification. Some are white,
others yellow, and here and there a seam of black
carbonaceous matter, derived apparently from the de
struction of older strata, is conspicuous.

I next set out on an excursion to examine those
districts, where I heard that some superficial effects
of the great earthquake of 1811 were still visible.
The reader should be reminded that this convulsion
occurred contemporaneously with one of the most
fatal earthquakes of South America, when the towns

230 EARTHQUAKE OF 1811-12. [CHAP. XXXIII.

of Guayra and Caraccas were laid in ruins. The
shocks were also felt in South Carolina. Humboldt
has remarked that the shocks of New Madrid are
the only examples on record, of the ground having
quaked almost incessantly for three months, at a
point so far remote from any active volcano. The
shocks were most violent in part of the region called
the Little Prairie, to the southward of New Madrid,
and they extended as far south as the river St. Francis,
and, northwards, as far as the mouth of the Ohio.
Although the country was thinly settled, and most
of the houses built of logs, the loss of life was con
siderable. From accounts published at the time, it
appears that the grave-yard of New Madrid was pre
cipitated into the Mississippi, the banks of which
gave way in many places, and the ground swelled up
so that the current of the river flowed backwards for
a time, carrying several flat boats northwards, against
the stream. In various parts of the region above
alluded to as having been convulsed, lakes twenty
miles and upwards in extent were formed, while
others which pre-existed were drained.* Hundreds
of chasms opened, and new islands appeared in the
Mississippi and its tributaries. Flint, the geographer,
who visited the country seven years after the event,
says that, at the time of his visit, a district west of
New Madrid still remained covered with water, and
that the neighbouring forest presented a scene of
great confusion, — many trees standing inclined in
every direction, and others having their trunks and

* Silliman's Journ., vol. xv. 1829.

CHAP. XXXIIL] EARTHQUAKE OF 1811-12. 231

branches broken. He also saw hundreds of deep
chasms remaining in the alluvial soil, which were
produced, according to the inhabitants, by the burst
ing of the earth, which rose in great undulations, and
discharged vast volumes of water, sand, and coaly
matter, thrown up as high as the tops of the trees.
As the shocks lasted throughout a period of three
months, the country people remarked that, in given
districts, there were certain prevailing directions in
which these fissures opened, and they accordingly
felled the tallest trees, making them fall at right
angles to the direction of the chasms. By stationing
themselves on these, they often escaped being swal
lowed up when the earth opened beneath them.
Some of the shocks were perpendicular, while others,
much more desolating, were horizontal, or moved
along like great waves.

Before I left New Orleans, Mr. Bringier, the engi
neer, related to me that he was on horseback near New
Madrid, in 1811, when some of the severest shocks
were experienced, and that, as the waves advanced, he
saw the trees bend down, and often, the instant after
wards, when in the act of recovering their position, meet
the boughs of other trees similarly inclined, so as to
become interlocked, being prevented from righting
themselves again. The transit of the wave through
the woods was marked by the crashing noise of
countless branches, first heard on one side and then
on the other. At the same time, powerful jets of
water, mixed with sand, mud, and pieces of bitu
minous coaly shale, were cast up with such force, that
both horse and rider might have perished, had the

232 SAND-BURSTS. [CHAP. XXXIIL

undulating ground happened to burst immediately
beneath them. He also told me that circular cavities,
called sink-holes, were formed where the principal
fountains of mud and water were thrown up.

Hearing that some of these cavities still existed
near the town, I went to see one of them, three
quarters of a mile to the westward. There I found
a nearly circular hollow, ten yards wide, and five feet
deep, with a smaller one near it, and I observed,
scattered about over the surrounding level ground,
fragments of black bituminous shale, with much
white sand. Within a distance of a few hundred
yards, were five more of these " sand-bursts," or
<( sand-blows," as they are sometimes termed here,
and, rather more than a mile farther west, near the
house of Mr. Savors, my guide pointed out to me
what he called " the sink-hole where the negro was
drowned." It is a striking object, interrupting the
regularity of a flat plain, the sides very steep, and
twenty-eight feet deep from the top to the water's
edge. The water now standing in the bottom is
said to have been originally very deep, but has grown
shallow by the washing in of sand, and the crum
bling of the bank caused by the feet of cattle coming
to drink. I was assured that many waggon loads of
matter were cast up out of this hollow, and the
quantity must have been considerable to account for
the void ; yet the pieces of lignite, and the quantity
of sand now heaped on the level plain near its
borders, would not suffice to fill one-tenth part of the
cavity. Perhaps a part of the ejected substance may
have been swallowed up again, and the rest may have

CHAP. XXXIII. ] LAKE EULALIE. 233

been so mixed with water, as to have spread freely
like a fluid over the soil.

My attention was next drawn to the bed of what
was once a lake, called Eulalie ; Mr. W. Hunter, the
proprietor of the estate, accompanying me to the spot.
The bottom, now dried up, is about 300 yards long by
100 yards in width, and chiefly composed of clay, co
vered with trees, the whole of them less than thirty-
four years old. They consist of cotton-wood (Populus
angulatcL), willows, the honey locust, and other spe
cies. Some single cotton-wood trees have grown so
fast as to be near two and a half feet in diameter,
and had not my guide known their age accurately,
I should have suspected their origin to have been
prior to 1811. All the species on the bottom differ
from those covering the surrounding higher ground,
which is more elevated by twelve or fifteen feet.
Here the hickory, the black and white oak, the gum,
and other trees, many of them of ancient date, are
seen to flourish. On all sides, the ascent from the
old bed of the lake to its boundary, is by a steep
slope, on ascending which you reach a platform on a
level with the top of the bank of the Mississippi,
which is about a mile distant. Mr. Hunter informed
me that Lake Eulalie was formerly filled with clear
water, and abounded in fish, until it was suddenly
drained by the earthquake. In the clayey bottom, I
traced the course of two parallel fissures, by which
the waters escaped. They are separated from each
other by a distance of about eight yards, and are not
yet entirely closed. Near their edges, much sand

234 EXCURSION TO [CHAP. XXXIII.

and coal shale lie scattered, which were thrown out
of them when they first opened.

In regard to the origin of this black bituminous
shale, so abundantly cast out of chasms in this region,
it belongs to the alluvial formation, and is found, in
digging wells, fifteen feet deep, or sometimes nearer
the surface. It was probably drifted down at a
former period by the current of the Mississippi, from
the coal-fields farther north.

Having learnt that still more striking monuments
of the earthquake were to be seen in the territory
farther to the westward of New Madrid, I endea
voured, but in vain, to hire a horse. At length a
merchant's widow kindly lent me a steed. To pro
cure a guide was impossible, all hands being fully
employed. I therefore set out alone through the
forest, skirting the borders of a swamp called the
Bayou St. John, where I observed a great many
fallen trees, and others dead and leafless, but stand
ing erect. After riding some miles, I found my way
to a farm, the owner of which had witnessed the
earthquake when a child. He described to me the
camping out of the people in the night when the first
shocks occurred, and how some were wounded by the
falling of chimneys, and the bodies of others drawn out
of the ruins. He confirmed the published statements
of the inhabitants having availed themselves of fallen
trees to avoid being engulfed in open fissures, and I
afterwards heard that this singular mode of escape
had been adopted in distant places, between which
there had been no communication, and that even
children threw themselves on the felled trunks. My

CHAP. XXXIII.] " SUNK COUNTRY." 235

new acquaintance then took me to see several fis
sures still open, which had been caused by the un-
dulatory movement of the ground, some of them
jagged, others even and straight. I traced two of
them continuously for more than half a mile, and
found that a few were parallel ; but, on the whole,
they varied greatly in direction, some being ten and
others forty-five degrees west of north. I might
easily have mistaken them for artificial trenches, if
my companion had not known them within his
recollection to have been " as deep as wells." Sand
and black shale were strewed along their edges.
They Avere most of them from two to four feet
wide, and five or six feet deep ; but the action of
rains, frost, and occasional inundations, and above all
the leaves of the forest blown into them every au
tumn in countless numbers, have done much to fill
them up.

Continuing my ride, I came to the house and farm
of Mr. Love, who had long resided in this district,
and he took me to part of the forest, on the borders
of what is called the " sunk country," where all the
trees of a date prior to 1811, although standing erect
and entire, are dead and leafless. They are chiefly
oaks and walnuts, with trunks three or four feet in
diameter, and many of them 200 years old. They are
supposed to have been killed by the loosening of the
roots during the repeated undulations which passed
through the soil for three months in succession. The
higher level plain, where these dead trees stand, ter
minates abruptly towards the Bayou St. John, and
the sudden descent of eight or ten feet throughout

236 SLIGHT SHOCK FELT. [CHAP. XXXIII.

an area four or five miles long, and fifty or sixty
broad, was caused, my informant assured me, by the
earthquake. At the lower level are seen cypresses
and cotton-wood, and other trees which delight in wet
ground, all newer than 1812. I was told that there
are some places where the descent from the upper
level to that of the sunk country is not less than
twenty and even thirty feet. In part of this sunk
ground I saw not only dead oaks and hickory still
erect, but aged gum-trees also and cypresses (Cu-
pressus disticha).

While I Avas riding with Mr. Love he stopped his
horse, and asked me if I did not feel the shock of an
earthquake. When my attention was called to it, I
fancied I had perceived it, but was not sure. He
said they were frequent, although he had not felt one
for the last fortnight. It was now three years since
they had been seriously alarmed by any movement.
We looked at our watches, and when we returned to
the farm he inquired of the family if anything had
happened. They said they had felt a shock, and
heard a sound like distant thunder, at twenty-five
minutes past eleven o'clock, which agreed exactly
with the time when my companion had felt the
motion.

If the information I obtained from several quar
ters be correct, in regard to the country perma
nently submerged by the earthquake of 1811-12,
the area must exceed in magnitude what was stated
in former accounts. The " sunk country," I am told,
extends along the course of the White Water and its
tributaries for a distance of between seventy and

CHAP. XXXIII.] " SUNK COUNTRY." 237

eighty miles north and south, and thirty miles east
and west. A trapper, who had been hunting on
the Little Kiver, told me, that large spaces there were
obviously under water, owing to the great shake,
because the dead trees were still standing. In the
true hunter spirit, he regarded the awful catastrophe
of 1811-12 as a blessing to the country, and ex
patiated with delight on the vast area turned into
lake and marsh, and the active trade carried on ever
since in the furs of wild animals. It had been the
making of New Madrid, he affirmed, which would
become a rival of St. Louis, and exported even now
at least half as many peltries. There had been taken
last year 50,000 racoon skins, and 25,000 musk-rats
for making hats and caps; 12,000 mink for trimming
dresses; 1000 bears and 1000 otters ; 2500 wild cats,
40 panthers, and 100 wolves. Beavers there were
none, or only five or six had been trapped. He had
gone in his canoe, which carried his hut, his gun,
and his baggage, over the whole sunk country, and
described to me the villages or hummocks built
in the swamps by the musk-rats, which he called
"French settlements," a piece of impertinence in
which the Anglo-Americans indulge towards the
Creoles of Louisiana. He told me that within the
area of the sunk country in Arkansas, about eighty
miles from New Madrid, is a space called Buffalo
Island, containing about twenty-five square miles,
where, two years ago, (1844,) a herd of buffaloes,
300 or 400 strong, was surprised, and six of them
taken.

The sunk country is not confined to the region

238 TRADITION OF EARTHQUAKES. [CHAP. XXXIII.

west of the Mississippi ; for, on my way up the river,
I learnt from Mr. Fletcher, a farmer, who had a
wooding station in Tennessee, that several extensive
forest tracts in that State were submerged during the
shocks of 1811-12, and have ever since formed
lakes and swamps, among which are those called
Obion and Reelfoot. He had observed, in several
of these, that trees which had been killed, and had
stood for a long time partially submerged, had
in many places rotted down to the water's edge.
In some swamps caused by the earthquake, they
had all decayed to within a few inches of the base of
the trunk. It is therefore evident, that should the
turbid waters of the Mississippi overflow that region,
and deposit their sediment on such stumps, they
would present to the geologist a precise counterpart
of the buried stools of trees with their roots before
described as occurring at the bottom of the bluff at
Port Hudson.* Mr. Fletcher also told me, that
he knew several fissures in Tennessee, formed in
1811-12, where the ground on one side of the rent
remained higher by two feet than that on the other
side.

I was informed at New Madrid that the Indians,
before the year 1811, had a tradition of a great
earthquake which had previously devastated this same
region. Yet there is so wide an area of forest
without sink-holes or, any great inequalities of sur
face, and without dead trees like those above alluded
to, that we cannot suppose any convulsion of equal

* Ante, pp. 177—180.

CHAP. XXXIII.] DREARY FOREST SCENE. 239

magnitude to have occurred for many centuries pre
vious to 1811.

Having explored the margin of the Great Prairie,
and seen the sunk country several miles west of
New Madrid, I returned by a different path through
the woods, often losing my way, till I fell into the
main road for the last six miles, which was cut
straight through the forest, and was at this season
singularly monotonous and dreary. It was furrowed
with long deep ruts, cut in black mud, and full of
miry water. The sky was cloudy, and the plain as
level as if it had never been disturbed by the slightest
subterranean movement since it originated. The
trees were, for the most part, leafless, and almost all
of the same height, with no evergreens below them,
and no grass ; but, instead of it, a sombre brown
covering of damp and dead oak leaves, strewed evenly
over the ground. At one point I saw the rotting
trunks of several fallen trees, and near them an old
oak, on the boughs of which, near the base, a group of
five turkey-buzzards were perched, in perfect charac
ter with the rest of the scene. Twilight was coming
on, and the woods were silent ; but, as I approached
the river, the silence was agreeably broken by the
varied and liquid notes of a mocking-bird, and, at the
same time, one of the large woodpeckers, with its
brilliant plumage, flew over my head, as if to remind
me that at other seasons the solitude is cheered by
the song and bright colours of birds, when the leaves
of the trees unfold themselves, and the sun's heat
would then be so intense, that a traveller would gladly
retreat into the shades of the dense forest.

240 ROUGH QUARTERS. [CHAP. XXXIII.

When I took back my horse to its owner in New
Madrid, I received a pressing invitation to exchange
our present homely quarters for her comfortable
house. Some of the other principal merchants made
us hospitable offers of the same kind, which were ex
ceedingly tempting. We thought it right, however,
to decline them all, as we might have hurt the feel
ings of our German host and his wife, who, in their
anxiety to accommodate us, had purchased several
additional household articles. Among these was a
table-cloth, and, when I entered the house, I was
amused at the occupations of my wife and her com
panion. The baker's lady had accepted the offer of
her guest to hem the new table-cloth, in which task
she was busily engaged ; while the settler in the back
woods, having discovered that my wife had brought
from New Orleans a worked collar of the latest
Parisian fashion, had asked leave to copy it, and was
intent on cutting out the shape, thus qualifying her
self to outdo all the " fashionists" of the sunk
country.

A great spirit of equality was observable in the
manners of the whites towards each other at New
Madrid, yet with an absence of all vulgar familiarity.
But what I saw and heard, convinced me that the
condition of the negroes is least enviable in such
out-of-the-way and half civilised districts, where
there are many adventurers, and uneducated settlers,
who have little control over their passions, and who,
when they oppress their slaves, are not checked by
public opinion, as in more advanced communities.
New comers of a higher tone of sentiment are com-

CHAP. XXXIII.] SLAVEEY IN MISSOURI. 241

pelled sometimes to witness cruelties which fill them
with indignation, heightened by the necessity of
being silent, and keeping on good terms with persons
of whose conduct they disapprove. To the passing
stranger, they can enlarge on this source of annoy
ance, and send him away grieving that so late as the
year 1821, Missouri should have been added to the
Union as a Slave State, against the wishes of a re
spectable minority of its own inhabitants, and against
the feeling of a majority of the more educated popu
lation of the North.

VOL. II. M

242 ALLUVIAL FORMATIONS. [CHAP. XXXIV.

CHAP. XXXIV.

Alluvial Formations of the Mississippi, ancient and modern.
— Delta defined. — Great Extent of Wooded Swamps. —
Deposits of pure Vegetable Matter. — Floors of Blue Clay
with Cypress Roots. — Analogy to ancient Coal-measures. —
Supposed " Epoch of existing Continents." — Depth of Fresh
water Strata in Deltas. — Time required to bring down the
Mud of the Mississippi. — New Experiments and Observations
required. — Great Age of buried and living Cypress-trees. —
Older and newer Parts of Alluvial Plain. — Upraised Terraces
of Natchez, fyc., and the Ohio, the Monuments of an older
Alluvial Formation. — Grand Oscillation of Level. — The
ancient Valleys inhabited by Quadrupeds now extinct. — Land-
shells not changed. — Probable Kate of Subsidence and Up
heaval. — Relative Age of the ancient Alluvium of the Missis
sippi, and the Northern Drift.

BEFORE leaving the valley of the Mississippi, I shall
take this opportunity to offer some general remarks on
the modern delta and alluvial plain of the great river,
and on those freshwater deposits before described in
the bluffs of Port Hudson, Natchez, Yicksburg, and
Memphis, which I regard as the monuments of a
more ancient alluvial formation, one of high antiquity,
yet formed when the physical geography of the
country already bore a great resemblance to that
now existing, and when, moreover, the land and
waters were inhabited by the same species of terres
trial, fluviatile, and lacustrine mollusca, which now in-

CHAP. XXXIV.] DELTA OF MISSISSIPPI. 243

habit this region, although the land quadrupeds were
almost entirely different.

The delta of the Mississippi may be defined as that
part of the great alluvial slope, which lies below, or
to the south of the branching off of the highest arm,
or that called the Atchafalaya. Above this point,
which is the head of the delta, the Mississippi re
ceives water from its various tributaries ; below, it
gives out again, through numerous arms or chan
nels, the waters which it conveys to the sea. The
delta, so defined, is about 14,000 square miles in
area, and elevated from a few inches to ten feet
above the level of the sea. The greater part of it
protrudes into the Gulf of Mexico, beyond the
general coast line. The level plain to the north,
as far as Cape Girardeau, in Missouri, above the
junction of the Ohio, is of the same character, in
cluding, according to Mr. Forshey, an area of about
16,000 square miles, and is, therefore, larger than
the delta. It is very variable in width from east
to west, being near its northern extremity, or at the
mouth of the Ohio, 50 miles wide, at Memphis 30,
at the mouth of the White River 80, and contracting
again further south, as at Grand Gulf, to 33 miles.
The delta and alluvial plain rise by so gradual a
slope from the sea as to attain at the junction of the
Ohio (a distance of 800 miles by the river) an eleva
tion of only 200 feet above the Gulf of Mexico.

First, in regard to the whole alluvial slope, whether
above or below the present head of the delta, it will
appear, from what has been already said, that sand
is thrown down near the borders of the main river

M 2

244 WOODED SWAMPS. [CHAP. XXXIV.

and its tributaries, and fine mud at more distant
points. The larger portion, however, of the whole
area consists of swamps, supporting a luxuriant
growth of timber, interspersed with lakes, most of
which are deserted river bends. These lakes are
slowly filling up, and every swamp is gradually
becoming shallower, the substances accumulated
in them being, for the most part, of vegetable
origin, unmixed with earthy matter. It is only on
their exterior margins (except after a sudden sub
sidence, during an earthquake like that of 1811—12,)
that the waters of the Mississippi throw down sedi
ment in the interior of any large swamp or lake,
for the reeds, canes, and brushwood, through which
the waters must first pass, cause them to flow slowly,
and to part with all the matter previously held in
mechanical suspension. Long before they reach the
central parts of a morass or lake, they are well
filtered, although still deeply stained by vegetable
matter in a state of decomposition.

Over a large portion of the submerged areas of
the great plain, trees are seen growing everywhere
in the water. Into the deeper water, where no
forest can grow, the trunks of trees are floated, and
many of these sink, when water-logged, to the bottom,
which is also raised by an annual deposit of leaves,
and of peaty matter derived from decaying plants,
of which there is an exuberant growth round the
borders of every swamp. That the admixture of
inorganic matter is very small, has been shown by
the observations of Messrs. Dickeson and Brown,
who state, " that when the woods are burning,

CHAP. XXXIV.] FLOORS OF BLUE CLAY. 245

after an unusually dry season, pits are found burnt
into the ground as far as the fire can descend with
out coming in contact with water, and scarcely any
residuum or earthy matter is left." * They also state
that at the bottom of all the cypress swamps or
brakes, there is found a peculiar layer of tenacious
blue clay, which forms the foundation, or floor, on
which the vegetable matter accumulates. We may
conclude, therefore, that as the roots of the cypress
penetrate far beneath the soil, and project horizon
tally far and wide, those of one tree interlacing
with another, such root-bearino; beds of argillaceous

o o

loam must be very analogous to what are called
fire-clays, so well known to the geologist as oc
curring underneath almost every seam of coal in the
ancient carboniferous rocks, f

Other points of analogy might also be indicated
between the deposits, whether of organic or inorganic
matter, now accumulating in the valley-plain and
delta of the Mississippi, and those of the ancient
carboniferous rocks. "When, for example, depressions
are suddenly caused, as in the " sunk country "
before described, certain wooded areas being sub
merged, the lower parts of the erect trees become
enveloped with sand and mud, the upper portions

* Sillimau's Journal, Second Series, vol. v. p. 17. January,
1848.

f In my former " Travels," I have alluded to the fire-stones
with Stigmaria (now acknowledged to be the root of Sigillaria),
underlying the American coal-seams, as they do those of South
Wales, 3000 miles distant. — " Travels in North America," vol. i.
p. 62.

M 3

246 ANALOGY TO COAL-MEASURES. [CHAP. XXXIV.

rotting away, as must have happened in the case of
the celebrated fossil forest of Dixon-fold, in Lan
cashire, belonging to the ancient coal-measures.* In
the modern alluvial plain, also, river-sand will be
often thrown down, as the Mississippi shifts its
course over spaces on which pure vegetable matter
had been previously accumulating for hundreds or
thousands of years, just as we find sandstone some
times resting immediately upon the old coal-seams ;
and, if there be a long succession of downward move
ments, the thickness of strata, all formed in shallow
water or in swamps, may be indefinitely great.
Should the hilly country, moreover, be distant, pebbles
will no more be seen in the modern sand strewed
over the buried trees and layers of vegetable matter,
than they usually arc in the grits associated with the
coal of ancient date. The phenomena, also, of the
New Madrid earthquake, may help us to explain the
vast geographical area over which, in the course of
ages, dense fiuviatile and lacustrine strata, with in
tercalated beds of vegetable origin, may be made to
extend without any inroads of the sea. For the
inland parts of any hydrographical basin may be aug
mented indefinitely in length and breadth, while the
seaward portions continue unaltered, as the delta
around New Orleans, and the low lands bordering
the Gulf of Mexico, preserved their level unchanged,
while parts of Missouri and Tennessee were lowered.
By duly appreciating the permanent geographical
revolutions which would result from a succession of

* Proceedings of Geol. Society, 1839, p. 139.

CHAP. XXXIV.] DEPTH OF FRESHWATER STRATA. 247

such earthquakes as that of 1811-12, in the territory
of New Madrid, we shall be prevented from em
bracing the theory implied in the language of those
who talk of " the epoch of existing continents." In
treating of deltas, they are in the habit of assuming
that the present mass of alluvial matter which has
been thrown into the sea at the mouths of great
rivers, began to be deposited in all the great hydro-
graphical basins of the world at one and the same
fixed period — namely, when the formation of the
existing continents was completed ; as if the relative
levels of land and sea had, during that time, remained
stationary, or had been affected to so inconsiderable
an amount, as to be unimportant in their influence
on the physical geography of each region, in com
parison with the changes wrought by the rivers, in
converting sea into land. But what we already
know of the deltas of the Po, Indus, Ganges, and
other rivers, leads to a very different conclusion.
The boring of an artesian well at Calcutta, was
carried to the depth of 481 feet, the greater part of
the section being below the level of the sea, and yet
all the beds pierced through were of freshwater
origin, without any intermixture of marine remains.
At different depths, even as far down as 380 feet,
lacustrine shells, and a stratum of decayed wood,
with vegetable soil, which appears to have supported
trees, was met with.* These appearances may readily
be accounted for, by assuming that there was a
gradual subsidence of the ground for ages, which

* See " Principles of Geology," Seventh Edition, 1847, p. 266.

M 4

248 COMPUTATION OF AGE [CHAP. XXXIV.

was as constantly raised by the accession of fluviatile
sediment, so as to prevent any incursion of the sea.
Occasionally there were pauses in the downward
movement, when trees grew on the soil, and vege
table matter of some thickness had time to ac
cumulate.

Recent observations, by Morlot and others, have
demonstrated that, since the time of the Romans,
there has been a general subsidence of the coast at
the head of the Adriatic, to the amount of five feet,
which has not prevented the delta of the Po and
other rivers from advancing on the sea, although it
must have checked their progress. Of the much
greater movements of elevation and depression which
have taken place in the delta of the Indus, especially
those wrought in the year 1819, I have elsewhere
given an account.* It would, therefore, be perfectly
consistent with analogy to find, in the neighbour-
hood^of New Orleans, ancient swamp formations, with
the roots and stumps of erect trees, unmixed with
marine remains, far below the level of the sea, as is
the fact, if I can rely on the information given me
in 1846. t

Finding it impossible to calculate the age of the
delta, from the observed rate of the advance of the
land on the Gulf in each century, I endeavoured
to approximate, by a different method, to a minimum
of the time required for bringing down from the
upper country that large quantity of earthy matter
which is now deposited within the area of the delta.

* Principles, Seventh Edition, p. 437. t See ante, p. 137.

CHAP. XXXIV.] OF DELTA OF MISSISSIPPI. 249

Dr. Riddell communicated to me, at New Orleans,
the result of a series of experiments which he had
made, to ascertain the proportion of sediment con
tained in the waters of the Mississippi. He con
cluded that the mean annual amount of solid matter
was to the water as T^Vj 'm weight, or about 3 oij o
in volume.* Since that period, he has made another
series of experiments, and his tables show that the
quantity of mud held in suspension, increases regu
larly with the increased height and velocity of the
stream. On the whole, comparing the flood season
with that of clearest water, his experiments, con
tinued down to 1849, give an average annual quan
tity of solid matter somewhat less than his first
estimate, but not varying materially from it. From
these observations, and those of Dr. Carpenter and
Mr. Forshey (an eminent engineer, to whom I have
before alluded), on the average width, depth, and
velocity of the Mississippi, the mean annual discharge
of water and sediment were deduced. I then as
sumed 528 feet, or the tenth of a mile, as the pro
bable thickness of the deposit of mud and sand in
the delta ; founding my conjecture chiefly on the
depth of the Gulf of Mexico between the southern
point of Florida and the Balize, which equals, on an
average, 100 fathoms, and partly on some borings,
600 feet deep, in the delta near Lake Pontchar-

* The calculations here given, were communicated to the
British Association in a Lecture which I delivered at South
ampton, in September, 1846. See "Athenaeum Journal,"
Sept. 26. 1846, and "Report of British Association," 1846, p. 1 17.

M 5

250 COMPUTATION OF AGE [CHAP. XXXIV.

train, north of New Orleans, in which the bottom of
the alluvial matter is said not to have been reached.
The area of the delta being about 13,600 square
statute miles, and the quantity of solid matter an
nually brought down by the river 3,702,758,400
cubic feet, it must have taken 67,000 years for the
formation of the whole ; and if the alluvial matter
of the plain above be 264 feet deep, or half that of
the delta, it must have required 33,500 more years
for its accumulation, even if its area be estimated
as only equal to that of the delta, whereas it is in
fact larger.

From information since received, I think it not
improbable that the quantity of water may have
been underrated in this estimate* ; and, if so, a larger

* I allude chiefly to the observations and experiments, on
the velocity of the Mississippi at various depths, made by
Mr. W. II. Sidell, during a Government survey, communicated
to me through the kindness of Mr. Ruggles, of New York,
which, if correct, would lead to the inference that the average
number of cubic feet of water discharged into the Gulf per
second, is considerably greater than Mr. Forshey and Dr. Car
penter deduced from their observations on the velocity of the
stream at different depths. If, as I understand, there exist
documents in the hydrographer's office at Washington, which
would afford more ample data for such calculations, the Govern
ment would confer a boon on the scientific world by publish
ing them without delay. Such experiments as Mr. Sidell's,
which give the velocity at various depths and at different dis
tances from the banks, are the more needed, because it seems
doubtful whether any correct mathematical formulas have as
yet been furnished for calculating the mean rate at which so
deep a river as the Mississippi flows, from observations made
simply on its superficial velocity. I placed all the data given

CHAP. XXXIV.] OF DELTA OF MISSISSIPPI. 251

amount of sediment would have been brought down
from the interior in a given time, and consequently
a deduction would have to be made from the number
of centuries above stated on that account. But, on
the other hand, if it could be shown, by more accurate
experiments and calculations, that the quantity of
water in the above computation was greatly defi
cient, say even one-third less than the real quantity,
I do not imagine that any exaggeration has been
made in the time supposed to have elapsed since the
rivers began to transport their earthy ingredients to
the alluvial plains of Louisiana. The delta is, after
all, a mere fragmentary portion of a larger body of
mud, the finer particles of which never settle down
near the mouths of the Mississippi, but are carried
far out into the Gulf, and there dispersed.

The description which I have given of the great
distance to which the yellow and lighter streams of

me by Messrs. Riddell, Forshey, and Carpenter, in the hands of
my friend, Mr. George Ronnie, F.R.S., to whom we are in
debted for many valuable papers on the application of the
science of hydraulics to rivers (see Report of British Asso
ciation, vol. iii. p. 415. 1834), and, after examining them, he
came to conclusions which did not vary materially from those
which I had previously announced. Mr. James Nicol, As
sistant Secretary of the Geological Society of London, before
he had seen Mr. Sidell's experiments, had expressed to me his
belief that the quantity of water carried to the Gulf by the
Mississippi, must be greater than I had assumed from Mr.
Forshey's calculations, judging from the amount usually as
signed as the annual discharge of rivers having hydrographical
basins smaller than that of the Mississippi.

M G

252 COMPUTATION OF AGE [CHAP. XXXIV.

freshwater are seen extending, from the various
mouths, in the flood-season, into the Gulf ; and still
more, the destruction of the banks and bars of mud
and sand caused by the tide scouring out the chan
nels when the river is low *, and the strength of
the marine current, running ten miles an hour, and
the stories of anchors and heavy ballast cast up by
the breakers high and dry on the shifting shoals
near the extremity of the delta, make me doubt
whether the larger part of that impalpable mud,
which constitutes the bulk of the solid matter car
ried into the sea by the Mississippi, is not lost alto
gether, so far as the progress of the delta is concerned.
So impalpable is the sediment, and so slowly does it
sink, that a glass of water, taken from the Missis
sippi, may remain motionless for three weeks, and
yet all the earthy matter will not have reached the
bottom. If particles so minute are carried by the
current, setting for a great portion of the year from
west to east, across the mouth of the river, into the
Gulf Stream, and so into the Atlantic, they might
easily travel to the banks of Newfoundland before
sinking to the bottom ; and some of them, which left
the head waters of the Missouri in the 49th degree
of north latitude, may, after having gone southwards
to the Gulf, and then northwards to the Great Banks,
have found no resting-place before they had wan
dered for a distance as far as from the pole to the
equator, and returned to the very latitude from
which they set out. Were it not for the peculiar

* See ante, p. 154.

CHAP. XXXIV.] OF DELTA OF MISSISSIPPI. 253

manner in which the Mississippi forms long bars of
sand, which frequently unite with some part of the
coast, so as to dam out the sea and form lagoons, the
deposition of sediment in the delta would be much
less considerable. A lagoon, like Lake Pontchar-
train, once formed, becomes a receptacle of the finest
mud, poured into it by an arm of the great river
during the flood season, and the space thus parted off
from the Gulf by bars of sand, is protected from the
action of the breakers and marine currents.

When I inquired what might be the depth of
fluviatile mud in the suburbs of New Orleans, I was
told that, in making a railroad near Lake Pontchar-
train, piles were driven down sixty feet into the soft
mud or slush, and when a boring was made there, 600
feet deep, beds of gnathodon were found, but no
marine shells.

The depth of the alluvium may vary in different
parts of the great sloping plain; for certain areas, such
as the " sunk country," for example, west of New
Madrid, may have been repeatedly depressed, and
have been always brought up again to the same
superficial level, by the deposition of river mud, or
the growth of vegetable matter.

The age of stumps and erect trunks of the decidu
ous cypress, whether living or buried, retaining their
natural position, at points near the present termina
tion of the delta, ought to be carefully examined, as
they might afford evidence of the minimum of time
which can be allowed for the gain of land on the sea.
Some single trunks in Louisiana are said to contain
from 800 to 2000 rings of annual growth, and Dr.

254 CYPKESS TKEES. [CHAP. XXXIV.

M. W. Dickeson and Mr. A. Brown state, that the
cypress brakes or basins, which fill up gradually, give
place at length to other timber ; but before this hap
pens, the buried cypress stumps often extend through
a deposit of vegetable and sedimentary matter
twenty-five feet thick. " Sections of such filled-up
cypress basins, exposed by the changes in the position
of the river, exhibit undisturbed, perfect, and erect
stumps, in a series of every elevation with respect to
each other, extending from high- water mark down to
at least twenty-five feet below, measuring out a time
when not less than ten fully-matured cypress growths
must have succeeded each other, the average of whose
age could not have been less than 400 years, thus
making an aggregate of 4000 years since the first
cypress tree vegetated in the basin.* There are also
instances where prostrate trunks, of huge dimensions,
are found imbedded in the clay, immediately over
which are erect stumps of trees, numbering no less
than 800 concentric layers."

Michaud, in his famous work on the forest trees of
North America, mentions that stems of this deciduous '
cypress ( Taxodium distichum) are met with in Florida,
and in Southern Louisiana, forty feet in circum
ference above the enlarged base, which is three or
four times that size ; but such individuals dwindle to
nothing before the gigantic trunk near Santa Maria
del Tide, in the province of Oaxaca, in Mexico,
which was first mentioned by Exter, who found its
circumference to be 117 '10 French feet. Zuccarini,

* Silliman's Journal, Second Series, vol. v. p. 17. January,
1848.

CHAP. XXXIV.] ALLUVIAL PLAIN. 255

has lately removed the doubts of De Candolle re
specting this measurement, which was taken above
the dilated base, for that was no less than 200 feet
in circumference. In this stem there would be 5352
rings of annual growth, if one line a year was taken
as the average growth, the deposit of wood becoming
always much smaller in trees of great age ; but Zuc-
carini, in his estimate, thinks it may be safer to
assume 1'6 line as the average, which would even
then give the age of 3512 years for this single tree.

The great number of crescent-shaped lakes to the
westward of the Mississippi, which formerly con
stituted bends in its ancient channel, are also monu
ments of the antiquity of the great plain over which
the river has been wandering. Darby, the geogra
pher, observed that, in the steep banks of the Atchafa-
laya, there are alternations of the blueish clay of the
Mississippi and of the red ochreous earth peculiar
to Bed River, proving that the waters of these two
streams once occupied alternately considerable tracts
below their present point of union.* Since their
junction (an event, the date of which is unknown),
the waters and sediment of the Red River and Mis
sissippi have been thoroughly mixed up together,
before any deposition of their mud takes place in the
lower country. It is evident, therefore, that, when we
arc enabled, by geological observations such as those
of Darby, to distinguish the older from the newer
portions, even of the modern alluvial plain, we may
obtain more aid in our chronological computations

* Darby's Louisiana, p. 103.

256 UPKAISED TERRACES [CHAP. XXXIV.

founded on rings of growth in buried trees ; for we
may then add the years deduced from stumps buried
in the modern parts of the delta, to those proved by
the structure of trees included in mud of earlier date.

After considering the age and origin of the modern
deposits of the Mississippi and its tributaries, we
have still to carry back our thoughts to the era of
the freshwater strata seen in the bluffs which bound
the great valley. These, in their southern termi
nation, have evidently formed an ancient coast-line,
beyond which the modern delta has been pushed for
ward into the sea. Let a, b (fig. 10.) represent the
alluvial plain of the Mississippi, bounded on its
eastern side at Vicksburg, as before described, by
the bluffs d, at the foot of which are seen the Eo
cene strata,/, the upper part of the bluff being com
posed of shelly loam, or loess, of freshwater origin,
d, e (No. 2.).

At Memphis, Port Hudson, and many other
places, loam of the same age as No. 2., rising from 50
to 200 feet above the level of the sea, constitutes the
entire bluffs, forming a table-land like that repre
sented at d, c. Similar deposits, «, c (fig. 10.), recur
in Louisiana, on the western side of the great valley ;
but they are not, I am informed, denuded so as to
present a steep bluff at a. They rest equally on
Eocene strata, /(No. 3.)

From what has been said of the species of shells
contained in the loam, d, e, at Natchez, and in other
localities, from the remains also of associated ter
restrial animals, and from the buried trees of Port
Hudson, we have inferred that these deposits (No. 2.),

CHAP. XXXIV.] OF NATCHEZ AND OHIO. 257

are the monuments of an ancient alluvial plain, of an
age long anterior to that through which the Mis-
Fig. 10.

VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

C

Louisiana. Missi. R-

j ( Vicksburg. "o

2 "~

3 Q 1 :i 4

1. Alluvium. 2. Loess. 3. /. Eocene. 4. Cretaceous.

sissippi now flows, which was inhabited by land and
freshwater mollusca agreeing with those now ex
isting, and by quadrupeds now for the most part
extinct.

In my former (i Travels in North America," I de
scribed some ancient terraces of gravel, sand, and
loam, occurring everywhere in the valley of the
Ohio, and gave a section of them as they are seen at
Cincinnati.* I pointed out that the included fossil
shells demonstrate the fluviatile and modern origin of
the deposits, and suggested that their present position
could only be explained by supposing, first, a gra
dual sinking down of the land after the original exca
vation of the valley, during which period the gravel
and sand were thrown down, and then an upheaval
of the same valley, when the river cut deep channels
through the freshwater beds.f Certain swamp form
ations observable in the valleys of small tributaries
of the Ohio, such as those of Big Bone Lick, in

* Travels in North America, fig. 9., vol. ii. p. 59. chap. xvii.
f The second terrace (c, fig. 9. ibid.) at Cincinnati, may
imply a second oscillation.

258 EXTINCT QUADRUPEDS. [CHAP. XXXIV.

Kentucky, and Mill Creek, near Cincinnati, are of
geological celebrity, in consequence of the great
number of skeletons of extinct mammalia, such as
the megalonyx, mastodon, elephant, and others, which
seem to have lived, and have been mired in an
cient morasses, before the land began to sink; for
the great mass of fluviatile loam and gravel forming
the terraces, has been superimposed on the black
bog earth containing such bones. The teeth, how
ever, and bones of similar extinct quadrupeds, es
pecially the mastodon, are occasionally met with
scattered through the incumbent gravel and loam, so
that the same assemblage of quadrupeds continued
to inhabit the valleys while the first change of level
or the subsidence was going on. By simply extending
to the valley of the Mississippi, the theory before
applied to that of the Ohio, we may, as already stated
at p. 183. in reference to the Port Hudson bluffs,
account for the geological appearances seen in the
larger and more southern area.

It has been long ascertained that in Norway and
Sweden a gradual rise of the land above the sea has
been going on for many centuries, producing an ap
parent fall in the waters of the adjoining ocean. The
rate of elevation increases as we proceed northwards
from Gothenburg to the North Cape, the two extre
mities of this line being distant more than a thousand
geographical miles from each other, and we know not
how much farther north or south the motion may be
prolonged under water. The rise of the land, which
is more than five feet in a hundred years at the North
Cape, gradually diminishes to d few inches in a cen-

CHAP. XXXIV] OSCILLATION OF LEVEL. 259

tury in the neighbourhood of Stockholm, to the
south of which the upward movement ceases ; and in
Scania,, the southernmost part of Sweden, appears
to give place to a slight movement in an opposite
or downward direction.*

We also know that part of the west coast of
Greenland, extending about 600 miles north and
south, has been subsiding for three or four centuries
between latitudes 60° and 69° N.f But whether,
in this instance, the rate of depression varies in
different parts of the sinking area, has not yet been
determined. In speculating, however, on the manner
in which the valleys of the Mississippi and its tribu
taries may have been affected by subterranean move
ments, we are at least authorised by analogy to
assume that the downward movement may have
been greater in the more inland part of the con
tinent, just as we have seen in 1811-12, that the
" sunk country" west of New Madrid subsided,
while the level of the delta at New Orleans under
went no sensible change. If, then, the vertical
movement in the interior, in and near the valley of
the Ohio, for example, were greater than near the
Gulf, as if, in the former case, it were two and a half
feet in a century, and near the sea only half that
amount, it would follow that the general fall of the
rivers would be lessened. They would deposit all
their heavier, and some even of their finer sediment,
in their channels, instead of having power to carry it
to the sea. They would fill up their beds, and often

* Principles of Geology, Seventh Ed. p. 506.
t See " Principles," ibid.

260 OSCILLATION OF LEVEL. [CHAP. XXXIV.

overflow the adjoining plains, raising their level by
repeated layers of fluviatile matter or silt, frequently
containing the shells of land and amphibious mol-
lusks.

If, even now, the Mississippi, when flooded, dams
up the mouths of its great tributaries, and transforms
them for months into temporary lakes, it must have
produced the same effect to a far greater extent if at
any time the general fall of the country towards the
sea was less rapid.

In narrow valleys bounded by ancient rocks 500
or 600 feet high, such as that of the Ohio, the
alluvial formation could never acquire great breadth.
Its thickness would depend entirely on the length of
time throughout which the subsidence was prolonged.
But nearer the sea, where the continent falls with a
gentle slope towards the Gulf, the encroachment of
the freshwater deposits (No. 2. fig. 11. p. 262.),
of the great river on the tertiary strata (No. 3.),
constituting the original bluffs on its eastern and
western boundaries, might be very great.

If we then suppose the downward movement to
cease, and to be at length converted into an ascend
ing one, the rate of upheaval being greatest in the
more inland country, the fall of every river, and con
sequently its velocity, would begin immediately to
augment. Their power of carrying earthy matter
seaward, and of scouring out and deepening their
channels, would be greater and greater, till at length,
after a lapse of many thousand years, each of them
would have eroded a deep channel or valley through
the fluviatile formation previously accumulated. The

CHAP. XXXIV.] OSCILLATION OF LEVEL. 261

surface of what was once the river-plain at the period
of greatest depression, would remain fringing the val
ley sides as a terrace, apparently flat, but in reality
sloping down with the general inclination of the
valley. Everywhere this terrace would present cliffs
of gravel and sand facing the river.

After these changes, the fundamental strata (Nos.
3,4, 5. %. 11. p. 262.) might be restored nearly to
their ancient positions; the freshwater beds (No. 2.)
having been raised, and having suffered great de
nudation.

It is not improbable that the same series of move
ments gave rise to the accumulation and present
position of marine strata of comparatively modern
date, forming the lower terrace near Darien in
Georgia* which is indicated at 2*, in the annexed
section (fig. 11.). The reader will remember that the
remains of the megatherium, mastodon, elephant,
Harlanus, equus, and other extinct species of land
quadrupeds, are there associated with marine shells,
of species agreeing with those now inhabiting the
Atlantic.

On the other hand, there are proofs in Texas of
the prevalence of the same succession of subterranean
movements far to the south-west, along the country
bordering the Gulf of Mexico : for on the Brazos
river there are beds of loam, or loess, examined by
Dr. Dickeson, and, when at New Orleans, I saw the
bones of extinct quadrupeds brought from that de
posit. Among them was the jaw-bone of a tapir,

* See ante, vol. i. p. 346.

S g d,

li:

K|

jiils

0 *3 O P r."

1 ^1^

C

So

I

fcJOM

SISS!IM

.

s.

CHAP. XXXIV.] PEOBABLE RATE OF SUBSIDENCE. 263

apparently identical with the South American species;
remains of the mastodon, elephant, ox, and other
mammalia, much resembling, on the whole, those
found at Natchez and on the Ohio.

As to the seaward extremity of the ancient delta,
the effect of the gradual depression of land above
assumed would be to cause its mud and sand to
increase in thickness, instead of augmenting in area.
When at length the movement was reversed, and
the freshwater deposits began to rise, the action of
the sea would undermine them, and, aided by the
river and tides, sweep much of them away, and per
haps shape out a bay. But the swamp-mud, with
innumerable interlaced roots of cypress and oiher
trees, might offer considerable resistance ; and, after
a time, the river charged with sediment would throw
down bars, and form a breakwater, to protect the
newly upraised deposits from annihilation.

In regard to the time consumed in accomplishing
the great oscillation of level which first depressed
so large an area to the depth of 200 feet or more,
and then restored it to its former position, it is im
possible, in the present state of science, to form more
than a conjecture as to the probable mean rate of
movement. To suppose an average sinking and up
heaval of two and a half feet in a century, might be
sufficient, or would, perhaps, be too great, judging
from the mean rate of change in Scandinavia, Green
land, the north of the Adriatic, and other regions.
Even such an oscillation, if simultaneously continuous
over the whole area, first in one direction, and then
in another, and without any interruptions or minor

264 NORTHERN DRIFT. [CHAP. XXXIV.

oscillations, would require sixteen thousand years for
its accomplishment. But the section at Cincinnati
seems to imply two oscillations, and there would pro
bably be pauses, and a stationary period, when the
downward movement ceased, and was not yet changed
into an upward one. Nor ought we to imagine that
the whole space was always in motion at once.

When we have at length done our best to trace
back the history of the more modern and more
ancient alluvial formations of the Mississippi, the
question still remains, what may be their age rela
tively to the great body of the drift containing erratic
blocks in the northern latitudes of this same con
tinent. The terraces of gravel and loam bordering

o o

the Ohio, and those on a larger scale, but of the
same age, which constitute many of the eastern bluffs
of the Mississippi, tire evidently features of sub
ordinate importance in the physical configuration of
the continent. But to explain the origin of the
northern drift of the Canadian lake district, and of
the St. Lawrence, as I have endeavoured to show in
my former " Travels," requires a reference to such
changes as would imply the submergence of a great
part of the continent drained by the head waters of
the Mississippi, Missouri, and their northern tribu
taries.* For this and other reasons, into which 1
cannot now enter, I presume that the great mass of
the most elevated drift in the north, and the glacial
grooving and polishing of the rocks, although they
belong to a very modern era in the earth's history,

* See vol. i. ch. ii. p. 47. and vol. ii. ch. xix. p. 99.

CHAP. XXXIV.] XOHT1IEUX DRIFT. 265

were nevertheless anterior in date to the loam of
Natchez and Vicksburg.

There exist in Canada, in the Niagara district, in
New York, and other States north of the Ohio, lacus
trine and swamp deposits of marl and bog-earth, includ
ing the bones of extinct quadrupeds, such as the mas
todon, elephant, castoroides, and others, associated
with land and freshwater shells of recent species,
which are decidedly post-glacial, and often found in
hollows in the drift. These may be of contempo
raneous date with the loam of Port Hudson and
Natchez.

The northern drift, however, is by no means all of
the same age, and as the period of glaciers and ice
bergs freighted with erratics is still going on, and has
now a wide range in the temperate parts of the
Atlantic, bordering the eastern shores of North
America, so must we naturally suppose that certain
parts of the drift, especially those found at lower
levels, and near the sea, may not be more ancient than
the loam of the western bluffs of the Mississippi.

VOL. II. N

266 DEPARTURE FROM NEW MADRID. [CHAP. XXXV.

CHAP. XXXV.

Departure from New Madrid. — Night-watch for Steamers. —
Scenery of the Ohio River. — Mount Vemon, Ornithology. —
No Undergrowth in Woods. — Spring Flowers. — Visit to
Dr. Dale Owen, New Harmony. — Fossil Forest of erect
Trees in Coal-measures. — Movers migrating Westward. —
Voyage to Louisville. — Professional Zeal of one of " the Pork
Aristocracy." — Fossil Coral-reef at the Falls of the Ohio,
Louisville, — Fossil Zoophytes as perfect as recent Stone-corals.

March 27. 1846. — WE took up our quarters in the
wharf-boat at New Madrid in readiness to sail by
the first steamer bound for the Ohio, for I wished to
visit New Harmony in Indiana, and there was some
risk of being detained several days. The first
steamer we hailed, was bound for St. Louis, the
next for the Cumberland river, in Tennessee, and a
third which might have taken us to Mount Vernon,
in Indiana., where I meant to disembark, was un
willing to lose time by stopping, the captain shout
ing out that she was full of passengers, and heavily
laden.

Before retiring to rest, I engaged with the keeper
of the boat that he should appoint a good night-
watch, arid an hour after dark, I was awakened by
the loud puffing and splashing of a steamer, evidently
close at hand. Going on deck, I found the faithless
black sentinel fast asleep. It was already too late to
hail the vessel, but we made out that she was

CHAP. XXXV.] NIGHT-WATCH FOR STEAMERS. 2G7

the Nirnrod, and I afterwards learnt, that in the
course of her voyage she was snagged, both her
chimneys thrown down, and her boiler pierced, so
that we had a narrow escape. I now gave the
keeper of the wharf-boat to understand that the
whole town of New Madrid should be informed next
day in what manner their night-watches were kept,
which piqued him, and lie then lighted a large fire on
the bank ; but having no longer any faith in the sen
tinel, I could not sleep, so I determined to keep a
look-out myself. Fortunately another steamer soon
appeared ; and, almost before she was fairly alongside,
a party of active negroes leapt upon our deck, each
snatching up an article of our luggage, while the
clerk ushered us over the plank into a brilliantly
lighted saloon. The change of scene to travellers
who had been roughing it for several days under a
humble roof, talking with trappers about the watery
wilderness of the " sunk country," and who had just
stepped out of a dark half-furnished wharf- boat, was
more like the fiction of a fairy-tale, than a real in
cident in an ordinary journey. Some musicians
were playing at one end of the room, which was 150
feet long, and a gay young party from New Orleans
were dancing a quadrille. At the other end we were
delighted to see a table covered with newspapers, for
we were nearly a week in arrear of news, and their
columns were filled with the recent debates of the
English House of Commons. There were also
many articles reprinted from the best European pe
riodicals, quarterly and monthly, besides those pub
lished in New England and New York. Nor were

N 2

268 SCENERY OX THE OHIO. [CHAP. XXXV.

any of the advantages afforded by this floating palace
more like an eastern tale of enchantment, than the
thought, as we went to our berths, that before we
rose next morning to breakfast we should be trans
ported more than a hundred miles on our route
northwards against the current of a mighty river.
March 29. — Passed Cairo in the ni<>ht, and next

^> *

morning were at Smithland on the Ohio, at the mouth
of the Cumberland river, having Kentucky on our
right hand, and Illinois on the left. Limestone
cliffs, bounding the valley, were a welcome sight,
after the eye had been dwelling for so many weeks on
fiat and level regions. Although we had not yet
ascended the river to a height of much more than
200 feet above the level of the sea, the climate had
changed, and we were told that snow had fallen the
day before. We observed that the red-bud, or Judas-
tree, was not yet in flower.

On reaching the mouth of the "Wabash river, which
divides Illinois from Indiana, I learnt that when the
ice breaks up there in the spring, it is often packed
into such masses that, before melting, they float down
with gravel frozen on to them as far as New Ma
drid. This fact may explain the coarseness of the
materials observable in the shoals of the Mississippi,
fit low water, near Natchez, and still farther dowrn ;
and may perhaps throw light on some large boulders,
of a former period, in the ancient gravel below the
shelly loam of Natchez.

At Mount Vernon we landed, and I collected there
many fossil shells, of freshwater and land species, from
a terrace of yellow loam, elevated many yards above
high-water mark, on the Ohio. Returning from my

CHAP. XXXV.] ORNITHOLOGY. 260

excursion, I fell in with a naturalist of the place,
armed with a rifle, and carrying some wild birds
which he had shot. He was a shoemaker by trade,
and had a collection of more than 150 well-stuffed
birds from the neighbourhood. He told me that the

O

notes I heard here in the woods were chiefly those
of the red-bird, but that some of the most musical
were the song of a brown thrush, called, in Indiana,
the mocking bird, but differing from the real mu
sician of that name, which, though abounding at
New Madrid, does not range so far north as the
Ohio. Conversing with him, I learnt that the loud
tapping of the large red-headed woodpecker, so com
mon a sound in the American forests, is not produced,
as I had imagined, by the action of the beak perfo
rating the bark or wood, but is merely a succession of
sharp blows on the trunk of the tree, after which the
bird is seen to listen attentively, to know if there
are any insects within. Should they stir in their
alarm, and betray the fact of their being " at home,"
the woodpecker begins immediately to excavate a
hole in the rotten timber.

I had promised to pay a visit to Dr. David Dale
Owen, the State geologist of Indiana, and hired a
carriage which conveyed us to New Harmony, situ
ated on the Wabash river sixty miles above its
junction with the Ohio. On our way across the
country, we went through a continuous forest, con
sisting chiefly of oak, beech, and poplar, without any
undergrowth, and in this respect differing remarkably
from the wooded valleys and hills of the Alleghanies,
and the region eastward of those mountains, as well

N 3

270 SPRING FLOWERS. [CriAP. XXXV.

as all parts of New England. Here there were no
kalmias or azaleas, or sweet fern, or candleberry, or
other evergreens. The green carpet beneath the
trees was made up largely of mosses, and among
them was that beautiful European species of feather-
moss, Hypnum proliferum, in great plenty. The
trunks of many trees were spotted by a jet-black
fungus resembling a lichen. Below the brandies we
were pleased to gather several spring flowers, the
white anemone, the blood-root (Sanguinaria cana-
densis), the dog-tooth violet (Erytlironium america-
num\ and the spring-beauty (Claytonia viryinica).

Though a large proportion of the mosses and other
cryptogamia are identical with those of Europe, we
saw no flower which was not peculiar to America.
Many European plants, however, are making their
way here, such as the wild camomile, and the thorn-
apple (Datura Stramonium) ; and it is a curious fact,
which I afterwards learnt from Dr. Dale Owen, that
when such foreigners are first naturalised they over
run the country with amazing rapidity, and are quite
a nuisance. But they soon grow scarce, and after
eight or ten years can hardly be met Avith.

We spent several days very agreeably at ISTew
Harmony, where we were most hospitably welcomed
by Dr. and Mrs. Dale Owen. The town is pleasantly
situated in a valley watered by the Wabash, which
here divides the States of Indiana and Illinois. Some
large buildings, in the German style of architecture,
stand conspicuous, and were erected by Rapp ; but
the communities founded by him, and afterwards by
Robert Owen of Lanark, have disappeared, the prin
cipal edifice being now appropriated as a public

CHAP. XXXV.] NEW HARMONY. 271

museum, in which I found a good collection of geo
logical specimens, both fossils and minerals, made
during the State survey, and was glad to learn that
the Legislature, with a view of encouraging science,
has exempted this building from taxes. Lectures on
chemistry and geology are given here in the winter.
Many families of superior intelligence, English, Swiss,
and German, have settled in the place, and there is a
marked simplicity in their manner of living which
reminded us of Germany. They are very sociable,
and there were many private parties where there was
music and dancing, and a public assembly once a
week, to one of which we went, where quadrilles
and waltzes were danced, the band consisting of
amateur musicians.

Say, the eminent conchologist, who died at the
age of forty-five, formerly resided at New Harmony ;
and recently Prince Maximilian, of Neuwied, and
the naturalists who accompanied him, passed a winter
here. We found also, among the residents, a brother
of Mr. Maclure, the geologist, who placed his excellent
library and carriage at our disposal. Pie lends his
books freely amongst the citizens, and they are much
read. We were glad to hear many recent publica
tions, some even of the most expensively illustrated
works, discussed and criticised in society here. We
were also charmed to meet with many children happy
and merry, yet perfectly obedient ; and once more to
see what, after the experience of the last two or three
months, struck us as a singular phenomenon in the
New World, a sliy child!

I made some geological excursions with Dr. Owen

N 4

272 XEW HARMONY. [CHAP. XXXV.

and bis friend. Mr. Bolton, to see the (e carboni
ferous rocks," of which this region is constituted, and
the shelly loam, like that of Natchez, which has
evidently once filled up to a considerable height the
valley of the Wabash, and through which the running
waters have re-excavated the present valley.

There is no church or place of public worship in
Xew Harmony, a peculiarity which we never re
marked in any town of half the size in the course of
our tour in the United States. Being here on week
days only, I had no opportunity of observing whether
on Sundays there are any meetings for social wor
ship. I heard that when the people of Evansville
once reproached the citizens of this place for having
no churches, they observed that they had also no
shops for the sale of spirituous liquors, which is still
a characteristic of Xew Harmony ; whereas Evans
ville, like most of the neighbouring towns of Indiana,
abounds in such incentives to intemperance.

April 3. — Left Xew Harmony for Evansville, on
the Ohio, Mr. Maclure having kindlv lent us his
carriage and horses. ~\Ve were accompanied by Dr.
Dale Owen and Mr. Bolton. On the way, we visited
Ivimball's mill, in the township of Robinson, in Poser
county, fourteen miles north-west of Evansville, where
a fine example is seen of upright fossil trees belong
ing to a species of Sigillaria. These are imbedded
in strata of argillaceous shale, or hardened mud, which
constitute the upper part of the great Illinois coal
field, and above them lies a horizontal layer of sand
stone, while a seam of coal, eighteen inches thick, is
observed about eighteen feet below the roots. Having
borrowed spades from the neighbouring mill, we dug

CHAP. XXXV.] FOSSIL TREES, INDIANA. 273

out the earth from round one of the buried trees,
and exposed a trunk four feet eight inches high, from
the bottom of which the roots were seen spreading
out as in their natural position. There were two
other fossil trees near it, both apparently belonging
to the same species of SigiUaria. The bark, con
verted into coal, displayed the scars left by the at
tachment of the leaves, but no internal structure was
preserved in the mud, now forming a cylindrical mass
within the bark. The diameter of the three trunks
was from 18 inches to 2 feet, and their roots were in
terlaced. A great number of others, found in like
manner in an erect posture, have been removed in
working the same quarry. The fossil plants obtained
here, and in other parts of the Indiana coal-field,
are singularly like those in other carboniferous
strata in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Xova Scotia, and Eu
rope. Among them occur species of ferns of the
genera Pecapteris and Cyclopteris. and three plants,
Neuropteris flexuosa, JY. cordata, and Lepidodendron
oboi-atum, all European species, and common to 'the
Alleghanies and Xova Scotia.

The three large fossil trees above described as
newly exposed to view, were standing erect tinder
the spreading roots of one living oak, and it is
wonderful to reflect on the myriads of ages which
have intervened between the period when the ancient
plants last saw the light, and the era of this modern
forest, the vegetation of which would scarcely afford,
except in the case of the ferns, any generic resem
blance, yet where the trees are similar in stature, up
right attitude, and the general form of their roots.

274 MOVERS MIGRATING WESTWARD. [CHAP. XXXV.

As we approached Evansville, we passed a German
farm, where horses were employed to tread out the
maize, and another where vines were cultivated on
the side of a hill. At one turn of the road, in the
midst of the wood, we met a man with a rifle, car
rying in his hand an empty pail for giving water to
his horse, and followed at a short distance by his wife,
leading a steed, on which was a small sack. " It
probably contains," said our companions, " all their
worldly goods ; they are movers, and have their
faces turned westward, a small detachment of that
great army of emigrants, which is steadily moving
on every year towards the llocky Mountains. This
young married couple may perhaps go down to the
Mississippi, and buy, for a few dollars, some acres of
land, near a wooding station. The husband will fell
timber, run up a log cabin, and receive ready money
from the steam-boats, which burn the wood. At the
end of ten or fifteen years, by which time some of
their children will have become profitable servants,
they may have put by 2000 dollars, bought a farm,
and be living in a frame-house."

The very moment of our arrival at Evansville, a fine
steam-boat, the Sultana, came in sight, and we found,
among the passengers, some agreeable acquaintances,
whom we had known at New Orleans and Natchez.

As some of these large vessels are much more ex
pensive than others, Americans of the richer class,
when making a long voyage, choose them purposely,
as in England we take places in a first-class railway
carriage, that they may be less thrown into contact
with ruder travellers. One of our friends, a naval
officer, speaking of the improvement of society in the

CHAP. XXXV.] VOYAGE TO LOUISVILLE. 275

Western Stales, said that duelling and drinking had
greatly diminished in the last fifteen years. He re
lated one of the strange scenes he had witnessed at a
dinner-party, only a few years ago, at the house of a
judge, in a town on the banks of the Mississippi.
A quarrel had arisen, when one of the guests took
out a pen-knife, and stabbed the judge in the side,
so that the blood spirted out. The judge himself
immediately drew out a bowie knife, and his antago
nist, at the same instant, a pistol, and it then ap
peared that every other individual was armed with
knives or pistols. The narrator admitted, that as he
was travelling, he had also pistols upon him. For
tunately some cool, judicious persons of the party
interposed in time to prevent farther mischief.

I fell into conversation with an intelligent well-
dressed passenger, who, as we sailed by the town of
Utica, in Indiana, remarked that it was too near the
large city of Louisville to thrive greatly ; and in
speculating on the future prospects of the West, he
said that by the census of 1840, it was proved that
the Atlantic States had about nine and a half mil
lions of inhabitants, while the States lying west of
the mountains, and between the great lakes and the
Gulf of Mexico, numbered about six millions four
hundred thousand. Now it is believed that the census
of 1850 will show the population of the whole
country to have changed its centre to the west of
the mountains, and, under a system of universal suf
frage, the centre of population becomes the centre
of political power. After having been much inte
rested with the information which I gained from this

v 6

276 PORK MERCHANT. [CHAP. XXXV

companion, although occasionally struck with his vio
lation of the rules of ordinary good manners, I was
trying to divine to what class in society he might be
long, when he began to enlarge on the number of
hogs killed last year in Cincinnati, which exceeded
all former seasons, amounting to 300,000, and to
describe to me how the streets, in killing time, were
blocked up with barrels of salt pork for exportation,
so that it was not easy to pass in a carriage. He
then asked me abruptly, " How many hogs do you
think I killed last season ?" Imagining that he might
be a farmer, I said, 300. He exclaimed, " 18,000,
and all of them despatched in thirty-five days ! " He
next began to boast that one of his men could evis
cerate more hogs in one day than any other hand in
Kentucky : and, placing himself in the attitude of his
favourite executioner, he gave me such a minute de
scription of his mode of operating, and dwelt on it
with so much zest, as to make me feel satisfied that,
as Thomas Diafoirus, in the " Maladc Imaginaire,"
proposed to treat his mistress with " a dissection," so
this member of the " pork aristocracy" of the West,
would never doubt that such feats of professional
dexterity as he loved to dilate upon, must command
the admiration of all men who have the slightest
feeling for superior artistical skill.

The distance from Evansville to Louisville was
205 miles, and on both sides of the river were hills of
limestone or sandstone, of the coal formation, 300
feet high, frequently presenting steep and picturesque
cliffs. Everywhere I observed a flat terrace of loam,
or loess, bordering the river, sometimes on the side
of Kentucky, sometimes on that of Indiana.

CHAP. XXXV.] FOSSIL CORAL REEF. 277

I had found this ledge, both at Mount Yernon and
at Evansville, to contain land and freshwater shells,
At the last-mentioned town, where the terrace was
from twenty to thirty feet high, one of the lower
beds of coarse materials was full of Paludina and the
valves of a Unio, both of living species ; yet with
them were included, in the same gravelly and shelly
mass, the well-preserved bones of the megalonyx.

The coal-measures had given place to an older
series of strata, the Devonian, when we reached the
Falls of the Ohio, at Louisville, where are saw the river
foaming over its rocky bed. I first landed at New
Albany, in Indiana, nearly opposite Louisville, that
I might visit Dr. Clapp, and see his splendid collec
tion of fossil corals. He accompanied me to the bed
of the river, where, although the water was not at
its lowest, I saw a grand display of what may be
termed an ancient coral reef, formed by zoophytes,
which nourished in a sea of earlier date than the
carboniferous period. The ledges of horizontal lime
stone, over which the water flows, belong to the old
red sardstone, or Devonian group, and the softer
parts of the stone have decomposed and wasted away,
so that the harder calcareous corals stand out in re
lief. Many branches of these zoophytes project
from their erect stems precisely as if they were
living. Among other species I observed large masses,
not less than five feet in diameter, of Favosites
f/othlandica, with its beautiful honeycomb struc
ture well displayed, and, by the side of it, the Favis-
tella, combining a similar honeycombed form with
the star of the Astrcea. There was also the cup-
shaped Cyathophyllum, and the delicate network of

278 FOSSIL CORAL KEEP. [CHAP. XXXV.

the Fenestella, and that elegant and well-known
European species of fossil, called " the chain coral,"
Catenipora cscharoides, with a, profusion of others,
which it would be tedious to all but the geologist to
enumerate. These coralline forms were mingled
with the joints, stems, and occasionally the heads, of
lily encrinites. Although hundreds of fine speci
mens have been detached from these rocks, to enrich
the museums of Europe and America, another crop is
constantly working its way out, under the action of the
stream, and of the sun and rain, in the warm season
when the channel is laid dry. The waters arc now
twenty feet above their lowest, and more than forty
feet below their highest level, so that large spaces of
bare rock are exposed to view.

On one of the window-sills of Dr. Clapp's library
was displayed a group of these ancient corals, and, in
the other window, a set of recent corals from the
West Indian seas, of the genera Meandrina, Astrea,
Madrepora, and others ; some of them as heavy and
stony as those of older date, their pores, foramina, and
minute microscopic structure, not being more dis
tinctly preserved. No one but a zoologist would
have been able to guess which set were of modern,
and which of ancient origin. Yet so old are the
fossils, that they are referable to an era antecedent
to the Alleghanies, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, nay,
even to the time when by far the greater part of
the materials composing these mountain-chains were
slowly elaborated beneath the ocean.

CHAP. XXXVI. ] LOUISVILLE. 279

CHAP. XXXVI.

Louisville. — Nolle Site for a Commercial City. — Geology, —
Medical Students. — Academical Rotation in Office. — Epis*
copal Church. — Preaching against the Reformation. — Service
in Slack Methodist Church. — Improved Condition of Negroes
in Kentucky. — A coloured Slat- e married as a free ]\'hite. — •
Voyage to Cincinnati. — Naturalised English Artizan gam
bling. — Sources of Anti-British Antipathies — Progress of
Cincinnati. — Increase of German Settlers. — Democracy of
Romanists. — Geology of Mill Creek. — Land Tortoises. —
Observatory. — Cultivation of the Vine. — Sculpture by Hiram
Powers.

April 5. 1846. — FROM Xew Albany we crossed the
river to Louisville, the metropolis of Kentucky, and
found the Gait House the best hotel we had been in
since we left the St. Louis at Xew Orleans. On our
way through the streets, we saw written in large
letters, over a smith's shop, the word " blacksmithy,"
and another inscription ran thus : — " Cash paid for
coon, mink, wild-cat, beaver, musk-rat, otter, bear,
wolf, and deer-skins ;" which reminded us that this
city, being the first place where large vessels coming
up the river are stopped by the Falls, is the natural
emporium for the produce of the western hunting
grounds. A more noble site for a great commercial
town cannot be imagined ; and several merchants ex
pressed to me their opinion, that Cincinnati, founded
at a later date, would not have outstripped her rival
in the race, so as to number now a population of
nearly 100,000 souls, more than double that of Louis-

280 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY. [CHAP. XXXVI.

ville, but for the existence of slavery, and a large
negro population in Kentucky. Besides the disad
vantages always arising from the partition of a
country between two races, evils which emancipation
cannot put an end to, Kentucky suffers from the
decided preference shown to the right bank of the
river by the best class of new settlers from the north
eastern States, who choose the Free State of Ohio
for their residence, instead of the Slave State on the
left bank.

I made a geological excursion with Dr. Yandell,
one of the Professors of the University of this place,
into the neighbourhood, going to the summit of a
hill called Button-Mould Knob, so named from the
joints of encrinites with which the lower strata of the
carboniferous formation are charged. Here we en
joyed a wide prospect of the surrounding country,
which, if all the valleys were filled up, would form
an even table-land, the nearly horizontal strata having
been evidently planed off at a certain level by the
denuding action of the sea. The valley of the Ohio
forms the principal break in a region otherwise void
of any striking feature in its natural scenery. A
few spring flowers only were to be seen, the most
plentiful being the Houstonia and the Claytonia.

We went to an evening party at the house of one
of the Professors of the University, and met many of
his colleagues, and some medical students. Two of
the latter informed me, that they had been sent to
London to finish their course of study, having been
brought up to feel great respect and veneration for
English educational establishments. They had been

CHAP. XXXVI.] MEDICAL STUDENTS. 281

received kindly and politely by the professors, but
the prejudices of the majority of their fellow pupils
against the institutions of the United States, and
still more their rude remarks about the vulgarity
of all Americans (of whom they knew scarcely any
thing), had so wounded their national feelings, that
they had written home to entreat their parents to
allow them to attend classes at Paris, or in some
German University, to which they had reluctantly
assented. These young men, being of good families
in Kentucky, were gentlemanlike in their manners,
in this respect decidedly above the average standard of
students of the same profession in England, and they
spoke with no bitterness even on this annoying topic.
Talking over academical matters, some elders of the
company complained of the wish of the democratic
party to apply their favourite dogma of " rotation in
office," or " let every man have his turn," not only to
members of the executive and the election of judges,
but actually to University professors. " You may
amuse your countrymen," said they, " on your re
turn, by telling them of the wisdom of our sovereign
rulers, who would shorten to a minimum the term of
service even of men who fill literary or scientific
chairs." I informed them that nearly the whole
University lectures at Oxford and Cambridge, had of
late years, in opposition to earlier usage, been trans
ferred to temporary occupants of tutorships, who
looked forward to the resigning of their academical
functions as soon as they could afford to marry, or
could obtain church preferment ; so that the extreme
democracy of Kentucky would at least have no

282 EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [CHAP. XXXVI.

claim to originality 3 should they apply their maxim
of rotation in office to a body of academical lecturers.
On Sunday we attended service in an Episcopal
church. The young preacher dwelt largely on the
supreme authority of the Church, and lamented
that many dogmas and pious usages, which had re
ceived the unbroken sanction of fifteen centuries,
should have been presumptuously set at naught by
the rebellious spirit of the sixteenth century, the
great intellectual movement of which he described as
marked by two characteristics, " nonsense and philoso
phy;" nor was it easy to discover which of these two
influences, in their reference to matters ecclesiastical,
were most evil in his sight. After a long dissertation in
this strain, he called up to him a number of intelligent
looking young girls to be catechized, and I never saw
a set of children with more agreeable or animated
countenances, or who displayed more of that modest
reverence and entire unreflecting trust in their teacher,
which it is so pleasing to see in young pupils. That
some of the questions should have reference to the
doctrines just laid down in the preceding discourse,
was to be expected. One of the last of the interroga
tories, "Who wrote the Prayer-book?" puzzled the
whole class. After waiting in vain for an answer, the
minister exclaimed, "Your mother;" and made a short
pause, during which I saw the girls exchange quick
glances, and I found time to imagine that each might
be exclaiming mentally to herself, "Can he mean my
mother?" when he added, in a solemn and emphatic
tone, " Your mother, the Church !" Had this congre
gation belonged to any other than the Anglican Church,

CHAP. XXXVI.] BLACK METHODIST CHURCH. 283

I might simply have felt regret and melancholy at
much that I had witnessed ; as it was, I came out of
the church in a state of no small indignation. I had
heard, in the course of my travels, several discourses
equally at variance with the spirit of the Reformation,
but none before in which the Reformation itself was
so openly denounced, and I could not help reflecting
on the worldly wisdom of those who, wishing in the
middle of the nineteenth century, to unprotestantise
the members of a reformed church, begin their work
at an age when the mind is yet unformed and plastic
— dealing with the interior of the skull as certain
Indian mothers dealt with its exterior, when they
bound it between flat boards, and caused it to grow
not as nature intended, but into a shape which suited
the fashion of their tribe.

In the evening we were taken, at our request, to a
black Methodist church, wThere our party were the
only whites in a congregation of about 400. There
was nothing offensive in the atmosphere of the place,
and I learnt, with pleasure, that this commodious
building was erected and lighted with gas by the
blacks themselves, aided by subscriptions from many
whites of different sects. The preacher was a full
black, spoke good English, and quoted Scripture
well. Occasionally he laid down some mysterious
and metaphysical points of doctrine with a dogmatic
air, and with a vehement confidence, which seemed
to increase in proportion as the subjects transcended
the human understanding, at which moments he occa
sionally elicited from his sympathising hearers, es
pecially from some of the women, exclamations such

284 BLACK METHODIST CHURCH. [CHAP. XXXVI.

as " That is true,," and other signs of assent, but no
loud cries and sobs, such as I had heard in a white Me
thodist church in Montgomery, Alabama, It appeared
from his explanation of " Whose superscription is
this ? " that he supposed the piece of money to be a
dollar note, to which Crcsar had put his signature.
He spoke of our ancestors in the garden of Eden in
a manner that left no doubt of his agreeing with Dr.
Prichard, that we all came from one pair, — a theory to
which, for my own part, I could never see any ethno
logical or physiological objection, provided time
enough be allowed for the slow growth of races;
though I once heard Mr. A. TV. Schlegel, at Bonn, pro
nounce it to be a heresy, especially in an Englishman
who had read the " Paradise Lost." " I could have
pardoned Prichard," said the Professor, "for believing
that Adam was the forefather of all the Africans, had
he only conceded that ( the fairest of her daughters,
Eve,' never could have been a negress."

Towards the close of the discourse, the minister
said " that a protracted meeting would soon be held ;
but such assemblies were, in his judgment, becom
ing too frequent." He also announced that on
Easter Sunday there would be a love-feast, which no
doubt would be very crowded, " and where I hope you
will all enjoy yourselves." He then said, " Sirs and
Madams, I have now to warn you of a serious matter,
but I see many of you are nodding, and let every
one wake up his neighbour. The sexton, poor man,
has more than he can do." This official, by the
way, had been administering with his cane many ad
monitory taps on the heads of the younger part of

CHAP. XXXVL] BLACK PREACHER. 285

the congregation, such as must have precluded them
from napping for some time, if their skulls are not
harder than those of their white brethren. There
was a general stir, and two fat negro women, between
whom my wife was wedged in (for the two sexes sat
on separate sides), looked to see if she was awake.
" There is a storm brewing," said the preacher,
" owing to some late doings in Ohio, and I hope that
none of the membership will get themselves into a
scrape." The exciting topic on which he then en
larged wras the late seizure, or kidnapping, as it was
termed, of Jerry Phinney, who, after residing some
years in Ohio, bad been reclaimed by the heirs of his
owners, in consequence of some flaw in his letters of
freedom, and brought back to Kentucky. An attempt
at a rescue was for a time apprehended, but 500
dollars were soon raised and paid to secure his release.
"When I commended the action of the black
preacher as graceful, I was assured that he had suc
cessfully imitated an eminent American player who
had lately performed at Louisville. " These blacks,"
said my informant, " are such inimitable mimics, that
they will sometimes go through a whole sermon in
the same style as they have heard it delivered by
a white man, only appearing somewhat to caricature
it, because they are more pompous and declamatory ;
which in them is quite natural, for they are a more de
monstrative race than we are. If he addressed them
in a plain, colloquial manner, his sermon would seem
tame, and make no impression. They cannot talk
about the price of a pair of shoes, or quid of tobacco,
without such gesticulations that you would fancy it

286 NEGROES IN KENTUCKY. [CHAP. XXXVI*

was a matter of life and death they were discussing."
There was a second coloured man in the pulpit, who
delivered a prayer with a strong nasal twang, and
very extravagant action. The hymns were some of
them in rather a wild strain, but, on the whole, not
unmusical.

I learnt that the domestic servants of Louisville,
who are chiefly of negro race, belong very commonly
to a different church from their owners. During our
short stay here, an instance came to my knowledge of
a master who, having an untractable black servant,
appealed to a negro minister, not of his own church,
to interfere and reprove him for his bad conduct, a
measure which completely succeeded. We were told
of four Sunday schools for coloured people in the city,
and in one of them 170 children receive instruction.
There are also other schools on week days for teach
ing negroes to read, both in Kentucky and Tennessee.
When I communicated these facts to Americans in
Philadelphia, they were inclined to be incredulous,
and then said, "If such be the condition of negroes in
Kentucky, they must be better off in slave States than
in others called free ; but you must not forget that
their most worthless runaways take refuge with us."

A recent occurrence in Louisville places in a strong
light the unnatural relation in which the two races
now stand to each other. One of the citizens, a re
spectable tradesman, became attached to a young
seamstress, who had been working at his mother's
house, and married her, in the full belief that she was
a white, and a free woman. He had lived happily
with her for some time, when it was discovered that

CHAP. XXXVI.] WHITE MARRYING A SLAVE. 287

she was a negress and a slave, who had never been
legally emancipated, so that the marriage was void
in law. Morally speaking, it was certainly not void ;
yet a separation was thought so much a matter of
course, that I heard the young man's generosity com
mended because he had purchased her freedom after
the discovery, and given her the means of setting up
as a dressmaker. No doubt the lady knew that she
was not of pure blood, and we were told that only
six years before she had run away from her owner.
She had also concealed this fact from her lover, but
at a time probably when her affections were deeply
engaged. On the other hand, we may pity the hus
band who suddenly finds that he is disgraced by
having made an unlawful marriage, that his children
are illegitimate, and that the wife of his choice be
longs to an inferior caste in society. This incident
is important in many points of view, and especially
as proving to what an extent the amalgamation of
the two races would take place, if it were not checked
by artificial prejudices and the most jealous and
severe enactments of law. I found that many
here believe and hope that the time of emancipation
is near at hand ; but I was sorry to discover that the
most sagacious seemed to think that the blacks in
these middle States will not be able to stand alone
when no longer protected by enjoying the monopoly
of the labour market.

April 7. — Sailed in the Ben Franklin steamer
from Louisville to Cincinnati, a distance by the river
of 130 miles. The scenery much resembled that be
low the Falls ; the valley of the Ohio being bounded

2S8 VOYAGE TO CINCINNATI. [CHAP. XXXVI.

by flat-topped hills, 200 or 300 feet high, formed of
horizontal beds of sandstone or limestone, with steep
slopes or cliffs towards the river, and at the base of
these a flat terrace of gravel or loam on one or both
sides of the Ohio, above high-water mark.

We made twelve miles an hour against the stream,
and if we were descending, the captain says, we
should go at the rate of eighteen miles an hour.
Among the passengers I saw a thin, sallow-faced,
anxious looking artizan, whom I mistook for a native-
born Yankee, holding forth to a small circle of idlers
about "our revolution" and "our glorious victories
over the British," and calling upon all to prove them
selves " true democrats." Soon after we started I
saw him take a dram, and then sitting down to cards
lose sixty dollars in half an hour. The officers of the
ship, observing this transaction, interfered and put a
stop to the game, giving orders to the steward not to
sell any more brandy to this passenger. I afterwards
learnt that he was an Englishman, a skilful, first-
rate mechanic in the iron trade at Pittsburg, who
had come out from Liverpool about sixteen years
ago. After drinking and losing all his earnings
at the gaming table, he has returned again and again
to work, and can always command high wages. He
has read up the history of the American revolution,
and at an election can harangue a mob of newly come
emigrants with great effect, and with all the authority
of a native, assuming a tone of intense nationality.
On other occasions I had met with a naturalised En
glishman of a different stamp, who might equally be
described as "ipsis Americanis Americanior," one

CHAP. XXXVL] ANTI-BRITISH ANTIPATHIES. 289

who, having been born in the middle classes, has gone
over early in life to the New World, where he has
succeeded in business, risen to a good social position,
and given his children an excellent education. He
then goes back to visit the " old country," and see
his friends and relatives, and is surprised and morti
fied that they are separated by so great a gulf from
the higher classes, greater than exists between the
humblest and most elevated in his adopted country.
He finds, also, the religious sect to which he and
his kindred belong, only tolerated, and not standing
on the same footing of " gentility " as the dominant
church. His sectarian zeal, his feelings of social
pride, and his political principles are all up in arms,
and he comes back to America far more patriotic and
more of an optimist than any native* If he then
ventures to enter on the political arena, his oppo
nents warn the electors against one who is an alien
by birth and feeling, and, in his efforts to disprove
such imputations, he reaches the climax of anti-
British antipathy.

Such citizens were unaffectedly incapable of com
prehending that I could have seen so much of the
Union, and yet have no wish whatever to live there.
Instead of asking, " Would you not like to settle
here ? " it would be more prudent for them to shape
their question thus : " If you were to be born over
again, and take your chance, by lot, as to your sta
tion in society, what country would you prefer ? "
Before choosing, I should then have to consider, that
the chances are many thousands to one in favour of
my belonging to the labouring class, and the land

VOL. II. O

290 PROGRESS OF CINCINNATI. [CHAP. XXXVI.

where they are best off, morally, physically, and in
tellectually, and where they are most progressive,
would be the safest one to select. Such being the
proposition, the Free States of the Union might well
claim a preference.

Every town we had visited in the last three months,
since we left Savannah, in January, was new to us,
and Cincinnati was the first place where we were able
to compare the present state of things with that
observed by us in the summer of 1842. In this
short interval of four years, great improvements in
the buildings, streets, and shops were visible ; a vast
increase of population, and many additional churches,
and new cotton factories. The soil of the country
immediately behind the town is rich, and there is an
ample supply of labourers, partly indeed because the
Catholic priests strive to retain in the city all the
German emigrants. Although they are industrious
and thrifty, such an arrangement is by no means the
best for promoting the progress of Ohio, or her me
tropolis ; for, next to having an " Irish quarter," a
" German quarter " in a large city is most undesir
able. The priests, no doubt, judge rightly, both in
reference to their notions of discipline, and with a
view of maintaining their power ; for these peasants,
when scattered over the country, and interspersed
with Protestants, cannot be made to confess regularly,
attend mass, and read orthodox German newspapers,
three of which are published here daily, and one
weekly, all under ecclesiastical censorship. There are
a large number of German Protestants, and 20,000
Catholics, in all twelve churches, where the service is

CHAP. XXXVI.] DEMOCRACY AND ROMANISM. 291

performed in the German language. Only half of
these are Romanist churches, but they are much more
crowded than the others. The chief emigration has

o

been from Bavaria, Baden, Swabia, Wirtemberg, and
the Black Forest, and they are almost all imbued
with extreme democratic notions, which the ordinary
European training, or the working of semi-feudal
institutions, evidently fosters in the minds of the mil
lion, far more than does the republicanism of the
United States. The Romanist priests feel, or affect,
sympathy with this political party, and in the last
election they instructed the Germans and the Irish
to vote for Polk against Clay. It ought, indeed, to
serve as a warning, and afford serious matter of re
flection to the republicans of America, that a church
which requires the prostration of the intellect in
matters of faith and discipline, and which is most
ambitious of worldly power, is also of all others the
most willing to co-operate with the ultra-democratic
party. Are the priests conscious of having embarked
in a common cause with the demagogue, and that
they must, like him, derive their influence from court
ing the passions, prejudices, and ignorance of the
people ? If so, one method alone remains for com
bating both — the removal of ignorance by a well-
organized government system of schools, neither
under sectarian or ecclesiastical control, nor under
the management of any one political party.

In the city, the New Englanders appeared to me
to have lost political weight since we were last here.
To show me how seriously the priests interfere in

o 2

292 GEOLOGY OF MILL CREEK. [CHAP. XXXVI.

their domestic affairs, a bookseller told me that he
had just lost the services of a young shopman who,
although a Protestant, like his father, found that his
mother, a Catholic, considered it her duty never to
let him rest till he adopted some other profession.
The priest had told her that he was constantly
handling dangerous and heretical books in his store,
with which his mind must be contaminated.

In many of the large towns, in the valley of the
Mississippi, the Catholics have established such ex
cellent schools, and enforced discipline so well, that
the children of Protestants have been attracted there,
and many have become proselytes ; but I heard of
still more Catholics who have become converts to
Protestantism, and I cannot but believe that Ro
manism itself will undergo many salutary modifica
tions under the influence of the institutions of this
country.

I made an excursion with Messrs. Buchanan, James,
Carley, Clark, and Anthony, to Mill Creek, a tribu
tary valley of the Ohio, where loam and gravel, with
freshwater shells, overlies a deposit of leaves and
fossil stems of trees. The shells are of recent species,
and the layer of vegetable matter of the same age as
that which contains the bones of the mastodon, ele
phant, megalonyx, and other extinct animals at Big
Bone Lick, in Kentucky.* I afterwards saw in the
city some beautiful collections of Silurian fossils
from the blue limestone, and was struck with the

* See ante, p. 257 — 258. and " Travels in North America,"
vol. ii. pp. 62. 65. 67.

CHAP. XXXVI.] LAND TORTOISES. 293

dimensions of some of the trilobites of the genus
Isoteles, the most perfect specimen being eight inches
long, and many large fragments of other individuals
indicating a length of not less than eighteen or
twenty inches.

In Mr. Clark's garden were several land-tortoises
( Testudo clausa, Say), which had lived there for ten
years ; and, after a hybernation of some months, had
just re-appeared. They were crawling about in
search of snails, but will also eat strawberries and
meat, both raw and cooked. They grow very slowly ;
the largest are eight inches long, and some of the
young ones not bigger than a half-crown piece. Mr.
Clark tells me, that the female lays four eggs, and
digs a hole for them in the ground, hollowing it out
with her hind feet to the depth of four inches, and
shaping it so that it enlarges below. After being
occupied for about a week in this excavation, she
deposits the eggs and fills up the hole with earth,
beating it down with her hind feet to make it firm.

o

The spot is well concealed by a covering of soil two
inches thick, which does not prevent the sun's heat
from hatching the eggs as the summer advances.

In one of the cabinets of Ohio insects, I saw
specimens of that common English butterfly, Vanessa
atalanta, or "red admirable," which I had observed,
in the winter, flying about in the woods of Alabama.
I could not distinguish it from the European species,
yet Mr. Doubleday, the entomologist of the British
Museum, at once recognised all I showed him as
American specimens ; for there is a minute, but con-

o 3

294 OBSERVATORY. [CHAP. XXXVI.

slant difference, first pointed out by Mr. J. F. Ste
phens, in the markings of the beautifully coloured
anterior wing. On an accumulation of facts of this
kind must depend ultimately the answer to that
difficult question, What is the difference between a
species and a permanent variety ? How far can
climate, food, heat, light, and other causes give rise
to fixed and constant modifications in individuals
descended from one parent stock ?

We ascended the hill, on which a new observatory
has been built by subscription since we were last
here, and where there is an equatorial telescope
seventeen feet twelve inches in diameter. Dr.
Mitchell, the astronomer, proposes to explore a part
of the heavens more to the south than that which falls
within the range of any active European observatory.
From this hill we had a fine view of the winding
valley of the Ohio, and the city on its banks, with
nearly 100,000 inhabitants, the flat terraces of loam
and gravel bordering the river, and the wharf with
its fleet of steamers. On the opposite side of the
Ohio is the town of Covington in Kentucky, the
streets of which are made so to correspond with
those of Cincinnati, that they appear as if they were
parts of the same city, and a bridge over the river
is in contemplation.

The height of the hills above the river is about
400 feet. The trees are still in great part leafless,
but our eyes were refreshed with the green sward
adorning the sloping banks, such as we had not seen
during our winter tour in the Southern States.

The German settlers have greatly extended the

CHAP. XXXVI.] CULTIVATION OF THE VINE. 295

cultivation of the vine on the steep and terraced sides
of these hills, and they make wine, preferred by them
selves, at least, to beer, and to many German wines.
Some lands near the river, recently rugged and sterile,
but suited to the grape, have risen immensely in
value, being now trenched and walled. This work
has been done in the winter when there was no other
employment. Some are of opinion, that the native
American grape ought to have been cultivated and
improved instead of importing foreign kinds. A rich
citizen, who had spoken very contemptuously of the
home-made article, was lately hoaxed by having some
of it passed off upon him as Rhenish hock, which
he declared was excellent, while some genuine hock of
the Rhine, given him as home-made, was pronounced
to be 4f sour cider."

The small number of coloured people is striking
to one coming direct from Louisville, and I was
glad to hear that a stand had recently been made
against the prejudices which prevent the improve
ment of the mixed race. A free school for girls
having been established at the expense of the city,
some of the parents complained that the trustees had
admitted two children of colour ; and, in fact, there
were among them two daughters of a white father
and mulatto mother. One of the managers told me,
that taking the complainants into the school, he
asked them to point out which of the pupils they
supposed to have African blood in their veins ; they
confessed themselves unable to guess, for the two
girls were not only among the best scholars, but

o 4

296 SCULPTURE BY POWERS. [CHAP. XXXVI.

better looking and less dark than many of the other
pupils.

At Mr. Longworth's we saw a beautiful piece of
sculpture, an ideal head called Ginevra, by Hiram
Powers, who had sent it from Borne as a present to
his first patron. It appeared to me worthy of the
genius of the sculptor of " Eve " and the " Greek
Slave." Thorwaldsen, when he saw Powers' "Eve,"
foretold that he would create an era in his art ; and
not a few of the Italians now assign to him the first
place in the " Naturalista " school, though assuredly
there is much of the ideal also in his conceptions of
the beautiful. It augurs well for the future cultiva
tion of the fine arts in the United States, that the
Americans are as proud of their countryman's success
as he himself could desire.

CHAP. XXXVIL] CINCINNATI TO PITTSBUKG. 297

CHAP. XXXVIL

Cincinnati to Pittsburg. — Improved Machinery of Steamer. —
Indian Mound. — Gravel Terraces. — Pittsburg Fire. —
Journey to Greensburg. — Scenery like England. — Oregon
War Question. — Fossil Foot-prints of Air-breathing Reptile
in Coal Strata. — Casts of Mud- cracks. — Foot-prints of Birds
and Dogs sculptured by Indians. — Theories respecting the
Geological Antiquity of highly organized Vertebrata, — Pre
judices opposed to the Reception of Geological Truths. — Popu
lar Education the only Means of preventing a Collision of
Opinion between the Multitude and the Learned.

April 13. 1846. — FKOM Cincinnati we embarked
in the Clipper steamer for Pittsburg, a distance of
no less than 450 miles ; so magnificent is the scale of
the navigation of this mere tributary of the Missis
sippi ! Yet there are other large steamers also ply
ing above Pittsburg, on the tributaries of the Ohio.
We observe more punctuality than in 1842, in the
starting of the steamers. The Clipper made ten
miles an hour against the current, including stop
pages. We fell in with some large artificial rafts
of wood stretching more than half across the river,
and met a steamer, which had run foul of one of
them, still entangled, and, though bound for Pitts
burg, floating down the stream with the raft. Our
steamer only draws 3~ feet water, and her engines
are of a very peculiar construction, hitherto used ia

o 5

298 MACHINERY OF STEAMER. [CHAP. XXXVII.

sea-boats only, with the exception of one on Lake
Erie. The inventor of this improvement is Thomas
K. Litch. There are two cylinders, one twice the
size of the other, and the steam escapes from the
smaller into the larger, instead of issuing into the
open air, so that its heat is not lost. The economy
of fuel arising from this contrivance is great, and the
vibrations and noise much less than in other boats
on the same high-pressure principle. In place of the
usual bell, signals are made by a wild and harsh
scream, produced by the escape of steam, as in loco
motive engines ; a fearful sound in the night, and
which, it is to be hoped, some machinist who has
an ear for music will find means to modulate. There
was a Pennsylvanian farmer on board who told me
that, having a large family to provide for, he had re
solved to settle in Indiana, and was returning from
that State, after making a purchase of land in " the
rolling prairies." He had paid the usual government
price of 1| dollar, or about 5s. 6d. an acre; whereas
he could sell his own property in Pennsylvania, which
had a house on it, at the rate of 60 dollars an acre.
He had been much concerned at finding a strong war
party in the West, who were eager to have a brush
with the English. " It was a short-sighted policy,"
he remarked, " in your country, to exert so little
energy and put forth so small a part of her strength
in the last war with the United States. It will one
day involve both you and us in serious mischief."

At a point about twenty-four miles below Wheel
ing, we came to the largest of the Indian mounds
on the Ohio, of which I have spoken in my former

CHAP. XXXVII.] GRAVEL TERRACES. 299

" Travels." * It is between 60 and 70 feet high,
rising from a flat terrace of loam, and a very striking
object, reminding one, by its shape, of the pyramidal
Teocallis of the ancient Mexicans, of which Hum-
boldt has given figures, and which are so well de
scribed by Prescott, in his " History of Cortes." As
we approached Wheeling, the valley of the Ohio
became narrower, and the hills, composed of strata of
the coal formation, sensibly higher. The State of
Ohio was on our left hand, or on the northern
bank of the river, and that of Virginia on our right.
The flat terrace of loam and gravel, extending every
where from the base of the hills to the river's bank,
forms a picturesque contrast to the steep slope of the
boundary hills, clothed partly with ancient timber,
and partly with a second growth of trees of less
height, which has sprung up where clearings have
been made. It is worthy of remark, that the mate
rials of the great terrace of loam and gravel become
more and more coarse as we approach nearer the
mountains between Wheeling and Pittsburg, and at
the same time the terrace itself is more and more
elevated above the level of the river. It appeared
to be about 60 feet high near the mouth of the
Great Kanawha, and about 80 feet high at George
town, 40 miles below Pittsburg, which I can only
explain by reference to the theory before advanced f ;
namely, by supposing the amount of subsidence, as well
as of the subsequent upward movement, to have been

* Vol. ii. p. 32. t See ante, p. 259.

O 6

300 PITTSBUKG FIKE. [CHAP. XXXVII.

greater inland, or farther north, than in the south,
or nearer the Gulf of Mexico.

April 16. — There had been so hard a frost in
the night, that the roof of our steamer's cabin was
glazed with a thin sheet of ice as we approached
Pittsburg, and we heard fears expressed that the
fruit trees would be injured. Four years had elapsed
since we were last at Pittsburg, and, in the interval,
a considerable part of the city, covering sixty acres,
had been burnt to the ground, the great roofed bridge
over the Monongahela, all built of wood, having shared
the same fate. A light suspension bridge has already
replaced that structure of ponderous aspect, and al
though the conflagration only happened in April of last
year, new streets have sprung up everywhere from
the ashes of the old, and the town has very far from
a ruined or desolate look. Commanding the naviga
tion of three great rivers, and an inexhaustible supply
of coal, it has every advantage save that of an at
mosphere free from coal smoke.

I learnt that there had recently been a strike of
the factory girls here for ten instead of twelve hours
of daily labour. Their employers argue that they
are competing with rivals who work their girls twelve
or more hours per day, and the strike has failed ; yet
many are of opinion, that even without legislative in
terference, a ten hour rule will be eventually esta
blished.

Most of our companions in the steamer were
agents of commercial houses going to look out for
orders at Pittsburg. On the whole they were very
intelligent, and conversed well on a variety of sub-

CHAP. XXXVII.] JOURNEY TO GREENSBURG. 301

jects, while most of them were too gentlemanlike to
feel ashamed of " the shop." But we had now been
living so many weeks in public with strangers, and
without opportunities of choosing our society, that
great was our delight to be able to hire at Pittsburg
a private carriage, and set out alone on an expedition
to Greensburg, 32 miles distant, where I had a point
of geological interest to investigate. As we were
leaving the hotel, a news-boy, finding I was supplied
with newspapers, offered to sell me a cheap American
reprint of the miscellaneous works of Lord Jeffrey,
assuring me that " it contained all the best articles he
had written in the Edinburgh Review."

To be once more climbing hills even of moderate
height, was an agreeable novelty after dwelling so
long on the flat plains of the Mississippi. We were
on the direct road, leading across the Alleghanies to
Harrisburg. The scenery often reminded us of Eng
land, for we were travelling on a macadamized road,
arid passing through turnpike gates, with meadows on
one side, and often on the other large fields of young
wheat, of an apple-green colour, on which a flock of
sheep, with their lambs, had been turned in to feed.
The absence of stumps of trees in the fields was
something new to us, as was the non-appearance for
a whole day of any representative of the negro race.
Here and there a snake-fence, and a tall strong
stubble of maize, presented a point of contrast with
an English landscape. In some of the water-meadows
the common English marigold (^Caltha palustris) was
in full flower. At one turn of the road, a party of
men on foot came in sight, each with his rifle, and

302 GREENSBURG. [CHAP. XXXVII.

they were followed, at a short distance, by a waggon
with women and children, and a train of others laden
with baggage. Our driver remarked that they were
" movers," and I asked him if he ever knew an
instance of an American migrating eastward. He
said that he was himself the only example he ever
heard of; for he was from Kentucky, having come
the year before to satisfy his curiosity with a sight
of the great Pittsburg fire. There he found a great
demand for work, and so was tempted to stay.

Our road lay through East Liberty, Wilkinsburg,
and Adamsburg. Some day-labourers, who were
breaking stones on the road, told me they were re
ceiving seventy-five cents, or three shillings, a day ;
and this in a country where food and fuel are much
cheaper than in England, although clothing is rather
dearer.

Near Turtle Creek, two farmers conducted me to
a spot where coal was worked, and where the undu
lating ground consisted of sandstone, limestone, and
shale, green and black, of the coal-formation, pre
cisely resembling strata of the same age in England,
both in mineral appearance, and in most of the species
of imbedded fossil plants.

About fifteen miles before we reached Greensburg,
we saw, in the extreme distance, the blue, faint, long,
and unbroken line of the most western ridge of the
Alleghanies.

Greensburg is a neat, compact town of about 1000
inhabitants. The houses are all of brick ; there is a
court-house and five churches, some Lutheran, others
Calvinistic, the German language being used in some,

CHAP. XXXVII.] SCARCITY OF SERVANTS. 303

and the English in others. They publish three
newspapers. We took up our quarters at a com
fortable old-fashioned inn, where we were waited
upon by the members of the family, for the difficulty
of hiring or retaining servants here, seems to be ex
treme. One girl had left a lady, whose acquaintance
we made, because, being a farmer's daughter, she
was not allowed to sit down at table with her mis
tress. The lady's sister, who was accomplished, and
conversed with us on many literary subjects, was
obliged to milk the cow for the whole summer, though
they were in easy circumstances, such was the
scarcity of " help." Fortunately for us, my wife
and I had, by this time, acquired the habit of wait
ing on ourselves in the inns, going occasionally down
to the kitchen to ask for things, in a way which in
England would be thought quite derogatory to one's
dignity, especially in the eyes of the servants, whose
trouble would thereby be lessened. Here, on the
contrary, we found that it made us popular. The
general system in America that servants at inns re
ceive no gratuities, but are paid ample wages in
stead, is one cause of this difference. Yet much may
be said in its favour, as it raises the independence of
the servants, and relieves strangers from the per
plexity of determining what fees are suitable.

There was a crowded public meeting the day of
our arrival, at which several orators were haranguing
an audience of the lowest class, in favour of war
with England about Oregon. The walls were pla
carded with bills, on which were printed, in large
letters, these words, " Forty-Five, or Fight," which

304 FOSSIL FOOT-PRINTS [CHAP. XXXVII.

meant that the Oregon territory must extend as far
north as the 45th degree of latitude.

This ambition of the people of the West to pos
sess Oregon, is at least no new idea, for I happened
to purchase at Louisville an old guide-book describing
the Falls of the Ohio and the city, in which, when
speaking of commercial matters, the colonization and
annexation of Oregon was set forth as the means of
" opening a direct trade with China." I observed
to one of the citizens, that it was satisfactory to see
that none of the upper, or even of the middle classes,
were taking any part at Greensburg in this agita
tion. He shook his head, and said, " Very true ;
but these meetings are most mischievous, for you
must bear in mind, that your nobody in England is
our everybody in America."

I had determined to visit Greensburg, on my way
from Pittsburg to Philadelphia, that I might ex
amine into the evidence of the reality of certain fos
sil foot-prints of a reptile said to have been found
in strata of the ancient coal-formation, and of which
Dr. King, of Greensburg, had published an account
in 1844. The genuineness of these foot-marks was
a point on which many doubts were still entertained,
both in Europe and America, and I had been re
quested by several geological friends not to return
without having made up my mind on a fact which,
if confirmed, was of the highest theoretical im
portance. Up to this period, no unequivocal proofs
had been detected of the fossil remains of vertebrated
animals more highly organised than fishes, in strata
of such antiquity as the carboniferous rocks, and the

CHAP. XXXVIL] IN COAL STRATA. 305

absence of air-breathing quadrupeds or birds, served
to constitute negative evidence, of peculiar signifi
cance, in reference to the coal-measures, because, as
before stated*, they contained the monuments of
shallow freshwater swamps, and often of surfaces of
land covered with a luxuriant vegetation of terres
trial plants, some of the buried trees of which still
remain with their roots in their natural position.
That we should never have found, in such deposits,
the remains of air-breathing creatures, except a few
insects, that we should not yet have met with a
single mammifer or bird, or lizard, snake, or tortoise,
or the faintest indication of their existence, seemed
most inexplicable, and led many geologists to em
brace the opinion, that no beings having a higher
organization than fishes, were created till after the
carboniferous strata had been elaborated.

During my stay in Westmoreland county, I was
indebted to Dr. King for the most active assistance
in the prosecution of my inquiries. He kindly de
voted several days to this object, and we first visited
together a stone quarry in Union township, six miles
south-east of Greensburg, on a farm belonging to
Mr. Gallagher, where the foot-marks had been first
observed, standing out in relief from the lower sur
face of slabs of sandstone, resting on thin layers of
fine clay. These slabs were extracted for paving-
stones, and the excavation was begun in the bank of
a small stream, where there was at first a slight
thickness only of shale overlying the harder beds ;

* See ante, p. 245, 246.

306

FOSSIL FOOT-PRINTS [CHAP. XXXVII.

Fig. 12.

Scale one-sixth the original.

Slab of sandstone from the coal-measures of Pennsylvania, with foot
prints of air-breathing reptile and casts of cracks.

CHAP. XXXVIL] IN COAL STEATA.

307

IP..

Series of reptilian foot-prints in the coal-strata of Westmoreland
County, Pennsylvania.

a. Mark of nail ?

308 FOSSIL FOOT-PRINTS [CHAP. XXXVII.

but as they cut their way into the bank, the mass ot
shale became so dense as to oblige them to desist
from the work. Between the slabs of stone, each a
few inches thick, were thin parting layers of a fine
unctuous clay, well fitted to receive and retain faith
ful impressions of the feet of animals. On the upper
surface of each layer, Dr. King saw the foot-steps im
pressed more or less distinctly ; but, as the clay was
left exposed to the weather, it had crumbled to pieces
before I examined it, and I had only an opportunity
of seeing the casts of the same projecting in relief
from the undersides of slabs of argillaceous sandstone.
I brought away one of these masses, of which the
annexed figure (fig. 12.) is a faithful representation;
and it will be observed that it displays not only the
marks of the foot- prints of an animal, but also casts
of cracks, «, a', of various sizes, which must have ex
isted in the clay. Such casts are produced by the
drying and shrinking of mud, and they are usually
detected in sandstones of all ages in which foot-marks
appear. It will be seen that some of these cracks, as
at b, c, traverse the foot-prints, and they not unfre-
quently produce distortion in them, as might have
been expected, for the mud must have been soft
when the animal walked over it and left the impres
sions, whereas, when it afterwards dried up and shrank,
it would become too hard to receive such indenta
tions. I have alluded, in my former "Travels,"* to the
recent foot-prints of birds called sand-pipers ( Tringa
mi?iuta\ which I saw running, in 1842, over the red

* Vol. ii. p. 168

CHAP. XXXVII.] IN COAL STRATA. 309

mud thrown down by every tide on the borders of
estuaries connected with the Bay of Fundy. When
this mud, which extends over thousands of acres, has
been baked by the hot summer sun of Nova Scotia,
it shrinks and cracks to the depth of several inches or
even feet, and acquires such consistency as to be
divisible into the successive layers of which it is com
posed, presenting on many upper surfaces impres
sions of birds' feet and cracks, and on the undersides
the casts of the same standing out in relief.*

I have also stated f that on the sea beach near
Savannah, in Georgia, I saw clouds of fine sand
drifted by the wind, filling up the foot-prints of
racoons and opossums, which a few hours before had
passed along the shore, after the retreat of the tide.
This process will account, in a satisfactory manner,
for the sharpness of many fossil casts of animals in
ancient rocks, as the grains of uniformly fine sand
were poured into the newly made cavities, not by a
current of water, which could scarcely have failed to
disturb the soft mud, but by the air, which could not
cause the slightest derangement of the most delicate
imprints.

No less than twenty-three foot-steps were observed
by Dr. King on slabs in the stone quarry of Union
township before mentioned, before its abandonment,
and the greater part of these were so arranged (see
fig. 13.) as to imply that they were the marks of the

* I have presented specimens of this red mud, with the foot
prints of birds, to the British Museum, Geological Society, and
Museum of Economic Geology.

t Travels, vol. i. p. 167.

310 FOSSIL FOOT-PRINTS [CHAP. XXXVII.

successive foot-steps of the same animal. Everywhere
there was seen a double row of tracks, occurring in
pairs, each pair consisting of a hind and
fore foot, and each being at nearly equal
distances from the next pair. The toes in
each of these parallel rows turn the one
set to the right, the other to the left. It
is instructive to compare these impressions
with those which had previously been met
with in an ancient European rock (although
one of less antiquity than the coal-form
ation), namely, the new red sandstone or
Trias of Saxony and Cheshire. The ac
companying figure (fig. 14.) represents the
Saxon Cheirotherium, so called by Professor
Kaup, because the marks both of the fore
and hind feet resemble the shape of a
human hand. Now in these European
hand-shaped foot-marks, both the hind
and fore feet have each five toes, and
the size of the hind foot is about five
times as large as the fore foot ; but in
the American fossil (fig. 13.), the posterior
foot-print is not nearly twice as large as the an
terior, and the number of toes is unequal, being
five in the hinder and four in the anterior foot.
In the Greensburg animal, as in the European
Cheirotherium, the fifth toe stands out nearly at a
rio-lit ano-le with the foot, and somewhat resembles

O & '

the human thumb. On the external side of all the
Pennsylvania!! tracks, both the larger and smaller,
there is a protuberance like the rudiment of another

CHAP. XXXVII. ] IN COAL STRATA. 311

toe. The average length of the hind foot is five and
a half inches, and of the fore foot four and a half.
The fore and hind feet being in pairs, follow each
other very closely, there being an interval of about
one inch only between them. Between each pair
the distance is six to eight inches, and between the
two parallel lines of tracks there is about the same
distance.

In the case of the European Cheirotherium, whe
ther English or German, the hind and fore feet occur
in pairs, but they form only one row, as in fig. 14.,
in consequence of the animal having put its feet to
the ground nearly under the middle of its body, and
the thumb-like toes are seen to turn to the right and
to the left in the alternate pairs. But in the Ame
rican tracks, which form two parellel rows, all the
thumb-like toes in one set turn to the right, and in
the other set to the left. We may infer, therefore,
that the American Cheirotherium belongs to a new
genus of reptilian quadrupeds, wholly distinct from
that which characterises the triassic strata of Europe,
and such a generic diversity might have been ex
pected in reptilian fossils of such different ages.

The geological position of the sandstone of Greens-
burg is perfectly clear, being situated in the midst of
the Appalachian coal-field, having the main bed of
coal, called the Pittsburg seam, three yards thick, a
hundred feet above it, worked in the neighbourhood,
and several other seams of coal at lower levels. The
impressions of Lepidodendron, Siyillaria, Stigmaria,
and other characteristic carboniferous plants, are

312 FOSSIL FOOT-PRINTS [CHAP. XXXVII.

found both above and below the level of the reptilian
foot-steps.

We may safely assume that the huge reptile which
left these prints on the ancient sands of the coal-
measures was an air-breather, for its weight would
not have been sufficient under water to have made
impressions so deep and distinct. The same conclu
sion is also borne out by the casts of the cracks above
described, for they show that the clay had been ex
posed to the air and sun, so as to have dried and
shrunk. As we so often see the ripple mark pre
served in sandstones of all ages, and in none more
frequently than in the American and European coal
strata, we ought not to feel surprise that superficial
markings, such as foot-prints, which are by no means
more perishable or evanescent in their nature, should
have been faithfully preserved down to our times,
when once the materials had been hardened into
stone.

There are some bare ledges of rock, composed of
pure white quartzose grit of the coal-measures, stand
ing out exposed above the general level of the ground,
in many places near Greensburg, especially near
Deny, in Westmoreland county, about fourteen
miles north of Greensburg. They are so bare that
scarcely any lichens grow upon them, and on some
of them the foot-prints of birds, as well as those of
dogs and some other quadrupeds have been artificially
cut. After examining them carefully, I entertain no
doubt that they were sculptured by Indians, for
there are many Indian graves near Derry, and one
of their paths, leading through the forest from the

CHAP. XXXVII.] SCULPTUKED FOOT-PRINTS. 313

Alleghany Mountains to the west, lay precisely in
the line of these curious carvings. The toe joints in
the feet of the birds thus cut are well indicated, as
might have been expected, for the aboriginal hunting
tribes of North America were skilful in following
the trail of all kinds of game, and are known to have
carved in some places on rocks, many rude imita
tions of the external forms of animals. If, therefore,
they were sometimes tempted to use the representa
tion of foot-prints as symbols of the birds or qua
drupeds which they hunted, they would be not un
likely to give very accurate copies of markings with
which they were so familiar. The important obser
vations made by Dr. King relatively to the fossil
imprints, called the attention of the whole country
to the Indian antiquities of comparatively modern
date; but the popular notion that there was a con
nection between them is wholly erroneous.

Since the announcement, by Dr. King, in 1844,
of the proofs of the existence of reptiles at the period
when the coal strata of Pennsylvania were formed,
Professor Goldfuss, of Bonn, has published the de
scription of more than one saurian found in the
ancient coal-measures of Saarbruck, near Treves.

Never, certainly, in the history of science, were
discoveries made more calculated to put us on our
guard for the future against hasty generalisations
founded on mere negative evidence. Geologists have
been in the habit of taking for granted, that at
epochs anterior to the coal there were no birds or
air-breathing quadrupeds in existence ; and it seems
still scarcely possible to dispel the hypothesis that

VOL. II. P

314 PEEJUDICES OPPOSED TO [CHAP. XXXVII.

the first creation of a particular class of beings coin
cides in date with our first knowledge of it in a
fossil state, or the kindred dogma that the first ap
pearance of life on the globe agrees, chronologi
cally, with the present limits of our insight into the
first creation of living beings, as deduced from organic
remains. These limits have shifted, even in our
own times, more than once, or have been greatly ex._
panded, without dissipating the delusion, so intense is
the curiosity of man to trace back the present system
of things to a beginning. Rather than be disap
pointed, or entertain a doubt of his power to discern
the shores of the vast ocean of past time, into which
his glances are penetrating, like the telescope into
the region of the remoter nebulas, he cannot refrain
from pleasing his imagination with the idea that some
fog-banks, resting on the bosom of the deep, are, in
reality, the firm land for which his aching vision is on
the stretch.

I cannot conclude these remarks on the geological
discoveries made in these remote valleys of the Alle-
ghanies, without alluding to a moral phenomenon,
which was forcibly brought before my mind in the
course of the investigation. The interest excited by
these singular monuments of the olden times, natu
rally led to animated discussions, both in lecture-
rooms and in the columns of the daily journals, of
Pennsylvania, during which the high antiquity of the
earth, and the doctrine of former changes in the
species of animals and plants inhabiting this planet
before the creation of man, were assumed as esta
blished truths. But these views were so new and

CHAP. XXXVII.] GEOLOGICAL TRUTHS. 315

startling, and so opposed to popular prepossessions,
that they drew down much obloquy upon their pro-
mulgators, who incurred the censures not only of the
multitude, but also of some of the Roman Catholic
and Lutheran clergy. The social persecution was
even carried so far as to injure professionally the
practice of some medical men, who had given pub
licity to the obnoxious doctrines. Several of the
ministers of the Lutheran church, who had studied
for years in German universities, were too well in
formed not to believe in the conclusions established
by geologists, respecting the immensity of past time
and former vicissitudes, both in animal and vegetable
life ; but although taking a lively interest in disco
veries made at their own door, and joining in the
investigations, they were compelled by prudence to
conceal their opinions from their congregations, or
they would have lost all influence over them, and
might perhaps have seen their churches deserted.
Yet by maintaining silence in deference to the
opinions of the more ignorant, they become, in some
degree, the instruments of countenancing error ; nay,
they are rearing up the rising generation to be, in
their turn, the persecutors of many of their contem
poraries, who may hereafter be far in advance in their
scientific knowledge.

" To nothing but error," says a popular writer of
our times, " can any truth be dangerous ; and I know
not," lie exclaims, " where else there is seen so altc-
gether tragical a spectacle, as that religion should be
found standing in the highways, to say, ' Let no
man learn the simplest laws of the universe, lest they

f 2

316 INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM. [CHAP. XXXVII.

mislearn the highest. In the name of God the
Maker, who said, and hourly yet says, Let there be
light, we command that you continue in darkness ! ' '

Goldsmith, in the " Vicar of Wakefield," makes
his traveller say, that after he had walked through
Europe, and examined mankind nearly, he found
that it is not the forms of government, whether
they be monarchies or commonwealths, that deter
mine the amount of liberty enjoyed by individuals,
but that " riches in general are in every country
another name for freedom." I agree with Goldsmith
that the forms of government are not alone sufficient
to secure freedom — they are but means to an end.
Here we have in Pennsylvania a free press, a widely
extended suffrage, and the most perfect religious
toleration, — nay, more than toleration, all the various
sects enjoying political equality, and, what is more
rare, an equality of social rank ; yet all this ma
chinery is not capable, as we have seen, of securing
even so much of intellectual freedom as shall enable a
student of nature to discuss freely the philosophical
questions which the progress of science brings natu
rally before him. He cannot even announce with
impunity, results which half a century of observation
and reasoning has confirmed by evidence little short
of mathematical demonstration. But can riches, as
Goldsmith suggests, secure intellectual liberty ? No
doubt they can protect the few who possess them
from pecuniary penalties, when they profess unpopu
lar doctrines. But to enable a man to think, he

* Letter on Secular Education, by T. Carlyle, July, 1848.

CHAP. XXXVIL] POPULAR EDUCATION. 317

must be allowed to communicate freely his thoughts
to others. Until they have been brought into the
daylight and discussed, they will never be clear even
to himself. They must be warmed by the sympathy
of kindred minds, and stimulated by the heat of con
troversy, or they will never be fully developed and
made to ripen and fructify.

How, then, can we obtain this liberty ? There is
only one method ; it is by educating the millions, and
by dispelling their ignorance, prejudices, and bigotry.

Let Pennsylvania not only establish numerous
free schools, but let her, when she organizes a system
of government instruction, raise the qualifications,
pay, and station in society of the secular teachers, as
highly as Massachusetts is now aspiring to do, and
the persecution I have complained of will cease at
once and for ever.

The project of so instructing the millions might
well indeed be deemed Utopian, if it were necessary
that all should understand the patient and laborious
trains of research and reasoning by which we have
arrived at grand generalisations in geology, and other
branches of physical science. But this is not requi
site for the desired end. We have simply to com
municate the results, and this we are bound to do,
without waiting till they have been established for
half a century. We ought rather carefully to prepare
the public mind for new conclusions as soon as they
become highly probable, and thus make impossible
that collision of opinion, so much to be deprecated,
between the multitude and the learned.

It is as easy to teach a peasant or a child that the

p 3

318 POPULAR EDUCATION. [CnAP. XXXVII.

earth moves round the sun, as to inculcate the old
exploded dogma that it is the motionless centre of
the universe. The child is as willing to believe that

O

our planet is of indefinite antiquity, as that it is only
6000 years old. Tell him that the earth was inha
bited by other races of animals and plants before the
creation of man, as we now know it to have been,
and the idea is not more difficult for him to conceive
than the notion which is usually allowed to take root
in his mind, that man and the species of animals and
plants, now our contemporaries, were the first occu
pants of this globe. All that we require, when once
a good system of primary and normal schools has
been organized, is a moderate share of moral courage
and love of truth, on the part of the laity and clergy ;
and then the academical chair and scientific lecture-
room, and every pulpit, and every village school, may
be made to speak the same language, in regard to
those natural phenomena, which are of a kind to
strike and interest the popular mind. *

* The substance of the above remarks, on the fossil foot
prints of Greensburg, was given by me in a Lecture to the
Iloyal Institution, London, Feb. 4. 1848.

CHAP. XXXVIII.] STAGE TRAVELLING. 319

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Greejisburg to Philadelphia. — Crossing the Alleghany Moun
tains, — Scenery. — Absence of Lakes. — Harrisburg. —
African Slave-trade. — Railway Meeting at Philadelphia. —
Borrowing Money for Public Works. — Negro Episcopal
Clergyman. — Washington. — National Fair and Protectionist
Doctrines. — Dog-wood in Virginia. — Excursion with Dr.
Wyman. — Natural History. — Mush-rats. — Migration of
Humming-birds to New Jersey.

April 19. 1846. — LEFT Greensburg, intending to
cross the Alleghany Mountains to Harrisburg, and
go thence to Philadelphia. We started in the even
ing in a large stage coach, in which were nine inside
passengers, so that our night journey through
Youngstown, Stonytown, and Shellsburg was fa
tiguing, and not the less so by our having twice to
turn out in the dark, while all the luggage was
shifted to a new vehicle. The last of these broke
down, one of the wheels having given way, and we
had an opportunity of witnessing the resources and
ingenuity displayed on such occasions by American
travellers. A large bough of a tree was cut off with
an axe, and tied on to the axletree with ropes, so as
to support the body of the carriage, and in this way
we went several miles without inconvenience. Du
ring one of the night transfers of our luggage a

C5 O OO O

carpet bag of mine was left behind, and when I after-

r 4

320 CROSSING THE ALLEGIIAXIES. [CiiAP. XXXVIII.

wards missed it at Philadelphia I wrote to three
places to claim it. After five days I found it in my
room in the hotel, no one knowing whence it came,
and nothing having been paid for it. Before reach
ing Philadelphia it must have been transferred to
three distinct conveyances, including two railways.
I may state here a fact highly creditable to the public
conveyances in the United States, that I never lost
a package in either of my tours, although I sent
more than thirty boxes of geological specimens from
various places, often far south of the Potomac, and
west of the Alleghanies ; some by canals, some by
river steamers, others by coaches or railways. Every
one of them sooner or later found their way safely
to my house in London.

On leaving Greensburg we crossed one after ano
ther of the long parallel ridges of which the Alle-
ghany chain is composed, descending into each of the
long intervening valleys, the hills becoming higher and
higher as we advanced eastward. The character of
the forest changed as we came to higher ground,
especially by the intermixture of trees of the fir tribe,
and by the undergrowth of azaleas, kalmias, and
rhododendrons, for I had seen none of these ever
greens since I left Indiana, not even under the oak
wood round Greensburg. When day dawned we
had reached the highest part of our road, and enjoyed
a splendid mountain view, the steep wooded slopes
being relieved by the contrast of green meadows
bordering the rivers in the bottom of each deep valley,
while in many parts of the landscape a picturesque
effect was produced by what appeared to be extensive

CHAP. XXXVIIL] ABSENCE OF LAKES. 321

lakes. All who were strangers to the scene required
to be assured that they were not really sheets of
water ; yet they were simply banks of dense white
fog resting on the low grounds, which the heat of the
sun would soon dissipate. It is singular that there
are no lakes in the Appalachian chain, all the rivers
escaping from the longitudinal valleys through gorges
or cross fissures, which seem invariably to accompany
such long flexures of the strata as characterise the
Alleghanies or the Jura.

In Campbell's " Gertrude of Wyoming," indeed,
we see —

" Lake after lake interminably gleam,"

amidst the Appalachian ridges ; but such character
istics of the scenery of this chain are as pure inven
tions of the poet's imagination, as the flamingos,
palms, and aloes with which he adorns the banks of
the Susquehanna.

Near the highest summit of the chain I saw two
seams of excellent coal, one of them twelve feet
thick, in strata belonging to the same series which
I had examined near Greensburg. After descending
from the highest level, we followed for a time the
windings of the Juniata river, the road often bounded
by high rocky cliffs, on the ledges of which we saw
the scarlet columbine, blue hepatica, and other wild
flowers in blossom.

We slept at Cbambersburg, where, on the roof of
the court-house, stands a statue of Franklin, holding
a lightning conductor in his hand. A company of
firemen were exercising their engines in the great

322 IIARRISBURG. [CHAP. XXXVIII.

square, throwing up powerful jets of water high
enough to wash the statue.

From Chambersburg we went on by railway at
the rate of fourteen miles an hour, only slackening
our pace when we passed through the middle of
towns, such as Shippensburg and Carlisle, where we
had the amusement of looking from the cars into the
shop windows.

On reaching the Susquehanna we came in sight of
Harrisburg, the seat of Legislature of Pennsylvania,
a cheerful town, which makes a handsome appear
ance at a distance, with its numerous spires and
domes. The railway bridge over the river had been
burnt down, and the old bridge carried away by a
recent freshet, when large fragments of ice were
borne down against the piers.

Among the passengers in the railway to Phila
delphia, was an American naval officer, who had just
returned from service on the coast of Africa, fully
persuaded that the efforts made by the English and
United States' fleets to put down the slave-trade,
had increased the misery and loss of life of the
negroes without tending to check the traffic, which
might, he thought, have been nearly put an end to
before now, if England and other countries had spent
an equally enormous sum of money in forming set
tlements such as Liberia ; although he admitted
that negroes from the United States, whose families
had been acclimatised in America for several genera
tions, and who settled in Liberia, were cut off by
fever almost as rapidly as Europeans.

Returning to Philadelphia, after an absence of six

CHAP. XXXVIII. J RAILWAY MEETING. 323

months, we Vere as much pleased as ever with the
air of refinement of the principal streets, and the
well-dressed people walking on the neat pavements,
under the shade of a double row of green trees, or
gazing, in a bright, clear atmosphere, at the tastefully
arranged shop windows ; nor could we agree with
those critics who complain of the prim and quakerish
air, and the monotonous sameness, of so regularly
built a city.

During our stay, a large meeting was held to pro
mote a scheme for a new railway to Pittsburg,
through Harrisburg, the interest of the money to be
raised chiefly by city rates. Some of my friends
here are opposed to the measure, declaring that such
public works are never executed with economy, nor
thriftily managed. The taxation always falls on
some districts, which derive no profit from the enter
prise, and they demand other grants of public money
as a compensation, and these are laid out with equal
extravagance. The good sense of the New England-
ers, say they, has almost invariably checked them
from entering upon such undertakings, and in one of
the few instances in which they have deviated from
sound policy, they have repented. For when, in
opposition to the richer inhabitants, a branch railway
was made to connect Bridgeport, in Connecticut,
with the main line of road, the bonds of that small
inland town were pledged as security for the money
borrowed. The traffic proved insufficient to meet
their liabilities, and a majority of the citizens then
determined to repudiate. The rich alleged that they
had opposed the project, and the poor, who had voted

T 6

324 NEGRO CLERGYMAN. [CHAP. XXXVIII.

away their money, were quite willing that no new
taxes should be imposed. The creditors, however,
went to law, and, by aid of the courts, compelled pay
ment, as the Supreme Court might have done in the
case of the delinquent States (had not the original con
stitution of the Union been altered before any of them
repudiated), which might have given a wholesome
check to rash enterprises guaranteed by State bonds.

The booksellers tell me that their trade is injured
by the war-panic, and I observe that most of the
halfpenny, or cent papers, are still very belligerent
on the Oregon question.

On Sunday I attended service, for the first time,
in a free black Episcopal church. Prayers were read
well by a negro clergyman, who was evidently an
educated man. The congregation consisted wholly
of the coloured race. Where there is a liturgy, and
where written sermons are read, there is small oppor
tunity of comparing the relative capabilities of Afri
cans and Europeans for the discharge of such func
tions. In the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian
services, the success of the minister depends much
more on his individual ability. I was glad, however,
to see a negro officiating in a church which confers
so much social rank on its clergyman, and in no city
more than Philadelphia docs the coloured race stand
in need of some such make- weights to neutralise the
prejudices which retard their natural progress. We
were told of an ineffectual attempt, recently made
by a lady here, to obtain leave to bury a favourite
free negro woman in St. James's graveyard, although
she had died a member of the Episcopal church;

CHAP. XXXVIII.] WASHINGTON, TREE TRADE. 325

nor are any coloured people allowed to be burled at
the Laurel Hill Cemetery. That burial-ground com
mands a beautiful view up and down the Schuylkill,
and the ground there is laid out with much taste,
being covered with evergreens and trees, and having
many of the graves adorned, at this season, with vio •
lets and lilies of the valley.

April^. — Leaving my wife with some friends
at Philadelphia, I set out on a geological tour to
Richmond, Virginia, to resume my examination of
the Oolitic coal-field, left half finished in December
last. At Washington I found they were holding a
national fair, or grand exhibition of manufactured
articles, intended to convince Congress of the advan
tage of a high tariff. The protectionists maintain
that every article which, for seven years, has been
shielded from foreign competition, has been reduced
in price to the consumer below the foreign cost at the
time when the duty was imposed. The free-traders,
on the other hand, argue, that their antagonists
keep out of sight the fact that in those same seven
years the price of the foreign articles might, and
probably would, have fallen as much. One party
points to the former policy of Great Britain towards
her American colonies ; how she interdicted them
from manufacturing for themselves, and even from
selling the productions of their own soil and indus
try to any but the mother country ; — how she grew
rich by monopoly and restrictions, nursing her in
fant agriculture, commerce, and factories, by prohi
bitive duties; and they ask whether, if the English
cabinet really believed in the theory of free-trade,

326 DOG- WOOD IN VIRGINIA. [CHAP. XXXVIII.

they would not long ere this have repealed the
navigation laws ? The advocates of the opposite
policy appeal to the recent law for admitting Ameri
can corn duty-free into England, as demonstrating
the sincerity of the British government. But in this
controversy it happens, as usual, that class-interests
are espoused with all the personal zeal and energy
with which men pursue a private object, while the
cause of science, and the general good of the public,
being every body's business, are treated with compa
rative apathy.

When I arrived in Virginia, April 29th, I found
the woods everywhere enlivened by the dazzling
white flowers, or bracteae, of the dog-wood (Cornus
florida), the average height of which somewhat ex
ceeds that of our white thorn ; and wrhen, as often
happens, there is a back -ground of cedar or pine, the
mass of flower is almost as conspicuous as if a shower
of snow had fallen upon the boughs. As wre some
times see a pink variety of the wild thorn in England,
so there occurs here, now and then, though rarely, a
pink dog-wood. Having never remarked this splen
did tree in any English shrubbery or park, I had
some fine young plants sent home from a nursery to
several English friends, and, amongst others, to Sir
William Hooker, at Kew, who was not a little di
verted at my zeal for the introduction of a tree \vhich
had been well-established for many years in the
British arboretum. But now that I have since seen
the dwarfed and shabby representatives of this species
in our British shrubberies, I am ready to maintain
that it is still unknown in our island. No Virginian,

CHAP. XXXVIII.] TREES AND FLOWERS. 327

who was not a botanist, could ever recognise it in
England as the same plant as the dog-wood of his
native land. Yet it is capable of enduring frosts as
severe and protracted as are ever experienced in the
south of England, and the cause of its flowers not
attaining their full size in our climate, is probably a
want of sufficient intensity of light and heat.

A great variety of oaks were now in leaf in the
Virginian forests, among which I observed the white
oak, with its leaves in the shape of a violin, and the
willow oak, with long and narrow leaves. The
ground underneath these trees was adorned with the
pink azalea and many other flowers, among the
rest the white violet, a species of phlox, and an ever
lasting Gnaphalium.

The cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is often covered
at this season with what is termed here the cedar
apple (Podisoma rnacropus) supposed by many of the
inhabitants to be the flower or fruit of the tree itself.
It is a beautiful orange-coloured fungus, ornamented
with tassels, a very conspicuous object after a shower,
but shrinking up if exposed to a day's sunshine.

I made excursions in various directions with my
friend, Mr. Gifford, to examine the coal mines north
and south of Black heath, near Richmond, and have
already given the results of our observations in the
first volume.* I afterwards made an expedition with
Dr. Wyman, now Professor of Comparative Anatomy
at Cambridge, Massachusetts, to examine the geology
of the tertiary strata round Richmond, and those
(of the Eocene period) displayed in the cliiFs border-
Vol. i. p. 279.

328 NATURAL HISTORY. [CHAP. XXXVIII.

ing the Potomac river, near Acquia Creek. In one
of our walks we saw some dogs feeding on part of
the carcass of a horse, and a group of turkey-buzzards
eagerly looking on close at hand, but not daring to
share in the repast. Near the same spot were the
skulls of two dogs lying bleached in the sun, and in
the hollow of each we found the nest of a large species
of wasp, somewhat resembling our hornet, containing
a good store of honey. On the surface of some pools
of water I saw floating the singular seed-vessel of
the nuphar, or yellow pond lily (Nelumbium). These
seeds have been known to vegetate after they have
been kept for a hundred years.

In passing through a wood near Acquia Creek, on
a hot day, we came upon a large snake, about four
feet long, resembling that called the moccasin, which
lifted itself up, folding its body into several graceful
coils, and then darted its head and neck forward at a
dog which had followed us from the inn. The dog
dexterously retreated as often as a blow was aimed
at him, barking loudly, and enjoying the mock fight.
The extremity of the snake's tail, although not armed
with a rattle, was in a state of constant vibration.

On a soft sandy road we saw a great many of the
ball-rolling beetles (Ateuchus volvens), which resemble
in form the Scarabaus sacer of Egypt. They were
all busily engaged in pushing along round balls of
dung, in the centre of some of which we found an
egg, and in others a maggot. A pair of beetles was
occupied with each globular mass, which considerably
exceeded themselves in size. One of them went be
fore, and usually climbed up the side of the ball till

CHAP. XXXVIII.] BALL -POLLING BEETLES. 329

the weight of its body made the mass fall over, the
other pushing behind, so as to urge it forwards, or at
least prevent it from rolling back again. We saw
two of them in half a minute force a ball for a dis
tance of eighteen inches up a gentle slope, and when
they reached a soft part of the road, one of them be
gan to excavate a hole, and soon entirely disappeared
under ground, heaving up the earth till it cracked
and opened wide enough to allow his companion to
push the ball of dung into it. The round mass im
mediately began to sink, and in a few minutes was
out of sight. We saw another pair try in vain to
bury their treasure, for they had selected a spot where
the soil was too hard ; at last they gave up the at
tempt, and, rolling it away, set out in search of a more
favourable spot.

We crossed several ploughed fields on the slope of
ihe hills which descend towards the Potomac, where a
singular kind of manure is used, consisting of dead
fish, and almost exclusively of the bony pike, or gar
fish (Lepidosteus oxyurus). The hard stony scales
resist decomposition for several years. The fisher
men told us that they are greatly annoyed by con
stantly taking these pikes in their nets with the
herrings. There is so enormous an abundance of

o

herrings in some spots in this estuary, that 50,000
have sometimes been taken this season in a few
hours.

In a marsh near the inn, we observed numerous
habitations of the musk-rat, standing up like hay
cocks. When the small size of the animal is consi
dered, the quantity of dried grass, reeds, and rushes

330 MUSK-RATS. [CHAP. XXXVIII.

accumulated in one of these hummocks, at least a
cart-load, is surprising. We waded through the
water to one of them, and found that it was four feet
high, and nine feet in diameter. When we pulled it
to pieces, the smell of musk was very perceptible.
At the depth of about sixteen inches from the top
we found a cavity, or chamber, and a small gallery
leading from it to another chamber below, from
which a second gallery descended, and then went up
wards again to a third chamber, from all which there
was a perpendicular passage, leading down to below
the level of the water, so that the rats can dive, and,
without being seen again, enter their apartments, in
which they breathe air.

The unio, or freshwater mussel, is a favourite food
of these rats, and they often leave the shells on the
banks of the American rivers, with one valve entire
and the other broken. In the evening the note of
the bull-frog, in these swamps, reminded me much of
the twanging of a large Jew's harp.

From Acquia Creek, I went, by steamer, to Wash
ington, and thence by railway through Philadelphia,
to the town of Burlington, in New Jersey, beauti
fully situated on the banks of the Delaware. Here
I paid a short visit to my friend, Mr. William
M'llvaine, and crossed the Delaware with him to
Bristol, to renew my acquaintance with Mr. Vanux-
em, a geologist of no ordinary merit. His death,
which happened soon afterwards, was a loss to the
public as well as to many personal friends.

In Wilson's " Ornithology" it is stated, that the
humming-bird migrates from the South to Pennsyl-

CHAP. XXX^VJIL] HUMMING-BIRDS. 331

vania the latter part of April, and builds its nest
there about the middle of May. For the last thirty
years, Mr. M'llvaine had never been disappointed
in seeing it reach Burlington the first week of that
month, generally about the middle of the week, its
northward progress being apparently hastened or re
tarded by the mildness or inclemency of the season.
They seem always to wait for the flowering of a
species of horse-chesnut, called here the buck-eye,
from a fancied likeness of its fruit to the eye of a
deer. The bright-red blossoms of this tree supply
the nourishment most attractive to these birds, whose
arrival had been looked for the very day after I
came. Strange to say, one of them, the avant-
courier of the feathered host, actually appeared, and
next morning, May 7th, hundreds were seen and
heard flitting and humming over the trees. A lady
sent us word that a straggler from the camp was
imprisoned in her greenhouse, and, going there, I saw
it poised in the air, sucking honey from the blossom
of an orange-tree. The flower was evidently bent
down slightly, as if the bird rested its bill upon it
to aid its wings in supporting its body in the air, or
to steady it. When it wished to go out, it went
straight to the window at which it had entered, and,
finding it closed, flew rapidly round the large conser
vatory, examining all parts of it, without once strik
ing the glass or beating its wings against the Avail,
as the more timid of the feathered tribe are apt
to do. No sooner, however, was a small casement
opened, than it darted through it like an arrow.

332 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XXXIX.

CHAP. XXXIX.

New York, clear Atmosphere and gay Dresses. — Omnibuses. —
Naming of Streets. — Visit to Audubon. — Croton Aqueduct.
— Harpers Printing Establishment. — Large Sale of Works
by English and American Authors. — Cheapness of Boohs. —
International Copyright. — Sale of Eugene Sue's " Wandering
Jew." — Tendency of the Work. — Mr. Gallatin on Indian Corn.

— War with Mexico. — Facility of raising Troops. — Dr.
Dewey preaching against War. — Cause of Influence of Uni
tarians. — Geological Excursion to Albany. — Helderberg War.

— Voting Thanks to the Third House. — Place-hunting. —
Spring Flowers. — Geology and Taconic System.

May 7. 1846. — ON our return to New York, we
were struck with the brightness of the atmosphere
in spring, arising not merely from the absence of
smoke, but from the quantity of solar light as com
pared to England, this city being in the same lati
tude as Naples. The unsullied purity of the air
makes gay and brilliant colours in dress and furni
ture appropriate.

Every fortnight the " Journal des Modes " is re
ceived from France, and the ladies conform strictly
to the Parisian costume. Except at balls and large
parties, they wear high dresses, and, as usual in mer
cantile communities, spare no expense. Embroidered
muslin, of the finest and costliest kind, is much worn ;
and my wife learnt that sixteen guineas were not un-
f'requently given for a single pocket handkerchief.

CHAP. XXXIX.] OMNIBUSES. 333

Extravagantly expensive fans, with ruby or emerald
pins, are also common. I had heard it said in France
that no orders sent to Lyons for the furnishing of
private mansions, are on so grand a scale as some of
those received from New York ; and I can well be
lieve it, for we saw many houses gorgeously fitted
up with satin and velvet draperies, rich Axminster
carpets, marble and inlaid tables, and large looking-
glasses, the style in general being Parisian rather
than English. It was much more rare here than at
Boston to see a library forming part of a suite of
reception-rooms, or even a single book-case in a
drawing-room, nor are pictures so common here.

In the five months since we were last in this me
tropolis, whole streets had been built, and several
squares finished in the northern or fashionable end of
the town, to which the merchants are now resorting,
leaving the business end, near the Battery, where
they formerly lived. Hence there is a constant in
crease of omnibuses passing through Broadway, and
other streets running north and south. Groups of
twelve of these vehicles may be seen at once, each
with a single driver, for wages are too high to sup
port a cad. Each omnibus has an opening in the
roof, through which the money is paid to the coach
man. We observed, as one woman after another got
out, any man sitting near the door, though a stran
ger, would jump down to hand her out, and, if it was
raining, would hold an umbrella over her, frequently
offering, in that case, to escort her to a shop, atten
tions which are commonly accepted and received by
the women as matters of course.

334 NAMING OF STREETS. [CHAP. XXXIX.

All the streets which cross Broadway, run east and
west, and are numbered, so that they have now ar
rived at 146th Street, — a mode of designating the
different parts of a metropolis worthy of imitation on
both sides of the Atlantic, since experience has now
proved that there is, in the Anglo-Saxon mind, an in
herent poverty of invention in matters of nomen
clature. For want of some municipal regulations
like those of New York, the same names are in
definitely multiplied in every great city, and letters,
after wandering over all the streets bearing the same
appellation, to the infinite inconvenience and cost of
the post-office, are at length received, if haply they
ever reach their destination, long after they are due.

The low island on which New York is built, is com
posed of granite and gneiss covered with " drift" and
boulders. The original surface being very uneven,
the municipality has fixed upon a certain grade or
level to which all heights must be lowered by blast
ing the rocks or by carting away gravel, and up to
which all the cavities must be raised. Besides other
advantages of this levelling process, the ground is
said to become more healthy and free from malaria,
there being no longer any stagnant pools of water
standing in the hollows.

May 10. — Paid a visit to Mr. Audubon, the
celebrated ornithologist, at his delightful residence
on the banks of the Hudson, north of Bloomingdale.
His son had just returned from Texas, where lie had
been studying the natural history of that country,
especially the mammalia, and was disappointed at the
few opportunities he had enjoyed of seeing the wild

CHAP. XXXIX.j CROTON AQUEDUCT. 335

land quadrupeds in a state of activity, so as to observe
their habits. I told him I had been equally sur
prised at the apparent scarcity of this tribe in the
native forests of the United States. This whole
class of animals,, he said, ought to be regarded as
properly nocturnal ; for not merely the feline tribe
and the foxes, the weasels and bats shun the day
light, but many others feed partly by night, most
of the squirrels and bears for example. The rumi
nants no doubt are an exception, yet even the deer
and the buffalo, like the wild horse, travel chiefly in
the night.

From Mr. Audubon's I went to Highbridge,
where the Croton water is made to play for the
amusement of visitors, and is thrown up in a column
to the height of 120 feet.

I went also to see the reservoir, enclosing an area
of no less than thirty-six acres, from which the water
is distributed to all parts of New York. In this ar
tificial lake all the river sediment is deposited, the
basin being divided into two parts, so that one may
be cleaned out while the other is use. The tunnel
or pipe conveying the water for a distance of more
than thirty miles, from the source to the Haerlem
river, is so large, that the chief engineer and com
missioners of the works were able to float down it
in a flat-bottomed boat when it was first opened, in
July, 1842.

While at New York, we were taken by our literary
friend, Mr. Cogswell, over the printing and publish
ing establishment of the Harpers, the largest in
America, and only surpassed, in the scale of its

336 HARPER'S PRINTING-OFFICE. [CHAP, xxxix.

operations, by two or three in Great Britain. They
give employment to three hundred men, manufacture
their own types and paper, and have a " bookbindery "
under the same roof; for, in order to get out, with
the utmost despatch, the, reprints of foreign works not
entitled to copyright, they require to be independent
of all aid from other traders. We were shown a fire
proof vault, in which stereotype plates, valued at
about 300,000 dollars, are deposited. In one of the
upper stories a long line of steam-presses was throw
ing off sheets of various works, and the greater
number were occupied with the printing of a large
illustrated Bible, and Morse's Geography for the use
of schools. In 1845, the Harpers sold two millions
of volumes, some of them, it is true, being only
styled numbers, but these often contain a reprint of
an entire English novel, originally published in two
or three volumes, at the cost of a guinea and a half,
the same being sold here for one or two shillings.
Several of Bulwer's tales are among these, 40,000
copies of his " Last of the Barons" having just issued
from this house. It may, indeed, be strictly said of
English writers in general, that they are better
known in America than in Europe.

Of the best English works of fiction, published at
thirty-one shillings in England, and for about six
pence here, it is estimated that about ten times as
many copies are sold in the United States as in
Great Britain ; nor need we wonder at this, when
we consider that day labourers in an American vil
lage often purchase a novel by Scott, Bulwer, or
Dickens, or a popular history, such as Alison's Eu-

CHAP. XXXIX.] CHEAPNESS OF BOOKS. 337

rope (published at thirteen pounds in England and
sixteen shillings in America), and read it at spare
moments, while persons in a much higher station
in England are debarred from a similar intellectual
treat by considerations of economy.

It might have been apprehended that, where a
daily newspaper can be bought for a halfpenny, and
a novel for sixpence, the public mind would be so
taken up with politics and light reading, that no time
would be left for the study of history, divinity, and
the graver periodical literature. But, on the con
trary, experience has proved that, when the habit
and facility of reading has been acquired by the
perusal even of trashy writings, there is a steady
increase in the number of those who enter on deeper
subjects. I was glad to hear that, in proportion as
the reading public augments annually, the quality of
the books read is decidedly improving. About four
years ago, 40,000 copies were printed of the ordinary
common-place novels published in England, of which
sort they now only sell about 8000.

It might also have been feared that the cheapness
of foreign works unprotected by copyright, would
have made it impossible for native authors to obtain
a price capable of remunerating them highly, as well
as their publishers. But such is not the case. Yery
large editions of Prescott's "Ferdinand and Isabella,"
and of his " Mexico," and " Peru," have been sold at
a high price ; and when Mr. Harper stated to me his
estimate of the original value of the copyright of these
popular works, it appeared to me that an English au
thor could hardly have obtained as much in his own

VOL. II. Q

338 CHEAPNESS OF BOOKS. [CHAP. XXXIX.

country. * The comparative cheapness of American
books, the best editions of which are by no means in
small print, seems at first unintelligible, when we
consider the dearness of labour, which enters so
largely into the price of printing, paper, and binding.
But, first, the number of readers, thanks to the free-
schools, is prodigiously great, and always augmenting
in a higher ratio even than the population ; and, se
condly, there is a fixed determination on the part of
the people at large to endure any taxation, rather
than that which would place books and newspapers
beyond their reach. Several politicians declared to
me that not only an income tax, but a window tax,
would be preferred; and "this last," said they, "would
scarcely shut out the light from a greater number of
individuals." The duty on paper, in the United States,
is trifling, when compared to that paid in Great Bri
tain. Mr. Chambers informs us, that the Government
duty of 5000/., paid by him for his Miscellany, in

* A letter dated April 15. 1849, was lately shown me from
the Harpers, with permission to make known its contents, in
which they mentioned, that having been authorised by Mr.
Macaulay to publish in America his "History of England," they
had printed six editions at various prices varying from four
dollars to fifty cents (sixteen shillings and sixpence to two
shillings). At the expiration of the first three months, they
had sold 40,000 copies, and other booksellers who had issued
independent editions had sold about 20,000 ; so that 60,000
copies had been purchased in the United States at a time when
about 13,000 had been disposed of by Longman and Co., in
London, at the price of \l. 12s. each. As the cheap American
editions were only just brought into the market at the date of
this letter, the principal sale of the book was but commencing.

CHAP. XXXIX.] INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 339

twenty volumes, was equal in amount to the whole
profits of that publication. The cost of advertise
ments, in America, is also small. One of my Ame
rican friends sent over to a London publisher 250
copies of his work, charging him 4s. 6d. each. After
paying entrance duties, and necessary outlay for ad
vertisements in London, and the agency, it was found
that the price must be as high as 16s.

The party who are in favour of an international
copyright between England and the United States,
seems to be steadily gaining strength among the
booksellers, publishers, and authors, although the
editors of newspapers and their readers may perhaps
oppose the measure for some time. The number of
reprisals now made by English speculators are very
numerous. According to a statement lately presented
to Congress by Mr. Jay, of New York, there are
about 600 original American works " pirated " in
Great Britain; or, to speak more correctly, while the
law remains in its present state, reprinted without
leave of their American authors, or any pecuniary
acknowledgment to them.

Many are of opinion that the small print of cheap
editions in the United States, will seriously injure
the eyesight of the rising generation, especially as
they often read in railway cars, devouring whole
novels, printed in newspapers, in very inferior type.
Mr. Everett, speaking of this literature, in an address
to the students of Harvard College, said, " If cheap
it can be called, which begins by costing a man his
eyes, and ends by perverting his taste and morals."

As an illustration of the mischievous tendency of
Q 2

340 THE " WANDERING JEW." [CHAP. XXXIX.

the indiscriminate reading of popular works by the
multitude, when the higher classes and clergy can exert
little or no control in the selection of the books read,
the wonderful success of Eugene Sue's " Wandering
Jew" was pointed out to me by many, with no small
concern. This led me to ask Mr. Harper how many
copies he had disposed of, and he answered, " 80,000,
issued in different shapes, and at various prices." It
had so often been thrust into my hands in railway
cars, and so much talked of, that, in the course of
my journey, I began to read it in self-defence ; and,
having begun, could not stop till I had finished the
whole, although the style of the original loses half
its charms in an imperfect translation. " Le vieux
dragon," for example, is always rendered the "old
dragon," instead of "dragoon," and the poetry of a bril
liant passage is nearly destroyed by "defense" being
translated "defence," instead of "barrier," with other
blunders equally unpardonable. Yet the fascination
of the original, and its power to fix the attention,
triumph over these disadvantages and over the vio
lence done to probability in the general plot, and
over the extravagance of many of its details. The
gross, sensual, and often licentious descriptions in
which the author indulges, in some scenes, and still
more, such sentimental immorality as is involved in
the sympathy demanded for Hardy's love and in
trigue with a married woman (he being represented
as the model of a high-minded philanthropist),
make one feel the contrast of such a work with the
chaste and pure effusions of Scott's genius. Yet
there is much pure feeling, many touches of tender-

CHAP. XXXIX.] ITS TENDENCY. 341

ness in the tale, and many passages fitted to awaken
our best affections. Even the false political economy
bordering on communism, is redeemed by the tendency
of the book to excite sympathy for the sufferings,
destitution, and mental degradation of the poor. The
dramatic power displayed in many scenes, is of a
high order ; as when the Jesuit Rodin, receiving his
credentials from Koine, is suddenly converted into
the superior of the haughty chief to whom he had
been previously the humble secretary, and where
Dagobert's wife, under the direction of her confessor,
refuses, in opposition to a husband whom she loves
and respects, to betray the place of concealment of
two young orphans, the victims of a vile conspiracy.
In this part of the narrative, moreover, the beauty
of the devotional character of the female mind is
done full justice to, while the evils of priestly domi
nation are exhibited in their true colours. The im
prisonment of a young girl, of strong mind and
superior understanding, in a madhouse, until she is
worked upon almost to doubt her own sanity, are
described with much delicacy of feeling and pathos,
and make the reader shudder at the facility with
which such institutions, if not subject to public in
spection, may be, and have been abused.

The great moral and object of the whole piece, is
to expose the worldly ambition of the Romanist
clergy, especially of the Jesuits, and the injury done,
not only to the intellectual progress of society at large,
but to the peace and happiness of private families, by
their perpetual meddling with domestic concerns,

Q 3

342 MR. GALLATIN [CHAP. XXXIX.

That the shafts of this satire have not missed their aim,
has been proved, among other evidences, by its having
been thought politic, even in England, to circulate,
chiefly, it is said, among the Irish Catholics, an " Adap
tation of the Wandering Jew, from the original of
Eugene Sue." In this singular re-cast of the French
romance, which I have perused, the Russian police is
everywhere substituted for the Jesuits, and Rodin
becomes the tool of the Czar, intriguing in French
politics, instead of the servant of the successor of
Ignatius Loyola. On the whole, I am inclined to
believe that the good preponderates over the evil, in
the influence exerted on the million, even by such a
romance. It has a refining rather than a corrupting
effect, and may lead on to the study of works of a more
exalting character. The great step is gained, when the
powers of the imagination have been stimulated and
the dormant and apathetic mind awakened and lifted
above the prosaic monotony of every-day life.

May 9. • — Called with a letter of introduction
on Mr. Gallatin, well known by a long and distin
guished career in political life. As a diplomatist in
London, he negotiated the original Oregon treaty with
Great Britain, and has now, at the age of eighty-two,
come out with several able and spirited pamphlets, to
demonstrate to his countrymen that their national
honour would not be compromised by accepting the
terms offered by the British Cabinet. Being at the
same time an experienced financier, he has told them
plainly, if they will go to war, how much it will cost
them annually, and what taxes they should make up
their minds to submit to cheerfully, if they would

CHAP. XXXIX.] ON INDIAN CORN. 343

carry on a campaign with honour and spirit against
such an enemy.

In the course of conversation, I found that Mr.
Gallatin was of opinion that the indigenous civilisa
tion of several Indian tribes, and of the Mexicans
and Peruvians among others, was mainly due to the
possession of a grain so productive, and, when dried in
the sun, so easily kept for many years, as the maize
or Indian corn. The potatoe, which, when healthy, can
rarely be stored up and preserved till the next harvest,
may be said, on the contrary, to be a food on which
none but an improvident race would lean for support.
"I have long been convinced," said Mr. Gallatin, "that
the Indian corn has also given a powerful impulse to
the rapid settlement of the whites in Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, and other western States. In one of my
first excursions to the West, I saw a man felling
trees in March, who, when I returned in October,
had harvested a crop of Indian corn, grown on the
very spot. He had also the leaves and stems of the
plant to serve for winter fodder for his cattle. He
was an emigrant, newly arrived, and entirely with
out the capital indispensable to enable him to culti
vate wheat, which must have been twelve or thirteen
months in the ground before it could be reaped."

Next day the stirring news of the invasion of the
Mexican territory by the American army, reached
New York, and I met the news-boys, in every street,
crying out, " War with Mexico ! " Soon afterwards
I saw the walls covered with placards, headed with
the words, " Ho, for the halls of the Montezumas ! "

The mayor had called a public meeting to ex-
Q 4

344 WAR WITH MEXICO. [CHAP. XXXIX.

press sympathy with the President and the war-
party at Washington. This meeting was held in the
Park, and although it may have served the purpose
of the democratic party, it was certainly a signal
failure, if any strong expression of popular feeling in
favour of such a war was looked for. Tn the crowd
I heard nothing but Irish, Scotch, and German
accents, and the only hearty cheer which any one
orator could draw, even from this mob of foreigners,
was obtained by representing the Mexicans as acting
under the influence of British gold.

I met with no one person in society who defended
the aggression on the Mexican territory ; but as they
cannot prevent it, they endeavour, each in his way, to
comfort themselves that the mischief is no worse,
some saying, it will be a less evil than fighting with
Great Britain, others that it will furnish employ
ment for a host of turbulent spirits ; while some mer
chants hint that the democratic party, had they been
economical, might have lowered the tariff) and carried
out their dangerous theory of free-trade, whereas
now they will plunge the nation into debt, and be
compelled to resort to high duties, which will " pro
tect native industry." The dissatisfaction of others
is unbounded ; they dread the annexation of a re
gion containing five millions of Indians, which, say
they, will deteriorate the general standard of the
white population ; — they deplore the development of
a love for military glory, a passion inconsistent with all
true republican principles ; — and one friend observed
to me, " You will soon see a successful soldier, wholly
unknown to all of us at this moment, a man unversed

CHAP. XXXIX.] RAISING TROOPS. 345

in civil affairs, raised to the Presidentship." I asked
whether, in a country where nearly all are industri
ously employed, it will be possible to find recruits for
foreign service. Nothing, they reply, is more easy.
" Our broad Indian frontier has nurtured a daring
and restless population, which loves excitement and
adventure, and in the Southern States there are num
bers of whites to whom military service would be a
boon, because slavery has degraded labour." A
week later I received a letter from a correspon
dent in the South, who said, " Such is the mili
tary fever in Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and
Mississippi, that these States alone would furnish
50,000 men, if required; and in many districts
we are in fear of such an enlistment of the white
population, that there will be too few left at home
to serve as a police for the negroes. Married men
are going as well as bachelors, lawyers, medical men,
and schoolmasters, many of whom have no taste
whatever for fighting or foreign service, but they
know that to have served a year in a campaign, to
have been in a battle, or to have been wounded,
would advance them more in an election, or even in
their several professions, than any amount of study
or acquired knowledge."

The Sunday following we heard a sermon by the
Rev. Orville Dewey, in which this spirit of territorial
aggrandisement, this passion for war, these false no
tions of national honour and glory, were characterised
as unchristian and indicating a low standard of pri
vate as well as public morality. I remarked to a
New England acquaintance, who was one of the large

Q 5

346 DR. DEWEY. [CHAP. XXXIX.

congregation, that whatever might be said against
the voluntary system, the pulpit in America seemed
to me more independent than the press. " Because
every newspaper," he replied, " is supported by half
yearly or annual subscribers, and no editor dares
write against the popular sentiment. He knows that
a dagger is always suspended over him by a thread,
and if he presumed to run counter to the current,
his table would be covered next morning with letters
each beginning with the dreaded words, f Stop my
paper.' He has made a bargain like that of Doctor
Faustua with the devil, bartering away his immortal
soul for a few thousand dollars." When I after
wards reflected on this alleged tyranny of regular
subscribers, it occurred to me that the evil must be
in a great degree mitigated by the cheapness and
variety of daily prints, each the organ of some dis
tinct party or shade of opinion, and great numbers
of them freely taken in at every reading-room and
every hotel.

I might say of Dr. Dewey's discourse, as I have
already said of the preaching of the Unitarians gene
rally, that, without wanting spirituality, it was more
practical and less doctrinal than the majority of ser
mons to which I have been accustomed to listen.
But I should mislead my readers, if I gave them to
understand that they could frequent churches of this
denomination without risk of sometimes having their
feelings offended by hearing doctrines they have been
taught to reverence treated slightingly, or even with
contempt. On one occasion (and it was the only one in
my experience), I was taken, when at Boston, to hear
an eminent Unitarian preacher who was prevented by

CHAP. XXXIX.] UNITARIANS. 347

illness from officiating, and his place was supplied by
a self-satisfied young man, who, having talked dog
matically on points contested by many a rationalist,
made it clear that he commiserated the weak minds
of those who adhered to articles of faith rejected by
his church. If this too common method of treating
theological subjects be ill calculated to convince or
conciliate dissentients, it is equally reprehensible from
its tendency to engender, in the minds of those who
assent, a Pharisaical feeling of self-gratulation that
they are not as other sectarians are.

I can only account for the power which the Unita
rians have exerted, and are now exerting, in forward
ing the great educational movement in America, in the
face of that almost superstitious prejudice with which
their theology is regarded by nineteen-twentieths
of the population, by attributing it to the love of in
tellectual progress which animates both their clergy
and laity, and the deep conviction they are known to
feel that public morality and happiness can only be
ensured by spreading an elevated standard of popular
education throughout the masses. In their enthusi
astic pursuit of this great end, they are acknowledged
to have no thought of making proselytes to any system
of religious doctrines, and are therefore trusted in
the management of schools by the parents of children
of the most opposite persuasions. In regard to their
own faith, some misapprehension has arisen in conse
quence of the name they bear, which was not chosen
by themselves, but to which, on the contrary, they
have objections such as members of the Anglican
Church might feel if some such name as Anti-tran-

Q 6

348 EXCURSION TO ALBANY. [CHAP. XXXIX.

substantiationists, or any term which simply expressed
their opposition to some one article of the Romanist
creed, had been fixed upon them. When the rigid
Calvinism of the old Puritans caused a schism in New
England, the seceders wished to free themselves from
the fetters of a creed, and to take the Gospel alone as
their standard of faith. They were naturally, therefore,
averse to accept a name which might be generally
supposed to imply that they attached a prominent
importance to the negation of any one doctrine pro
fessed by other Christians. " I desire," said Chan-
ning, " to wear the livery of no party ; but we accept
the appellation which others have imposed upon us,
because it expresses what we believe to be a truth,
and therefore we ought not to shrink from the re
proaches cast upon it. But, had the name been
more honoured, had no popular cry been raised against
it, I would gladly have thrown it off." *

May 11. — Sailed from New York to Albany in
a steamer, which carried me at the rate of eighteen
miles an hour through the ' beautiful scenery of the
Hudson river. I had been invited by two of the
State surveyors of New York to make an excursion
with them to the north of Albany, and to discuss in
the field some controverted points respecting the
geology of the oldest fossiliferous strata. There was
a physician on board, who, having been settled for
twenty-six years in Virginia, had now come back,
after that long absence, to see his native State. His
admiration and wonder at the progress made by New
York in a quarter of a century were unbounded.

Charming' s Works, vol. iii. p. 210.

CHAP. XXXIX.] HELDERBEEG AVAR. 349

Speaking of his adopted country, he exclaimed, "We
have been left far behind in the race." I suggested,
that if, twenty-six years ago, a period had been fixed
upon by law for the emancipation of their slaves, Vir
ginia might, ere this, have been relieved of nearly all
her negro population, so great has been the migration
of negroes to the South. " It is useless," he said,
" to discuss the practicability of such a measure, while
the majority of our legislators, having been born
slave-holders, are not convinced of its desirability."
While my companion was absorbed in admiration at
the improvement of " the Empire State," my thoughts
and feelings took a very different turn, when I learned
that " the Helderberg war," which I have alluded to
in my former " Travels,"* is still going on, and seems
as far from a termination as ever. The agricultural
population throughout many populous counties have
now been in arms for eight years, to resist the pay
ment of rents due to their landlords, in spite of the
decisions of the courts of law against them. Large
contributions have been made towards an insurrec
tionary fund, — one of its objects being to support
a newspaper, edited by a Chartist refugee from Eng
land, in which the most dangerous anti-social doc
trines are promulgated. The " anti-renters " have
not only set the whole militia of the State at defiance,
in more than one campaign, but have actually killed
a sheriff's officer, who was distraining for rent ! If
any thing could add to the disgrace which such pro
ceedings reflect on the political administration of

Vol. i. p. 68.

350 VOTING THANKS TO [CHAP. XXXIX.

affairs in New York, it is the fact that the insurgents
would probably have succumbed ere this, had they not
been buoyed up by hopes of legislative interference
in their favour, held out to them by popularity-
hunting candidates for the governorship, and other
official places.

In the newspapers of the day, a scene described as
having occurred at the close of the Legislative Ses
sion in Albany excited my curiosity. One of the
members of the House of Representatives moved
a vote of thanks " to the gentlemen of the third
house for the regularity of their attendance and the
courtesy with which they had conducted themselves."
The motion was seconded, read from the chair amidst
great laughter, and then allowed to drop. I inquired
what might be the meaning of this joke, and was
asked in reply whether I had read the letters of Jesse
Hoyt and others, edited by Mackenzie ? I had, in
deed, purchased the pamphlet alluded to, containing
a selection from an immense mass (said to amount to
twenty-five volumes) of the private and confidential
correspondence of official men, left accidentally by
them, on a change of administration, in the custom
house of New York. All these had been printed for
the benefit of the public by their successors. The
authenticity of the documents made known by this
gentlemanlike stroke of party tactics, purporting to
be penned by men who had filled high places in the
State and Federal Governments, had been placed
beyond a doubt ; for the writers had attempted to
obtain an injunction in the law courts to stop the
publication, claiming the copyright of letters which

CHAP. XXXIX.] THE THIRD HOUSE. 351

they had written. Some time before this conversa
tion, a merchant of Boston, who wished me to look
only on the bright side of their institutions, and who
was himself an optimist, had said to me, " Our poli
ticians work in a glass hive, so that you always see
the worst of them ; whereas your public men can
throw a decent veil of secrecy over much that may
be selfish and sordid in the motives of their conduct.
Hence the scandal of your court and cabinets is only
divulged to posterity, a hundred years after the events,
in private memoirs." Unfortunately for this theory,
a glance at the Mackenzie letters was enough to
teach me, that, if the American bees work in a glass
hive, the glass is not quite so transparent as my
friend would have led me to believe. The explana
tion of the satirical motion made in the house at
Albany, then proceeded thus : " The patronage of the
State of New York is enormous ; the Governor alone
has the appointment of two hundred and sixty civil
officers, and the nomination of more than two thousand
places is vested jointly in him and the senate. Some
of these are for two, others for five years, and they
are worth from two hundred to five thousand dollars
a-year. Among the posts most coveted, because the
gains are sometimes very high, though fluctuating,
are those of the inspectors, who set their mark or
brand on barrels of exported goods, such as flour, to
bacco, preserved pork, mackerel and other fish, to
guarantee their good quality, and guard the public
against imposition, in cases where the articles would
be injured if opened and examined by the purchaser.
It is scarcely necessary to state, that where the prey is

352 PLACE HUNTING. [CHAP. XXXIX.

so abundant, there will the eagles be gathered together;
and besides the aspirants to vacant offices, there is a
crowd of lawyers and paid agents of private indivi
duals and companies, who have to watch the passage
of private and public bills through the Legislature.
During the whole session, they fill the Governor's
ante-room, and the lobby of each House ; and, as
they are equal in respectability, number, station, and
influence, to the two other houses put together, be
sides that they spend, perhaps, more money in
Albany, we dignify them with the name of ' the
third house.' "

" Are they," said I, " suspected of giving money-
bribes to legislators ? " " No ; but they may convey
a party of representatives on a railway trip, to make
them acquainted with the merits of some case relat
ing to a canal or railroad, and then entertain them
with a dinner before they return." " In Massachu
setts," said I, " people speak with more respect of
their assembly." " No doubt, for in that State there
is much less to give away, and therefore less corrup
tion and intrigue. Besides, we have only 160 sena
tors and representatives, whereas the assembly at
Boston is far more numerous, so that it is not so
easy to bring the influence of * the third house ' to
bear upon it."

In the public museum at Albany, Dr. Emmons
showed me a fine collection of simple minerals, rocks,
and fossils, made by himself and other geologists to
whom the State survey was entrusted. He then ac
companied me across the Hudson river, to examine

CHAP. XXXIX.] SPRING FLOWERS. 353

the slate and limestone eastward of Albany. Here,
from the summit of Greenbush Hill, we enjoyed a
magnificent view of the Catskill Mountains, and the
Helderberg range in the distance. In the foreground
was the river, and Albany itself, now containing a
population of 40,000 inhabitants, with its domes and
spires clustered together, in the higher parts of the
city, and lighted up by a bright sunshine.

The day following, Dr. Emmons and Mr. James
Hall went with me to explore the chain of the Bald
Mountains, north of Galeville. We passed through
the gay town of Saratoga Springs, where the mineral
waters burst out from " the Lower Silurian," or most
ancient fossiliferous rocks. We saw many picturesque
spots, especially the waterfall called Baaten Kill, near
Galeville, but no grand or striking scenery. Among
the plants in blossom, we gathered Anemone nemorosa,
Trientalis Americana (less beautiful than our British
Trientalis Europ&a), Cypripedium pubescens, Gera
nium sylvaticum, three species of violet (all without
scent), Houstonia c&rulea, Gnaphalium perenne, and
in several copses, the beautiful Polygala pauciflora,,
which might be truly said —

" To purple all the ground with vernal flowers."

Whether, in this part of the United States, there are
any fossiliferous rocks older than the Lower Silurian,
was the geological point at issue ; and the question
resembled one on which an animated controversy had
lately been carried on in Great Britain, in regard to

354 GEOLOGY. [CHAP. XXXIX.

the relative age of the tf Cambrian " and " Silurian "
groups. As those strata, called Cambrian, which con
tained organic remains, were found to be nothing
more than highly disturbed and semi-crystalline
Silurian rocks, so I believe the formations called
Taconic in the United States, to have claim to no
higher antiquity, and to be simply Silurian strata
much altered, and often quite metamorphic.

CHAP. XL.] RAILWAYS. 355

CHAP. XL.

Construction and Management of Railways in America. —
Journey by Long Inland from Neiv York to Boston. — Whale,
Fishery in the Pacific. — Chewing Tobacco. — Visit to Wenham
Lake. — Cause of the superior Permanence of Wenham Lake
Ice. — Return to Boston. — Skeletons of Fossil Mastodons. —
Food of those extinct Quadrupeds. — Anti-war Demonstration.
— Voyage to Halifax. — Dense Fog. — Large Group of Ice
bergs seen on the Ocean. — Transportation of Rocks by Icebergs.
— Danger of fast Sailing among Bergs. — Aurora Borealis.
— Connection of this Phenomenon with drift Ice. — Pilot with
English Newspapers. — Return to Liverpool.

May 21. 1846. — IN the construction and manage
ment of railways, tlie Americans have in general
displayed more prudence and economy than could
have been expected, where a people of such sanguine
temperament were entering on so novel a career of
enterprise. Annual dividends of seven or eight per
cent, have been returned for a large part of the capital
laid out on the New England railways, and on many
others in the Northern States. The cost of passing
the original bills through the State parliaments has
usually been very moderate, and never exorbitant;
the lines have been carried as much as possible
through districts where land was cheap ; a single line
only laid down where the traffic did not justify two ;
high gradients resorted to, rather than incur the

356 NEW YORK TO BOSTON. [CHAP. XL.

expense of deep cuttings ; tunnels entirely avoided ;
very little money spent in building station-houses ;
and, except where the population was large, they have
been content with the speed of fourteen or sixteen
miles an hour. It has, moreover, been an invariable
maxim " to go for numbers," by lowering the fares so
as to brin«; them within the reach of all classes. Oc-

O

casionally, when the intercourse between two rich and
populous cities, like New York and Boston, has ex
cited the eager competition of rival companies, they
have accelerated the speed far beyond the usual
average ; and we were carried from one metropolis to
the other, a distance of 239 miles, at the rate of
thirty miles an hour, in a commodious, lofty, and
well-ventilated car, the charge being only three
dollars, or thirteen shillings. We went by a route
newly opened, first through Long Island, ninety-five
miles in length, over a low, level tract, chiefly com
posed of fine sand ; and we then found a steamer
ready to take us across the Sound to New London in
Connecticut, where we were met by the cars at Point
Allen; after which we enjoyed much delightful
scenery, the raihvay following the margin of a river,
where there were cascades and rapids foaming over
granite rocks, and overhung with trees, whose foliage,
just unfolded, was illumined by a brilliant sunshine.

In the estuary of New London we saw many large
whalers, and a merchant talked to me with satisfaction
of the success of the United States' whale-fishery in
the Pacific, saying it amounted to 200,000 tons,
while that, of Great Britain did not exceed 60,000.
" Five fish," said he, " is the usual cargo of an En-

CHAP. XL.] WHALE FISHERY. 357

glish whaler, as they boil the blubber at home,
whereas the Americans boil it in a huge cauldron on
deck, and after staying out three years, return with
the oil of ninety whales in one ship. Our fishery in
the Pacific is becoming a most important nursery for
seamen, giving occupation to about 20,000 men,
which would enable us at any moment to man a
powerful fleet. The possession of California is
therefore much coveted by us, because the port of
San Francisco is the only one in the Northern Pacific
not exposed to the west wind, or blocked up by a bar
of sand, such as that which renders the mouth of the
Columbia river impassable to large ships. It is not
territory but a sea-port wre need, and this advantage
a war with Mexico may give us."

There was besides much characteristic conversation
in the cars, about constructing a railway 4000 miles
long from Washington to the Columbia river ; and
some of the passengers were speculating on the hope
of seeing in their lifetime a population of 15,000 souls
settled in Oregon and California. A variety of plans
was also freely discussed for crossing the isthmus from
the Gulf of Mexico into the Pacific, so as to avoid
the long and dangerous voyage round Cape Horn.
A ship-canal across the isthmus of Tehuantepec,
135 miles in length, was alluded to as the favourite
scheme ; and the expediency of forcing Mexico to
cede a right of way was spoken of as if the success
of their campaign was certain.

It is the fashion for travellers in the New World
to dwell so much on the chewing of tobacco, that
I may naturally be expected to say something of this

358 CHEWING TOBACCO. [CHAP. XL.

practice. There is enough of it to be very annoying
in steam-boats and railway-cars, but far less so as we
journey northwards ; and I never saw, even in the
South, any chewing of the weed in drawing-rooms,
although we were told in South Carolina that some

O

old gentlemen still indulged in this habit. That it is
comparatively rare in the New England States, was
attested by an anecdote related to me of a captain
who commands one of the steamers on Lake Cham-
plain, who prided himself on the \vhiteness of his
deck, intended to be kept as a promenade. Observing
a Southerner occasionally polluting its clean floor,
he ordered a boy to follow him up and down with a
swab, to the infinite diversion of the passengers, and
the no small indignation of the Southerner, when at
length he discovered how his footsteps had been
dodged. The governor of a Penitentiary told me,
that to deprive prisoners of tobacco was found to be
a very efficient punishment, and that its use was
prohibited in the New England madhouses, as being
too exciting.

From Boston we went to Ipswich, Massachusetts,
to visit Mr. Oakes, the botanist, with whom we had
spent many pleasant days in the White Mountains.*
He set out with us on an excursion to Wenham
Lake, from which so much ice is annually exported
to England and other parts of the world.

This lake lies about twenty miles to the north
east of Boston. It has a small island in the middle
of it, is about a mile long and forty feet deep, and

* See Vol. I. p. 71.

CHAP. XL.] WENHAM LAKE. 359

is surrounded by hills of sand and gravel, from forty
to a hundred feet high. The water is always clear
and pure, and the bottom covered wTith white quart-
zose sand. It is fed by springs, and receives no mud
from any stream flowing into it; but at the lower
extremity a small brook of transparent water flows
out. In some parts, however, there must, I presume,
be a soft and muddy bottom, as it is inhabited by
eels, as well as by pickerell and perch. Mr. Oakes
had recently received a present of a snapping turtle,
weighing 25 Ibs., taken from the lake. The ice is con
veyed by railway to Boston to be shipped, and the
increase of business has of late been such as to cause
the erection of new buildings, measuring 127 feet by
120, and 24 feet high. They stand on the water's
edge, by the side of the old storehouses, which are
very extensive, built of wood, with double walls two
feet apart, the space between being filled with saw
dust, which excludes the external air ; while tan is
heaped up, for the same purpose, on the outside.
The work of cutting and storing the ice is carried on
in winter, and is not commenced till the ice is at least
a foot thick. The surface is always carefully swept
and kept free from snow ; and as none but the most
compact and solid ice is fit for the market, it is neces
sary to shave off three inches or more of the super
ficial ice, by means of a machine called an ice-plane,
drawn by a horse. This operation is especially re
quired after a thaw or a fall of rain, succeeded by a
frost, which causes the lake to be covered with opake,
porous ice.

Sir Francis Head, in his " Emigrant," 1846, has

360 WENHAM LAKE ICE. [CHAP. XL.

attributed the durability of the Wenham Lake ice,
or its power of resisting liquefaction, to the intense
cold of a North American winter. It is perfectly
true that this ice does not melt so fast as English ice ;
but the cause of this phenomenon is, I believe, very
different from that assigned for it by the late Gover
nor of Upper Canada. " People in England," he
says, " are prone to think that ice is ice ; but the
truth is, that the temperature of 32° Fahrenheit, that
at which water freezes, is only the commencement
of an operation that is almost infinite ; for after its
congelation, water is as competent to continue to
receive cold, as it was when it was fluid. The
application of cold to a block of ice does not,
as in the case of heat applied beneath boiling water,
cause what is added at one end to fly out at the
other : but, on the contrary, the centre cold is added
to and retained by the mass, and thus the tempe
rature of the ice falls with the temperature of the air,
until in Lower Canada it occasionally sinks to 40°
below zero, or 72° below the temperature of ice just
congealed. It is evident, therefore, that if two ice
houses were to be filled, the one with Canada ice,
and the other with English ice, the difference be
tween the quantity of cold stored up in each would
be as appreciable as the difference between a cellar
full of gold and a cellar full of copper ; that is to say,
a cubic foot of Lower Canada ice is infinitely more
valuable, or, in other words, it contains infinitely
more cold, than a cubic foot of Upper Canada ice,
which again contains more cold than a cubic foot of
Wenham ice, which contains infinitely more cold

CHAP. XL.] WENHAM LAKE ICE. 361

than a cubic foot of English ice ; and thus, although
each of these four cubic feet of ice has precisely the
same shape, they each, as summer approaches, diminish
in value ; that is to say, they each gradually lose a
portion of their cold, until, long before the Lower
Canada ice has melted, the English ice has been con
verted into luke-warm water."

There can be no doubt that where an intense frost
gives rise to a great thickness of ice, permitting large
cubic masses to be obtained after the superficial and
porous ice has been planed off, a great advantage is
afforded to the American ice merchant, and the low
temperature acquired by the mass must prevent it
from melting so readily when the hot season comes on,
since it has first to be warmed up to 32° Fahrenheit,
before it can begin to melt. Nevertheless, each frag
ment of ice, when removed from the store-house,
very soon acquires the temperature of 32° Fahren
heit, and yet when a lump of Wenham ice has been
brought to England, it does not melt by any means
so readily as a similar lump of common English ice.
Mr. Faraday tells me that Wenham Lake ice is ex
ceedingly pure, being both free from air-bubbles and
from salts. The presence of the first makes it ex
tremely difficult to succeed in making a lens of En
glish ice which will concentrate the solar rays and
readily fire gunpowder, whereas nothing is easier
than to perform this singular feat of igniting a com
bustible body by the aid of a frozen mass, if Wenham
ice be employed.

The absence of salts conduces greatly to the per
manence of the ice, for where water is so frozen that

VOL. II. K

362 EETURN TO BOSTON. [CHAP. XL.

the salts expelled are still contained in air-cavities
and cracks, or form thin films between the layers of
the ice, these entangled salts cause the ice to melt
at a lower temperature than 32°, and the liquefied
portions give rise to streams and currents within the
body of the ice, which rapidly carry heat to the in
terior. The mass then goes on thawing within as
well as without, and at temperatures below 32° ;
whereas pure and compact Wenham ice can only
thaw at 32°, and only on the outside of the mass.

Boston, May, 23. — Sir Humphrey Davy, in his
" Consolations in Travel,"* has said, that he never
entered London, after having been absent for some
time, without feelings of pleasure and hope,; for there
he could enjoy the most refined society in the grand
theatre of intellectual activity, the metropolis of the
world of business, thought, and action, in politics,
literature, and science.

I have more than once experienced the same feel
ings of hope and pleasure after having wandered
over the less populous and civilised parts of the
United States, when I returned to Boston, and never
more so than on this occasion, when, after travelling
over so large a space in the southern and western
States, we spent ten days in the society of our literary
and scientific friends in the metropolis of Massachu
setts, and in the flourishing university in its suburbs.
They who wish to give a true picture of the national
character of America, what it now is, and is destined
to become, must study chiefly those towns which

* P. 168.

CHAP. XL.] FOSSIL MASTODON. 363

contain the greatest number of native-born citizens.
They must sojourn in the east, rather than in the
west or south, not among the six million who are one
half African and the other half the owners of ne
groes, nor among the settlers in the back-woods, who
are half Irish, German, or Norwegians, nor among
the people of French origin in Louisiana ; for, how
ever faithfully they may portray the peculiarities of
such districts, they will give no better a representa
tion of America, than an accurate description of
Tipperary, Connemara, the West Indies, French Ca
nada, Australia, and the various lands into which
Great Britain is pouring her surplus population,
would convey of England.

Among other scientific novelties at Boston, I was
taken to see two magnificent skeletons, recently ob
tained, of the huge mastodon, one of them found in
Warren county, New Jersey, which a farmer had
met with six feet below the surface, when digging
out the rich mud from a small pond newly drained.
There were no less than six skeletons, five of them
lying together, and the sixth and largest about ten
feet apart from the rest. A large portion of the
bones crumbled to pieces as soon as they were ex
posed to the air, but nearly the whole of the separate
specimen was preserved. Dr. John Jackson called
my attention to the interesting fact that this perfect
skeleton proved the correctness of Cuvier's conjec
ture respecting this extinct animal, namely, that it
had twenty ribs like the elephant, although no more
then nineteen had ever been previously found. From
the clay in the interior within the ribs, just where

R 2

364 FOOD OF MASTODOX. [CHAP. XL.

the contents of the stomach might naturally have
been looked for, seven bushels of vegetable matter
had been extracted ; and Professor Webster, of Har
vard College, had the kindness to present me with
some of it, which has since been microscopically ex
amined for me in London by Mr. A. Henfrey, of the
Geological Survey. He informs me that it consists
of pieces of the small twigs of a coniferous tree of
the cypress family ; and they resemble in structure
the young shoots of the white cedar (Thuja occiden-
talis\ still a native of North America, on which,
therefore, we may conclude that the mastodon fed.

But a still nobler specimen of this great probos
cidian quadruped was exhumed in August, 1845, in
the town of Newburg, New York, and purchased by
Dr. John C. Warren, Professor of Anatomy in Har
vard University. It is the most complete, and,
perhaps, the largest ever met with. The bones
contain a considerable proportion of their original
gelatine, and are firm in texture. The tusks, when
discovered, were ten feet long ; but the larger part of
them had decomposed, and could not be preserved.
The length of the skeleton was twenty-five feet, and
its height twelve feet, the anchylosing of the two
last ribs on the right side affording the comparative
anatomist a true gauge for the space occupied by the
intervertebrate substance, so as to enable him to form
a correct estimate of the entire length. Dr. Warren
gave me an excellent Daguerreotype of this skeleton
for Mr. Clift, of the College of Surgeons in London.

Nothing is more remarkable than the large propor
tion of animal matter in the tusk, teeth, and bones of

CHAP. XL.] ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATION. 365

many of these extinct mammalia, amounting in some
cases, as Dr. C. T. Jackson has ascertained by ana
lysis, to 27 per cent., so that when all the earthy
ingredients are removed by acids, the form of the
bone remains as perfect, and the mass of animal mat
ter is almost as firm, as in a recent bone subjected to
similar treatment. It would be rash, however, to
infer confidently from such data that these quadru
peds were mired at periods more modern than the
fossil elephants found imbedded in similar clayey de
posits in Europe, for the climate prevailing in this
part of America may possibly have been colder than
it was on the eastern side of the Atlantic. At the
same time, I have stated in my former " Travels," *
that all the mastodons whose geological position I
was able to examine into, in Canada and the United
States, lived subsequently to the period of erratic
blocks, and the formations commonly called glacial.
I have also shown that the contemporary freshwater
and land shells were of such species as now live in
the same region, so that the climate could scarcely
have differed very materially from that now prevail
ing in the same latitudes.

During my stay at Boston, as I was returning one
evening through Washington Street, I fell in with a
noisy rabble of young men and boys, some of whom
were dressed up for the occasion in rags, and pro
vided with drums, sticks, whistles, tin-kettles, and
pans, with other musical instruments, most of them
on foot, but some mounted and sitting with their

* Vol. I. pp. 51, 55. Yol. II. p. 60.
R 3

366 VOYAGE TO HALIFAX. [CHAP. XL.

faces towards the horse's or ass's tail, others with
banners, calling out, " Hurrah for Texas," for they
styled themselves " the Texas volunteers." This I
found was an anti-war demonstration, and shows
that there is a portion even of the humblest class
here, who are inclined to turn the aggressive spirit
and thirst for conquest of the Washington Cabinet
into ridicule.

June 1. — Sailed for England in the Britannia, one
of the Cunard line of steamers, the same in which
we had made our outward voyage. For several days
a white fog had been setting in from the sea at Bos
ton, and we were therefore not surprised to find the
mist so dense off the harbour of Halifax that the
lighthouse was invisible. By a continual discharge
of guns, which were answered by the firing of cannon
at the lighthouse, our captain was able safely to steer
his ship into the harbour. In the post-office wre
found letters from England, left by a steamer which
had touched there two days before, and had come from
Liverpool in nine days.

June 7. — When we had quitted Halifax five days,
and were on the wide ocean, the monotony of the
scene was suddenly broken by the approach of a
group of icebergs, several hundred in number, vary
ing in height from 100 to 250 feet, all of the purest
white, except such portions as, being in shade, as
sumed a greenish hue, or such as acquired a delicate
rose-colour tint from the rays of the evening sun.
These splendid bergs were supposed to have floated
from Placentia Bay, in Newfoundland, where a great
many merchantmen had been imprisoned for several

CHAP. XL.] ICEBERGS. 367

months by a huge barrier of ice. They were almost
all of picturesque shapes, and some of them of most
fantastic form ; three in particular, which came
within a mile of us. One presented a huge dome,
rising from the centre of a flat tabular mass ; an
other, more than 100 feet high, was precisely in the
form of a pyramid, quite sharp at the top, and the
angle formed by the meeting of two sides, very well
defined ; at the base of it rose a hummock, which
we called the Egyptian Sphinx. The third was
covered with pinnacles, and seemed like a portion of
the Glacier des Bossons, in the valley of Chamouni,
detached and afloat. Erect on one side of it stood
an isolated obelisk of ice, 100 feet high, which in
creased very slightly in size towards the base. Some
of these bodies appeared to the north, others far to
the south of us, the loftiest of the whole rising out of
the water to the height of 400 feet, according to the
conjecture of the seamen, who thought they could
not be far out in their estimate, as there was a
schooner alongside of it, and they could tell the
height of her mast within a few feet. We sailed
within half a mile of several bergs, which were 250
feet, and within a quarter of a mile of one 150 feet
in height, on which, by aid of the telescope, we dis
tinctly observed a great number of sea-birds, which
looked like minute black specks on a white ground.
I was most anxious to ascertain whether there was
any mud, stones, or fragments of rock on any one of
these floating masses, but after examining about forty
of them without perceiving any signs of foreign mat
ter, I left the deck when it was growing dusk. My

R 4

368 ICEBERGS. [CHAP. XL.

questions had excited the curiosity of the captain
and officers of the ship, who assured me they had
never seen any stones on a berg, observing, at the
same time, that they had always been so eager to
get out of their way, and in such a state of anxiety
when near them, that such objects might easily have
been overlooked. I had scarcely gone below ten
minutes, when one of the passengers came to tell me
that the captain had seen a black mass as large as a
boat on an iceberg, about 150 feet high, which was
very near. By aid of a glass, it was made out dis
tinctly to be a space about nine feet square covered
with black stones. The base of the berg on the side
towards the steamer was 600 feet long, and from the
dark spot to the water's edge, there was a stripe of
soiled ice, as if the water streaming down a slope, as
the ice melted, had carried mud suspended in it. In
the soiled channel were seen two blocks, each about
the size of a man's head. Although I returned in
stantly to the deck when the berg was still in sight,
such was then the haziness of the air, and the ra
pidity of our motion, that the dark spot was no
longer discernible. Such instances of the transporta
tion of rocks by ice, occurrences most interesting to
geologists, were first recorded by Scoresby, in the
northern hemisphere ; but from the accounts given
me by Sir James Ross and Dr. Joseph Hooker, they
are evidently much more common in the icebergs
drifted from the Antarctic than from those of the
Arctic regions.

When we were among the ice, the temperature oi
the water was 45° Fahrenheit. On the day before

CHAP. XL.] AURORA BOREALIS. 369

we came up with it, the passengers had already
begun to look out warmer clothing, and shawls and
great coats were in requisition. Occasionally we
were steering amongst small pieces of ice, and the
wheel at the helm was turned first one way and then
another, reminding me of the dangers of the Missis
sippi, when we were avoiding the bumping against
logs. In the fore part of the vessel the watch was
trebled, some aloft and others below, and we went on
at the rate of nine miles an hour, and once in the
night came within less than a ship's length of a large
berg. A naval officer on board declared to me next
morning that the peril had been imminent; that he had
weathered a typhoon in the Chinese seas, and would
rather brave another than sail so fast in the night
through a pack of icebergs. He now thought it
most probable that the President steam-ship had been
lost by striking a berg. He reminded me that we
had seen a pinnacle of ice, distant 100 yards or more
from the main body of a berg, of which it was evi
dently a part, the intervening submerged ice being
concealed under water. How easily, therefore, might
we have struck against similar hidden masses, where
no such projecting pinnacle remained to warn us of
our danger.

At half-past nine o'clock on the evening of the 8th
June, it being bright moonlight, some hours after
we had lost sight of the ice, when we were in a
latitude corresponding to the South of France, we
saw in the north a most brilliant exhibition of the
Aurora Borealis ; the sky seemed to open and close,
emitting, for a short period, silvery streams of light like

R 5

370 AUROKA BOKEALIS. [CHAP. XL.

cornets' tails, and then a large space became over
spread with a most delicate roseate hue. The occur
rence of this phenomenon in the summer season, and
in so southern a latitude, seemed to point to its
connection with the ice which was drifting over the
sea between us and Newfoundland, now to the N. W.
of us. We learn from Sir James Ross's narrative
of the late antarctic expedition, the highly interest
ing fact, that when the Aurora Borealis was playing
over the great barrier of coast ice on the shores of
the antarctic land, it partook distinctly of the irre
gular and broken shape of the icy cliffs over which
it hovered.*

June 12. — A pilot came on board from Ireland,
with English newspapers, filled with debates on the
repeal of the corn- laws. Among the foreign news,
a considerable space was occupied with the affairs of
France, Germany, Italy, India, China, and there was
only a short paragraph or two about America, North
and South. I had been travelling long enough in the
New World to sympathise fully with the feelings of
some of my American fellow-passengers, who were
coming abroad for the first time, when they expressed
their surprise at the small space which the affairs of
the United States occupied even in English journals.
It is a lesson which every traveller has to learn when
he is far from home, and seeks in a foreign news
paper to gain some intelligence of his native land.
He is soon accustomed to find that day after day
even the name of his country is not mentioned.

* Vol.11, p. 221. 1842.

CHAP. XL.] EETUHN TO LIVERPOOL. 371

The speed of our steamer had been constantly
increasing as the weight of coal diminished. The
length of the voyage, therefore, to America might
be considerably abridged if the quantity of coal were
lessened by a day and a half's consumption, the
steamer starting from the West of Ireland, to which
passengers might be conveyed in a few hours, by
steam-boat and railway, from Liverpool.

June 13., Saturday. — Anchored off Liverpool at
half-past ten o'clock in the evening, having made
the passage from Boston in twelve days and a half,
it being nine months and nine days since we left
that port.

INDEX.

A.

ABOLITIONIST " wrecker," ii. 38.

Abolitionists, i. 319. 322. ; ii.

163.
, coloured, i. 126.

Absenteeism in Southern States,
ii. 82.

Acquia Creek, ii. 330.

Actors in steamer, ii. 216.

Advocates and attorneys, i. 47.

African Tom, i. 359.

Age of delta of Mississippi, ii.
251.

Agelaius phseniceus, i. 328.

Alabama geology, ii. 89.

, travelling bad, ii. 82.

, coal-field, ii. 80.

Alatamaha river, i. 326. 344.

Albany, excursion to, ii. 348.

Alcseus, ii. 123.

Alleghany Mountains, ii. 320.

Alligators, i. 317. 336. ; ii. 203.

Alligator's nest, i. 337.

Alluvium of Mississippi, ii. 242.

Alpine plants, i. 79.

American oratory, i. 182.

Antarctic ice, i. 36.

Anthracite coal, i. 247.

Anti-British antipathies, ii. 289.

Anti-Corn-Law-League, ii. 224.

Anti-English feeling, i. 299.

Anti-negro feeling, ii. 160.

Anti-renters, N. Y., ii. 349.

Arbitration, i, 261.

Arctic Flora on Mount Washing
ton, i. 78.

Arisaig, i. 133.

Artesian wells, ii. 90.

, near Montgomery, ii.

42.

Arundo phragmitis, ii. 149.
Ateuchus volvens, ii. 328.
Attakapas, ii. 175.
Audubon, Mr., visit to, ii. 334,
Augusta, in Maine, i. 45.
Aurora Borealis, ii. 369.

B.

Bachman, Dr., i. 302.
| Backwoods, inconveniences of,
ii. 71.

Bald region of Mount Washing
ton, i. 77.

Balize, ii. 143. 147.

, houses on piles, ii. 149.

— look-out, ii. 148.
I Bankruptcies, i. 160.
I Baptist and Atheist, i. 178.

i and Methodists, i. 363.

! Barn moved, i. 121.

i Bartram, i. 335. 351.; ii. 177.

Basking shark, i. 147.

Baton Rouge, ii. 122. 176.

Battle-ground, New Orleans, ii.
155.

Bayou Liere, ii. 145.

la Fourche, ii. 175.

— Plaquemine, ii. 176.

Sara, ii. 191.

St. John, ii. 234.

Bear in New England, i. 66.
! Beaufort, i. 308.

Beetle, ball-rolling, ii. 328.

Beetles called bugs, ii. 206.

374

INDEX.

Bequests, i. 201.

Berkeley, Sir William, i. 207.

Bibles distributed, i. 365.

Big Black River, ii. 209.

Bone Lick, ii. 257.

Birds, i. 316.

on Mount Washington, i. 75.

of Indiana, ii. 269.

Bishop of St. Asaph, i. 23.

Black Baptist church, ii. 2.

mechanics, i. 360.

Methodist church, ii. 283.

Blanco White, i. 241.

Blind asylum, i. 168.

Blocks of granite and gneiss, ii. 2 1 .

Bluff of St. Stephen's, ii. 91.

Bluffs, fossils of, ii. 50.

• , shipping cotton at, ii. 49.

Bonaventure, i. 319.

Bony pike used for manure, ii. 329.

Boott factory, i. 109.

Boston, i. 16. 152.

, public buildings, i. 21.

militia, i. 22.

, environs of, i. 25.

, suburbs of, i. 111.

, lodgings in, i. 152.

, mode of living, i. 156.

Boulders, i. 103.

Bowie knives, ii. 275.

Brazilian caves, i. 349.

Bridgeport, repudiation, ii. 323.

Bringier, Mr., ii. 137. 231.

British aggrandisement, i. 256.

Brown, Mr. A., ii. 254.

Brumby, Mr., professor of che
mistry, ii. 79.

Brunswick Canal, i. 347.

Buffalo Island, ii. 237.

Bunker Hill monument, i. 16.

Buried trees, ii. 137. 177. 181.
192.

Butler's Island, i. 333.

C.

Cabbage-palm, i. 314.
Cairo on the Ohio, ii. 266.

Campbell, life of, i. 144.

, Gertrude of Wyoming, ii.

321.

Canadian legislature, i. 262.
Canadians, ii. 159.
Canal cut through ice, i. 18.
Canes on bank of river, ii. 79.
Cannon's Point, i. 338.
Cape Cod, i. 113.
Capitol, i. 265.
Captains of steamers, ii. 223.
Caravel of Columbus, i. 1.
Carlyle, Mr., ii. 316.
Carnival, ii. 112.

at NCAV Orleans, ii. 112.

Carolina, North, i. 289.
Carpenter, Dr., ii. 134. 140. 178.

249.

Carriages, i. 157.
Carthage Crevasse, ii. 169.
Carver, Governor, i. 120.
Carya aquatica, ii. 145.
Cass, General, i. 260.
Cathedral, Catholic, New Orleans,

ii. 114.

Cattle, miring of, ii. 105.
Cercis canadensis, ii. 200.
Chamserops adansonia, ii. 134.

palmetto, i. 315.

Chambersburg, ii. 321.
Channing, Dr., i. 172. 196.

on Milton, i. 203.

on Slavery, i. 323.

Channing's Works, i. 176.
Charleston, i. 293.

— , gardens, i. 305.

, society in, i. 296.

Charlevoix, ii. 151.
Charlottesville, ii. 173.
Chatahoochie, Fall of, ii. 33.
Cheapness of books in U. S., ii.

338.

Cheirotherium of Saxony, ii. 310.
in coal of Pennsylvania, ii.

306.

Cherokee rose, ii. 199.
Chicken-thieves, ii. 168.
Children, spoilt, ii. 221.
Christians, sect so called, i. 173.
! Christmas Day, i. 293.

INDEX.

375

Christians, i. 173.
Churches in Maine, i. 58.

in New York, i. 238.

, none in New Harmony, ii.

272.

Cincinnati, progress of. ii. 290.
Civilisation among negroes, i. 361.
Claiborne, fossil remains at, ii. 58.

, landing at, ii. 58.

Clapp, Dr., ii. 278.

Clay, Mr., ii. 129.

Clergy, pay of, i. 228.

Climate of Boston, i. 154.

, change of, affecting plants,

i. 83.

of New England, i. 154.

Clipper Steamer, ii. 297.
Coal-fields, i. 286.

of Alabama, ii. 80.

seams, i. 283.

strata, foot-prints of reptiles

in, ii. 308.

, vegetable structure, i. 284.

measures, origin of, ii. 246.

Cobblers, i. 121.
Cockburn, Admiral, i. 359.
Cocoa-grass, ii. 156.
Cogswell, Mr., ii. 335.
Cold, indifference to, ii. 12.
Coloured race, exclusiveness of

whites towards, ii. 57.

servants, i. 265.

domestics, ii. 84.

Coluber constrictor, i. 137.

Columbus, ii. 33.

Competition of negro and white

mechanics, ii. 34.
Complaint of the Captive, ii. 128.
Concord, town of, i. 107.
Congregationalists, i. 212.
Consumption, common in Maine,

i. 62.

Converts to Rome, i. 240.
Coolies in W. Indies, i. 12.
Copyright, international, ii. 339.
Coral reef, fossil, ii. 277.
Cottagers of Glenburnie, ii. 221.
Cotting, Dr. J. R., ii. 21.
Cotton, ii. 167.
Cotton-wood, ii. 194. 233.

Cotton Mather on Day of Doom,
i. 52.

Couper, Mr. Hamilton, i. 327.

Couthuoy, Captain, i. 7.

Cowley, i. 204.

Crackers, i. 326.

Creeds, variations in, i. 216.

Creek Indians, departure of, ii.
33.

Creole ladies, ii. 115.

Crescent city, ii. 133.

Cretaceous strata near Mont
gomery, ii. 42.

Crevasses, ii. 169.

Crimes among negroes, i. 358.

Croton water, ii. 335.

water- works, i. 236.

Cupressus disticha, i. 327. ; ii. 254.

Curfew at Montgomery, ii. 43.

Currents, oceanic, i. 7.

Custom-house officers, i. 19.

Cyperus hydra, ii. 156.

Cypress trees, i. 327.

roots, ii. 245.

knees, ii. 180.

, deciduous, age of, ii. 253,

254.

D.

Dana, i. 197.

Darby, on mud of Red river, ii.

255.

Darien, i. 326. ; ii. 2.
Darwin, Mr., i. 36. 350.

, Pampean formation, i. 346.

Date palms, i. 339. ; ii. 138.
Davy, Sir Humphrey, ii. 362.
Daw'son, J. W., i. 132.
Day of Doom, poem, i. 5U
De Candolle, i. 330.
Declaration of independence, i.

23.

Decomposition of gneiss, ii. 22.
Decoy pond, i. 121.
Delta, advance of, ii. 152.

, subsidence of, ii. 183.

Democracy and Romanism, ii,

291.

376

INDEX.

Democrats, coalition of, with

slave-owners, i. 96.
Devil's Punch Bowl, ii. 200.

— Swamp, ii. 188.

Dewey, Dr., sermon against war,

ii. 345.

Dickeson, Dr., ii. 196. 254.
Diplomatists, i. 270.
Diron, Sieur, ii. 153.
Dirt-eating, ii. 7.
Dissenters' Chapels Bill, i. 217.
Division of property, i. 63.
Divorced man, ii. 220.
Dog-wood in Virginia, ii. 326.
Domestic tea, ii. 210.
Donaldsonville, ii. 123. 175.
Dreissena, ii. 135.
Dressmakers, i. 165.

— at Boston, i. 166.

Drift, Northern, relative age of,

ii. 264.

Drift-wood, ii. 171.
Driver, black, i. 357.
Drunkenness in Alabama, ii. 67.

92.

Duelling, new law against, ii. 68.
Dunbar, Mr., ii. 153.
Dwarf firs, i. 76.

E.

Eagle, i. 312.

Earthquake at New Madrid, ii.

229.

Echo, mountain, i, 72.
Education of ladies, i. 158.

, popular, ii. 317.

, secular, i. 191.

Educational movement, i. 195.
Eldon, Lord, i. 107.
Election, i. 183.

at Boston, i. 183.

Electoral franchise, i. 257.
Electric telegraph, i. 242, 243.

245.

Elliott, Dr., i. 363.
Ellis's Cliffs, ii. 194.
Eloquence, inflated, i. 263.

Emancipation, effects of, ii. 100.

Emigrants, ii. 222.

to the West, ii. 72.

Eminent preachers, i. 175.
| Emmons, Dr., ii. 352.
j Engine room, i. 10.

Engine, revolutions of, i. 11.

Engines, high pressure, ii. 47.

English newspapers, ii. 224.

— pronunciation, ii. 117.
turn, ii. 155.

Envy in a democracy, i. 99.
| Episcopal churches, i. 172.

— clergymen in steamer, ii. 86.
Episcopalian asceticism, i. 178.
Equality, ii. 223. 240.

, social, i. 91.

in society, ii. 73.

Eulalie, lake, ii. 233.
Evansville, Indiana, ii. 277.
Everett, Mr. i. 22.

— on cheap literature, ii. 339.
Eye-glass, ii. 218.

F.

Factories, Lowell, i. 109.
Fanaticism of New England, i.

91.

Faneuil Hall, i. 21.
Faraday, Mr., ii. 361.
Fashion in the back-woods, ii.

240.

Fashionists, ii. 15.
Faulkner, Mr., ii. 185.
Fausse Riviere, ii. 185.
Ferry boat, i. 27.
Fire, alarms of, i. 167.
Fire-clays of coal, ii. 245.
Fires, i. 291.

- at New York, i. 237.
Firs, dwarf, ii. 75.
First juvenile, ii. 216.
Fish, fossil, i. 29.
Fissures during earthquake, ii.

234.

Flat boats, ii. 167, 168.
Fleming, Dr., i. 147.
Fletcher, Mr., ii. 238.

INDEX.

377

Flint, the geographer, ii. 230.
Fog off Halifax, ii. 366.
Fogs, ii. 174.

on river Piscataqua, i. 34.

Fontania, ii. 185.
Food for negroes, i. 356.
Forefather's Day, i. 114.
Forest scenery, ii. 239.
Forshey, Mr., ii. 155. 176. 203.

243.
Fort Adams, ii. 194.

— Jackson, ii. 144.
" Forty-five or fight," ii. 303.
Foot-prints, fossil, of Greensburg,

ii. 304.

Fossil-trees, i. 282.
human bone, ii. 197.

— remains, i. 348.
Fossils in drift, i. 30.

— at Gardiner, i. 44.
Fox, Mr., i. 268.
Franconia, i. 102.
Free school, i. 189.
visit to a, i. 189.

schools, i. 205.

Free trade and protectionism, ii.

325.

French Creoles, ii. 156.
" French settlements," ii. 237.
Freshwater loam, ii. 194.
Frost, severe, at Boston, i. 17.
Funeral of Northern man, ii. 15.

G.

Gale off Great Bank, i. 2.
Gallatin, Mr., on Indian corn, ii.
343.

, on Oregon question, ii. 342.

Gallows Hill, i. 124.
Gardenia, ii. 199.
Gardens at Mobile, ii. 106.
Gar-fish, ii. 187.
Gas, explosion of, i. 285.
Gas-works, New Orleans, ii. 136.
Geese, i. 121.
Gelasimus, ii. 145.
Gelsemium mtidum, ii. 188.

General Jackson's log cabin, ii.

226.

j Geological epoch of White Moun
tains, i. 83.
| Geology, prejudices opposed to,
ii. 314.

of Georgia, ii. 9.

round Portsmouth, i. 29.

, Alabama, ii. 89.

j Georgia, Bishop of, i. 363.
I German baker, ii. 227.

baker's wife, ii. 240.

i Germans in Cincinnati, ii. 290.
! Gertrude of Wyoming, ii. 321.
S Giant's Grave, i. 73.
Grammar school for boys, i. 190.
Gravel terraces, ii. 299.
Gifford, Mr. A. F., i. 279. 287. ;

ii. 327.

Gist, Dr., ii. 209.
Glacial grooves, i. 34.
Glynn county, i. 365.
Gnathodon, ii. 150.

— cuneatus, ii. 134.
Gneiss, decomposition of, ii. 22.
Goldfuss, Professor, on reptiles in

coal, ii. 313.
Goldsmith, Vicar of WTakefield,

ii. 316.

Gordonia pubescens, i. 351.
Governesses, i. 297.
Governor's lady, ii. 19.
Grand Gulf, ii. 205.
Greenland, subsidence of, ii. 259.
Greensburg, Pennsylvania, ii. 302.
Gulf of Mexico shells, ii. 104.
Gum tree, i. 332.

H.

Hale, Sir Matthew, i. 124.
Half breeds, i. 130.
Halifax, i. 14.

, lighthouse, ii. 366.

Hall, Captain Basil, ii. 129.
, Mr. James, ii. 353.

Halsjdrus Pontoppidani, i. 143.
Hand-car on railway, ii. 8.
Harlanus Americanus, i. 348.

378

INDEX.

Harper's printing establishment, I

ii. 336.

Harrisburg, ii. 322.
Hawkes, Dr., ii. 129.
Hay, vessels laden with, i. 42.
Hayes, Mr. J. L., i. 28, 33.
Head, Sir Francis, ii. 360.
Health in New England, i. 155.

- in U. S., i. 155.
Heavenly witnesses, i. 222.
Helderberg war, ii. 349.
Hitchcock, Professor, i. 8.
Hockmar or shark, i. 145.
Hogarth's Election Feast, i. 225.
Home, Sir Everard, i. 144.
Hooker, Dr. Joseph, i. 38. ; ii. 368.
Horticultural show, i. 2 1 .
Hospitality in Soutb, i. 329.
Hotel St. Louis, at New Orleans,

ii. 112.

Hotels, Boston, i. 153.
House of Commons, i. 262.
Howe, Dr., i. 169.
Hoyt, Jesse, letters of, ii. 351.
Huguenots, ii. 159.
Humboldt, ii. 230.
Humming-bird, migration of, ii.

331.

Hunter, Mr., ii. 233.
Hurst Castle, i. 113.
Hydrarchos, ii. 74.

I.

Ice of Wenham Lake, ii. 361.
, antarctic, enclosing whale,

i. 37.

Iceberg, i. 5.
Icebergs, i. 38.

, rocks transported by, ii. 368.

, danger of collison with, ii.

369.

, drifting of, i. 8.

on homeward voyage, ii. 367.

Iberville river, ii. 176.
Illegitimate children, i. 366.
Immersion in baptism, i. 363.
Income tax, i. 254.
Independence day, i. 184.
Independents, i. 219.

India tree, pride of, i. 290. 308.

Indian blood, ii. 222.

carvings of foot-prints, ii.

313.

mound, Wheeling, ii. 299.

mounds, ii. 200.

mounds near Macon, ii. 14.

corn, uncertain crop, ii. 72.

shell mound, i. 338.

Indiana, fossil erect trees in coal

strata, ii. 273.
Inflated oratory, ii. 123.
Initial letters, i. 182.
Inns of Southern States, ii. 64.
Inquisitiveness, ii. 219.
Inundations, ii. 169.
Ipswich, i. 157.
Irish repeal meeting, i. 187, 188.

voters, i. 249.

servants, ii. 121.

emigrants, i. 186, 187.

Island Eighty-four, ii. 215.

J.

s

Jackson, ii. 208.

, hotel at, ii. 210.

, Dr. John, ii. 363.

Jealousy of wealth, ii. 69.
Jefferson College, ii. 173.
Jeffrey, Lord, works reprinted in

U. S., ii. 301.

Johnson on Milton, i. 203.
Judas-tree, ii. 200.
Judges at Tuscaloosa, ii. 88.

cashiered, ii. 125.

elected, ii. 213.

Julian calendar, i. 224.
Juniata river, ii. 321.

K.

Kean, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 117.

, Mrs., ii. 217.

Kendall, Captain, i. 36.

Kennebec river, i. 42.

King, Dr., on fossil footprints in

coal strata, ii. 305.
Kingfisher, i. 332.
Koch, i. 131.

INDEX.

379

Ladies, educated, i. 158.

' ordinary, ii. 119.

Laing, Malcolm, i. 142. 144.

Lake Solitude, ii. 185, 186.

Pontchartrain, ii. 110. 133.

135.

Concordia, ii. 203.

Eulalie, ii. 233.

Lalaurie, Madame, ii. 163.

Land tortoises, ii. 293.

— quadrupeds, chiefly noc
turnal, ii. 335.

crabs, ii. 145.

Landed proprietors, i. 64.

Landslip, ii. 182.

Language, i. 1 6 1 .

, peculiarities of, i. 161, 162.

Laura Bridgeman, i. 168.

Law against black mechanics, ii.
97.

Lay teachers, i. 226.

Le Conte, Dr., i. 317.

Lectures, i. 198.

Leg « bitten off," ii. 220.

Legal profession, i. 45.

Legislators, paid, i. 98.

Legislature of Louisiana, ii. 122.

Lending libraries, i. 199.

Lepidosteus, ii. 187.

Levee, New Orleans, ii. 131.

Levees, artificial, ii. 170.

Levelling up and down, ii. 223.

Leyden Street, i. 115.

Liberia, ii. 322.

Liebig, i. 330.

Lightning, i. 316.

Lighthouse, Halifax, guns fired
at, ii. 366.

Lighthouse near Mobile, ii. 103.

Lightwood, i. 291.

Lignite, ii. 232.

Linnasa borealis, i. 72.

Literary clerk of steamer, ii. 190.

tastes, i. 164.

Little Prairie, ii. 230.

Live oaks, i. 319.

Liverpool, landing at, ii. 371.

i Liverpool, voyage from, i. 1.
: Living, cost of at Boston, i. 165.

Loam, ii. 225. 229.

or loess, ii. 208.

Loblolly pine, i. 316.

Loess, ii. 195.

Long Island Railway, ii. 356.

Louisiana, ii. 157.

— — , loess of, ii. 256.

Louisville, Kentucky, ii. 279.

Love, Mr., ii. 235.

Lowell Factories, i. 109.

Loxia cardinalis, i. 331.

Luxury of New Orleans, ii. 124.

Luzenberger, Dr., i. 337.

Lynch Law in Florida, ii. 28.

M.

Macaulay's History, sale of, in

U. S., ii. 338.
Maclarty, Mrs., ii. 221.
Macon, Georgia, ii. 14.

— , Alabama, ii. 65.
M'Connell, i. 188.
M'Cormack, Dr., ii. 134.
Madam, use of term, i. 162.
M'llvaine, Mr. William, i. 1 39.
Mackenzie letters, ii. 351.
Maclean, Rev. Donald, i. 145.
M'Quhae, Captain, i. 151.
Magnolia steamer, ii. 165. 207.
Mai, Cardinal, i. 223.
Mallotus, i. 29.
Mammoth ravine, ii. 196.
Man shot in a brawl, ii. 27.
Manchester, i. 108.
Manners, familiar, ii. 218.
Marriage between coloured and

white, ii. 287.
Marriages in Boston, i. 159.

— , early, i. 159.
Marine shells, i. 113.
Market at New Orleans, ii. 130.
Marsh blackbird, i. 328.
Martineau, Miss, ii. 163.
Martins killed by storm, i. 33.
Mastodon, skeletons of, ii. 363.

, food of, ii. 364.

Maximilian, Prince, ii. 271.

380

MayfloAver, i. 114.

— , table of, i. 119.
Medical students, ii. 281.
Megatherium, i. 347.
Melville, Dr., i. 148.
Memphis, ii. 225.
Mendicity, i. 343.
Merigomish, i. 132.
Merrimack river, i. 108.
Metairie ridge, ii. 135.
Methodist church, black, ii. 283.

prayer meetings, i. 364.

church,Montgomery, ii. 284.

sermon, i. 104.

Mexico, war Avith, ii. 344.
Michaud on the age of cypress,

ii. 254.

Migration of plants, i. 80.
Mill Creek, geology of, ii. 292.
Milledgeville, ii. 18.
Millerite movement, i. 87.
Mississippi, banks of, ii. 214.

— river, ii. 131.
Avater, ii. 207.

— coast, ii. 166.

— , bank caving in, ii. 229.
— , delta of, ii. 243.

— sediment, ii. 154.
— , age of delta, ii. 248.

Missouri, slavery in, ii. 241.
Mixture of races, i. 366.
Mob of gentlemen, i. 295
Mobile built on bed of shells, ii.
106.

, gardens at, ii. 106.

Mocking birds, ii. 239.
Montgomery, journey to, ii. 35. 4 1 .
Mormons, i. 90.

— and Stephanists, ii. 55.
Morals of Puritans, i. 159.
Morlot on Subsidence in Adriatic,

ii. 248.
Morse, i. 244.

geography, ii. 336.

Moss, Spanish, i. 292.
Mount Auburn, i. 171.

Vt-rnon, ii. 266.

Washington, i. 74.

Mountains of New Hampshire, i.
65.

"Movers" to Texas, ii. 61. 109.
Mud cracks, casts of, ii. 307.
Mulattos, i. 366.
Museum, Salem, i. 123.
Musk rats, ii. 237.

, habitations of, ii. 329.

Musquitos, ii. 121. 175.

N.

Nahant, i. 139.

Napoleon, ii. 215.

Natchez, country houses, ii. 199.

, ii. 194.

— , tornado, ii. 198.
National fair at Washington, ii.

325.

Nativism, i. 250.
Naval arsenal, ii. 226.
Names of negroes, i. 354.
Negro Baptists, ii. 3.

— brain, i. 129.

— houses, i. 333. 355.

— episcopal clergyman, ii. 324.

— prayer, ii. 5.

hospital, i. 356.

slaves, ii. 32.

— children, ii. 18.

— maid-servants, i

— names, i. 354.

— porters, i. 326.

— preacher, Louisville, ii. 285.

— intelligence, ii. 5.

and Avhite mechanics, ii. 34.

— shot by overseer, ii. 92.
instruction, i. 275.

— mistaken for white, ii. 217.
Negroes, i. 297.

-, civilisation of, ii. 96.

342.

— , emancipation of, i. 13.
— , increase of, ii. 95.
— in Louisiana, ii. 162.

in mines, i. 287.

— , intelligence of, ii. 9.

, kindness to, i. 278.

— , more progressive in upper
country, ii. 10.
on sale, ii. 161.

INDEX.

381

Negroes, position of, in the South,

ii. 98.

, prejudices against, i. 294.

, progress of, i. 362. ; ii. 83.

, runaway, i. 294.

, treatment of, ii. 93.

Neill, Mr. i., 142.

New Albany, ii. 277.

New Harmony, ii. 269.

New Jersey, i. 251.

New London, ii. 356.

New Madrid, ii. 226.

, departure from, ii. 266.

— , earthquake, ii. 229.
New Orleans, French appearance

of, ii. ill.

, Hotel St. Louis, ii. 112.

, Catholic cathedral, ii. 114.

, theatres, ii. 117.

, tombs at, ii. 118.

, shops at, ii. 118.

, ladies' ordinary, ii- 119.

— , procession at, ii. 119.

, salubrity of, ii. 120.

Newberne, i. 348.
Newfoundland, i. 9.
Newhaven, i. 235.
Newman, Mr., i. 240.
Newsboys, ii. 40.
Newspaper press, ii. 41.
Newspapers, i. 59.

distribution of, i. 19.

• from England, ii. 224.

New York, gay dresses in, ii. 332.

, omnibuses in, ii. 333.

, naming of streets, ii. 334.

Nicol, Mr. J., ii. 251.

North and South split, i. 365.

Northern prices, ii. 121.

Norton, Mr., i. 174.

Nothingarians, i. 177.

Novels, sale of by newsboys, ii.41.

Nuttall, i. 348.

O.

Oakes, Mr. William, i. 71. ; ii.

359.
Obion, ii. 238.

Observatory, Cincinnati, ii. 294.
Ocmulgee river, i. 344. ; ii. 16.
Oconee river, i. 344.
Ogilthorpe, i. 339.
" Old Virginia," i. 361.
Omnibuses in New York, ii. 333.
Oolitic coal, i. 280.
Opossum, ii. 7.
Oregon, ii. 224.

, war about, i. 253.

Organic remains in ice, i. 35.
Oscillation of level, ii. 263.
Ostracism of wealth, i. 96.
Owen, Professor, i. 44.

, Mr., i. 129.

• , Robert, of Lanark, ii. 270.

Oxenstiern, i. 102.
Oysters, i. 312.

P.

Pacific, whale fishery in, ii. 357.
Palenque, i. 267.
Palisades, i. 251.
Palmetto, i. 314.
Parker, Theodore, i. 242.
Patent Office, i. 265.
Pauperism, absence of, i. 186.
Peace Association, i. 23.
Pearl River fossils, ii. 209.
Peltier, i. 301.
Peltries, ii. 237.

Pemigewasset river, i. 103. 105.
Pendleton, Capt. Benj., i. 36.
Pere Antoine, ii. 139.
Perkins, Colonel, i. 117. 138.
Peytona steamer, ii. 205.
Philadelphia, ii. 323.
Physical science, i. 221.
Pilgrim relics, i. 116.
Pilgrim fathers, names of, i. 115.
Pilots, ii. 151. 228.
Pine-trees, age of, ii. 36.
Pine-barrens, want of elbow-
room in, ii. 13.
Pinus taeda, i. 316.
Piscataqua river, i. 34.
Pittsburg, fire at, ii. 300.
Place-hunter, disappointed, ii. 28.

382

INDEX.

Placentia Bay, ii. 366.
Planters, i. 329. 352.
Plants, i. 56.

, Alpine, 3. 79.

at New Orleans, ii. 134.

in Virginia, ii. 327.

, migrations of, i. 80.

near Saratoga, ii. 353.

— , spring flowers of Indiana,

ii. 270.

, wild, N. Hampshire, i. 32.

Plassy, ii. 156.
Pledges at elections, i. 100.
Plymouth Beach, i. 112.
, Massachusetts, i. 111.

— , New Hampshire, i. 102.
Politics in Massachusetts, i. 183.
Polk, i. 267.
Pontoppidan, i. 135.
Popular education, i. 200. ; ii.

317.

instruction, i. 229.

Populus angulata, ii. 194. 233.
Pork merchant, ii. 276.
Porpoises, i. 4.
Porson, i. 222.

Port Hudson, ii. 165. 177. 238
Portland in Maine, i. 40. 48.
Portsmouth, N. Hampshire, i. 28.
Post-office abuses, i. 107.
Potter, Bishop, i. 109.
Preachers, eminent, i. 175.
Prejudices opposed to geology,

ii. 314.

Preston, Mr., ii. 173.
Primogeniture, opinion of, i. 64.
Proclamation of Thanksgiving

Day, i. 185.
Procession at New Orleans, ii.

119.

Protectionist doctrines, i. 160.
Protectionists, i. 160.
Protracted meetings at Mont- |

gomery, ii. 44.
Pond, Mr., ii. 33.
Powers the sculptor, ii. 296.
Public meetings, want of, i. 184.
Purgstall, Countess, ii. 129.
Puritans, i. 49. 159.

Q.

Quadroons, ii. 116. 217.
Quadrupeds, extinction of, i. 349.
Quicksand, Plymouth, i. 114.
Quincey, i. 111.

Races, mixture of, i. 366.
Raccourci cut-off, ii. 193.
Railway cars, i. 26. ; ii. 37.

travelling, i. 27.

Railways, i. 233.

- in U. S., ii. 337.
Rattle-snakes, i. 304.
Ravine near Milledgeville, ii. 25.
Ravines, modern, ii. 23.
Recruiting in U. S., facility of,

ii. 345.

Red-bird, i. 331.
Red maple, ii. 188.
Red river, red mud of, ii. 194.

255.

Redfield, Mr., i. 7.
Reelfoot, ii. 238.
Relics, authenticity of, i. 118.
Religion and politics, i. 179.

— , progress in, i. 211.
Religious toleration, i. 49.
Rennie, Mr. G., ii. 251.
Repeal of English corn laws, ii.

29.

meeting, i. 188.

Reptile, fossil, air-breathing, in

coal strata, ii. 312.
Repudiation, i. 255.
Revival at Bethlehem, i. 85. ;

ii. 5.

Rice plantations, i. 353.
Richmond, i. 271.

coal-field, i. 280.

Riddell, Dr., ii. 135.

— , on sediment of Mississippi,

ii. 249.

Rise of Sweden, ii. 258.
River-fogs, ii. 143, 144.
Robin drunk with berries, ii. 60.

INDEX.

383

Robinson, Pastor, i. 210.
Rogers, Prof. W. B., i. 272. 280.
Roman law, ii. 122.

Catholics, i. 232.

Romanism and democracy, ii.

291.

Ross, Sir James, i. 6. 38. ; ii. 368.
Rotation of trees, i. 330.
Ruggles, Mr., ii. 250.

S.

Saco, valley of the, i. 70.
Sailing, rate of, i. 1 1.
Salem Museum, i. 122.
Salt marshes, i. 334.
Salubrity of New Orleans, ii. 120.
San Francisco, ii. 357.
Sand-bursts, ii. 232.
Saratoga, plants near, ii. 353.
Savage, Mr., i. 120.
Savannah, i. 313. ; ii. 1.
Schlegel, A. W., Prof., ii. 284.
Schools, common, i. 58.

in New York, i. 246.

Scoliophys atlanticus, i. 138.
Sea-serpent, Norwegian, i. 131.

134. 140.

, Cape Ann, i. 137.

Section, geological, from Darien

to Vicksburg, ii. 262.
Sects, equality of, i. 48.
Secular education, i. 247.
Sellick, Captain, ii. 180.
Sensitiveness, American, i. 165.
Servants, i. 156, 157. 354.; ii.

219.

, position of, i. 94.

, scarcity of, ii. 303.

Shark, basking, i. 147.

Shells, i. 341.

on shore of Gulf of Mexico,

ii. 104.

Shell-road, ii. 134.
Shepard, Professor, i. 304.
Shock of earthquake, ii. 236.
Shops at New Orleans, ii. 118.
Shrike, i. 332.
Sidell on Mississippi, ii. 250.

I Silicified shells and corals, ii. 17.
! Silliman, Professor, i. 234.
; Sink-holes, ii. 232.
! Skiddaway, i. 313.

Slave, marriage of, with white,
Kentucky, ii. 287.

labour, i. 274.; ii. 84.

States, i. 309.

dealers, i. 277.

— whip, i. 358.

, runaway, ii. 37.

Slaves, sale of, Macon, ii. 66.

selling at Montgomery,

ii. 42.

Slave-trade, i. 311.; ii. 322.

Slave-dealer on steamer, ii. 110.

Slavery, i. 323. 352.

in Southern States, ii. 94.

party against extension, i.

183.

Smith, Sydney, ii. 4.

Smoke, absence of, i, 247.

Snag-boats, ii. 171.

Snake and dog, ii. 328.

Snapping turtle, ii. 203.

Soap, home-made, ii. 20.

Social equality, i. 93.

Southern steamboat, ii. 46.

- planters' superior political
tact, i. 95.

Spanish moss, i. 326. ; ii. 130.

Species, creation of, i. 304.

Specific centres, theory of, i. 81.

Spiritual boulanger, i. 364.

Split, north and south, i. 365.

Spoilt children, ii. 221.

Squalus maximus, i. 144.

Squirrels, i. 303.

Stage-coach, ii. 319.

from Macon to Columbus,

ii. 32.

Stage-travelling, ii. 17.
State debts, ii. 62.

education, i. 191.

Statehouse at Jackson, ii. 211.
Steamboats, ii. 48.
Steamboat passengers, ii. 53.

, collision with trees, ii. 51.

— • accidents, ii. 141.
Steamer in Maine, i. 41.

384

INDEX.

Steamer to Tuscaloosa, ii. 77.

Steamers safest in storms, i. 3.

Steam ships, ii. 131.

Stephanists, ii. 54.

Stewardess, German, ii. 53.

Storer, Dr., on fish, i. 202.

Story, Judge, i. 14.

Stoves, i. 234.

Stronsa animal, i. 142.

St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans,
ii. 132.

St. Francis River, ii. 230.

St. Mary's Hall, i. 252.

St. Rosalie, ii. 200.

St. Simon's Island, i. 338. 340.

Submarine forest, i. 31.

Subsidence of Delta of Missis
sippi, ii. 183.

of land, i. 30.

Sumner, Mr. Charles, i. 23.

Sunday schools for negroes, ii.
286.

Supreme Court, i. 264.

Courts, i. 47.

Swallows at Portsmouth, i. 33.

Swamp rabbit, i. 303.

Swamps of Mississippi, ii. 244.

Sweden, rise of, ii. 258.

T.

Tabernacle at Boston, i. 89.
Taconic system of rocks, age of,

ii. 354.

Tapir fossil in Texas, ii. 261.
Tariff, i. 253.

Tasso, love and madness, ii. 128.
Taxodium distichurn, ii. 192.
Teachers, pay of, i. 192.

, position of, i- 193.

, their social position, i. 193.

Telescope, i. 201.
Temperance hotel, i. 58.

hotels, i. 153.

Ten Hour Bill, ii. 300.

Tennessee, ii. 238.

Terraces, succession of, i. 346.

• of gravel, ii. 299.

Texas, i. 259.

Texas, fossil bones in, ii. 261.

— volunteers, ii. 365.
Thanksgiving day, i. 184.
Theatre at New Orleans, ii. 117.

in Boston, i. 197.

Theological discussion, i. 105.

colleges, i. 227.

Thermometer low at Tuscaloosa,

ii. 102.
Third House, thanks voted to, at

Albany, ii. 351.

Three Heavenly Witnesses, i. 22'2.
Tillandsia, ii. 351, 130.

— usneoides, i. 292.
! Timber trade, i. 42.

i Tobacco, chewing of, ii. 358. '
| Tombeckbee river, ii. 78.
| Tombs at New Orleans, ii. 118
Tortoises, i. 30.5.

— , land, ii. 293.
Tractarians, i. 241.
Trapper, ii. 237.
Travelling roads, bad, ii. 82.
— , rough, ii. 32.
— , New England, rate of, i. 40
Trees, rotation of, i. 330.
, on banks of Kennebec, i. 43

— and plants, i. 70.

on banks of river, ii. 51.

, fossil, erect, of coal, in In

diana, ii. 272.
! Trinity Church, i. 239.
j Turkey buzzards, i. 305.
! Tuscaloosa judges, ii. 88.

, acquaintances at, ii. 85.

: , college of, ii. 79.

| , churches at, ii. 86.

U.

Unio spinosus, i. 333.
Unitarian Church, i. 48.

congregations, i. 173.

Unitarians, i. 173.

, cause of their influence,

ii. 349.

Universal suffrage, i. 101.
University at Louisville, ii. 281.
Upotoy Creek, ii. 33.

INDEX.

385

V.

Vanessa atalanta, ii. 293.
Vegetation near Tuscaloosa, ii. 80.

of Gulf of Mexico, ii. 103.

of Mount Washington, i. 75.

Vicksburg, ii. 208. 214.
Vidalia, ii. 202.
Vine, cultivation of, ii. 295.
Virginia, i. 273.
Vitreous tubes at Areola, ii. 90.
Vote by ballot, ii. 212.
Voters, bribery of, ii. 6.
Voyage from Mobile to New Or
leans, ii. 108.
to Mobile, ii. 76.

W.

Wailes, Colonel, ii. 196.

Walhalla, i. 164.

Wandering Jew, by Eugene Sue,

ii. 340.

, great sale of, ii. 340.

, tendency of the work, -ii.

341.
War, demonstration against, ii.

341. 365.

panic, i. 298.

, preaching against, ii. 345.

spirit abating, ii. 30.

with England, i. 95. 325.; ii.

63.

with Mexico, ii. 344.

Warren, Dr., ii. 364.
Washington,!. 258. 265. ; ii. 195.

, Mount, i. 74.

Museum, i. 266.

, national fair at, ii. 325.

Wealth, ostracism of, i. 96.
Webster, Mr., i. 180. 263.
, Daniel, i. 180.

Wenham Lake ice, ii. 361.
West Point, ii. 222.
Wey mouth, East, i. 120.
Whale discovered in iceberg, i. 37.

fishery in Pacific, ii. 357.

Wheatland, Dr., i. 122.
Wheatstone, i. 244.
Wheeling Indian mound, ii. 299.
Whig Caucus, i. 180.
White, Blanco, i. 241. ;
— Mountains, i. 26.

, age of, i. 83.

-, Peregrine, i. 116.

Water, ii. 236.

Wilde, Mr., ii. 165.

, Richard Henry, ii. 122.

Wilde's poetry, ii. 128.
Wilkes, Captain, i. 38.
Willey Slide, i. 67.
Willows on Mississippi, ii. 146.
Wilmington, i. 290.
Weuthrop, L 243. 259, 260. 264.
Witches, i. 124.

, Salem, i. 123.

Wood, cords of, ii. 174.
Woodpecker boring trees, ii. 269.
Woolly hair, ii. 218.
Wyman, Dr., excursion with, ii.
327.

Y.

Yandell, Dr., ii. 280.
Yellow fever, ii. 107. 127.
— jessamine, ii. 188.

Z.

Zeuglodon, bones of, ii. 9.

in Alabama, ii. 74.

Zoology, i. 303.

THE END.

VOL. II.

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