REPORT AGRICULTURE AND GEOLOGY MISSISSIPPI. ESIBnACING A SKETCH OF THE SOCIAL AND NATURAL HISTORY OF THE STATE. BY B. L. C. WAILES, GEOLOGIST OF MISSISSIPPI; M15MBER OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOU THE PROMOTION OF SCIENCE; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE, AND OF THE BOSTON SOCIETV OP NATURAL HISTORV, ETC. ETC. PUBLISHED BY OEDER OF THE LEGISLATUSE. E. BARKSDALE, STATE PRINTEE. 1854. [- 34' '>^ £3 1909 PREFACE The following pages contain the substance of a Re- port made to the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, with such alterations and modifications as the writer was authorized and instructed to make, and which became necessary to bring the publication within the means ap- propriated for that purpose. This occasioned a partial abridgment, and rendered the omission of the larger portion of the plates, designed to illustrate it, unavoidable. These changes in the scope and proportions of the work, obviously detract, in some degree, from its perspi- cuity and completeness, and must found some claim to indulgence for its defects. The circumstances which devolved the preparation of this work upon the author, and the disadvantages under which it was executed, are explained in the Introduc- tion; and these also, the indulgent reader will doubtless admit, should screen from a too rigid criticism the per- formance of one wholly unpractised in the art and mystery of book-making. iv PREFACE. To some extent local in character, and addressed mainly to the agriculturists of the country, a class to whom a popular style and an avoidance of abstruse speculations are most acceptable, it is not expected that the work will greatly interest the proficient in science. The naturalist, nevertheless, may not be wholly dis- appointed in the perusal of these pages, and perchance may glean some information as to the geographical dis- tribution of the Fauna and Flora of our country, their local habits, and characteristics, and extend his know- ledge by an acquaintance with our palaeontology. For these he will be indebted, in part, to those gentle- men who have kindly lent me their aid in some of these departments. The name of Agassiz stamps with authen- ticity the catalogue of southwestern fishes that has been given. Prof Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, verifies the list of our reptiles ; and Mr, Conrad has found in our collections the means of establishing forty new species of Eocene fossils — no inconsiderable contribution to mine- ral Conchology. The casual reader may find something to interest him in the early history of our State, as well as in the pro- gress of our agriculture, and in the cultivation and pre- paration of our important staple, which, beyond the cotton-growing States, has been little understood. It is, however, to the favor and indulgence of my own fellow-citizens, for whose information and benefit it was chiefly prepared, that I commend the work. Satisfied with their approval, my gratification will be PREFACE. V complete, should my labors contribute in any degree to their knowledge or prosperity. Of the mechanical execution of the work, it is scarcely necessary to speak. The neat typography of Collins needs no commendation; and the chromo-lithographs of Kosenthal exhibit in a most creditable manner the pro- gress of this art in our country, and give examples of a style of illustration for works of this character, which has not yet been surpassed. CONTENTS. Preface ..... List of Illustrations .... Introduction .... I. HisTORicAi; Outline Expedition and discovery by De Soto As a colony of France As a British province As a province of Spain II. Land Titles . . III. Agricultuee. Early state and progress of agriculture The cultivation of tobacco The cultivation and preparation of indigo The cotton plant; its origin and varieties, and its ene mies and diseases . . , , The mode of planting, cultivating, and gathering the cotton crop .... Whitney's gin — Invention, and introduction of ma chinery • • . . . Preparation of cotton for market, its exportation and sale .... Maize, or Indian corn Wheat, oats, rye, barley, rice, &c. Sugar cane . . . Sweet potato . . Irish potato .... Pulse . Grasses .... Statistics — progress and condition of planting interest PAGE iii xi xiii It 18 21 53 66 lit 12t 132 135 138 150 155 ItO 181 186 189 190 193 195 19t 200 VIU CONTENTS. Introductory remarks 20t Loess, or loam. 213 Sandstone — Davion rock 214 Grand Gulf sandstone 216 Ferruginous sandstone — iron . 219 Limestone 223 Clays, ochreous earths, and sands 226 Marls, or mineral fertilizers . 229 Coal, or lignite . 236 Iron pyrites, gold, copper, and lead 240 Diluvium, or northern drift . 245 Springs and wells 253 Mineral waters 258 Artesian wells 260 Palaeontology 269 Catalogue of Vicksburg fossils 28Y Catalogue of Jackson fossils . 289 Analysis 290 Meteorology . 29t Tables of temperature, and fall of rain 299 V. Fauna, Mammalia, or animals . . . . 310 Aves, or birds 31T Reptilia, or reptiles . 32T Pisces, or fish 332 Mollusca, or shell-fish 338 VI. Flora. Forest-trees ...... 341 Parasites, runners and climbers . 344 Undergrowth perennials . 345 Noxious weeds 345 Vitis, or grape 346 Plants, useful, medicinal, and ornamei ital 346 CONTENTS. IX APPENDIX. A. The President of the Board of Trustees of the State University to the Governor of the State B. Message of Governor McRae to the Legislature C. Report of the Committee of the Senate D. The act providing for printing of report E. Extracts from Dr. Millington's report to the Governor F. Mr. Dunbar's classification of land titles G. Whitney's specification, and description of his gin H. Conveyance of right to use a Whitney gin 357 35t 359 360 363 364 36t 3t0 ILLUSTEATIONS. Old English map of Mississippi. I. Seals of the British province of West Florida. Old French copper coins. Figs. 2 and 3. II. Fac-similes of Spanish governors and seals. III. The cotton plant. 1st view. IV. The cotton plant. 2d view. V. Caterpillar, chrysalis, and moth on cotton. YI. Rot in cotton bolls. VII. Primitive roller gin. Fig. 1. Roller gin with treadle and balance wheel. Fig. 2. Whitney's gin of 180t. Fig. 3. Section of cylinder with flattened wire teeth. Fig. Section of same with pointed wire teeth. Fig. 5. VIII. Cotton plantation in the West Indies, in 1T64. IX. Geological strata. X. Illustration of stratification. Figs. 1 and 2. XI. Artesian well at Columbus. Fig. 1. Principles of artesian wells. Fig. 2. XII. Sections on Brandon Railroad. XIII. Boring artesian wells. XIV. Fossil shells from the Eocene marl-beds at Jackson. XV. Fossil shells from the Eocene niarl-beds at Jackson. XVI. Fossil shells from the Eocene marl-beds at Jackson. XVII. Fossil shells from the Eocene marl-beds at Jackson. INTEODUCTION. The Agricultural and Geological Survey of the State originated in an act of the Legislature, approved the 5th of March, 1850, to take effect on the first of June following, entitled "an Act further to endow the Uni- versity of Mississippi;" and its execution was committed to that Institution. Dr. John Millington was appointed, by the Trustees, principal Professor of Geology and Agriculture, in con- nection with the professorship of Chemistry then held by him in the University. No assistant was obtained until the latter part of 1851, and the gentleman then appointed relinquished the situation shortly after ; having merely commenced a reconnoissance of the State, of which no report was made. The situation was tendered to the present incumbent on the 14th of January, 1852. Since that time he has been occupied in the performance of the duties com- mitted to him, which were somewhat augmented by an amendatory act of the Legislature, passed after his ap- pointment, by which a room in the State House was set apart and placed under his charge, for the better pre- servation of the collections in Natural History, which, as the State Geologist, he was required to make. XIV INTRODUCTION. In the prosecution of this work, a considerable por- tion of the State has been traversed, with a view of gaining such general knowledge of its character as would best guide and direct the subsequent, more detailed, and minute examination to be made. More than seven thousand three hundred miles have been travelled, collections amounting to several thousand specimens have been made, and the character, peculiari- ties, and productions of the different sections visited, have been observed and noted. It was doubtless with a general knowledge of the geological features of the State that the Survey was authorized by the Legislature. Consisting chiefly of the more recent formations, the absence of the primitive and metalliferous rocks, in place, gave no reason to expect the existence of those ores and minerals which belong properly to an earlier period, and which constitute the chief resources of less favored and fertile districts than ours. The discovery of mines of copper, lead, or of the more precious metals, or, even of the true coal-fields, was obviously not to be expected. It was, therefore, mainly in reference to its influence and bearing upon the agricultural prosperity of the State, that it was undertaken. The effects produced in New Jersey, Virginia, and several other States, in the restoration of exhausted lands to their primitive fertility, by the application of the marls or mineral manures which similar surveys have brought into notice, exerted the chief influence in setting on foot an enterprise for developing our own re- sources of this character, which were suspected, with good reason, to exist in the great tertiary field that overspreads the State; and the examination which has so far been made, establishes the fact, that our stores of INTRODUCTION. XV calcareous fertilizers are as abundant, as varied in character, and excellent in quality, as any other State can boast. To ascertain and point out the chief deposits of these marls, and to determine their relative value and chemi- cal constituents, becomes now an object of much im- portance. Exact analyses of the different varieties, characterizing them by the prevailing fossils, when such exist, so as at once to be identified by the planter, should be made; numerous experiments in their application should be encouraged; and the effects upon the growth of our different agricultural productions should be dili- gently observed, and accurately detailed. The attention of planters has been pointed to these fertilizers on all suitable occasions, and in a few instances experiments on a limited scale have been commenced, the result of which cannot of course yet be given. Specimens have also been collected, with their associated and characteristic fossils, and have been deposited for general inspection, in the State Cabinet at the Capitol, and in the Cabinet of the University at Oxford. Analyses of many varieties of our marls and soils should have been given in this Report. Few of these, however, have been procured, owing, in part, to a defect in the law authorizing the Survey, and to the illness and subsequent resignation of Dr. Millington, the principal Professor of Geology and Chemistry, in the State Uni- versity. The latter event occurring at a period so nearly ap- proaching to that at which a report of the progress of the Survey was required, devolved unexpectedly upon the assistant that duty, which, under the existing cir- cumstances, must otherwise have been unperformed. Interrupted by a severe and protracted indisposition, XVI INTRODUCTION. and surrounded by a pestilence, the source of perpetual and distracting anxiety, the writer feels that the duty which has been so untowardly postponed, and in the end so hurriedly executed, has been very imperfectly dis- charged, and trusts that these considerations will be re- garded as constituting some claim to indulgence, for the many imperfections which may be charged against this Keport. Whilst captious and ill-natured criticism is ever to be deprecated, a fair and proper correction of error is as much to be desired ; and in an essay of this character, in which the object is to impart useful knowledge, is rather to be invited. Errors have doubtless occurred in treating of the multifarious topics which are embraced in this Report; and to the end that the greatest accuracy may be at- tained, the writer will be gratified to have them pointed out, in order that they may be corrected and avoided in future. Of the plan of this Report, it will be seen that, with the sanction of approved precedents, it has been con- sidered that a short preliminary sketch of the discovery and early history of the country, not hitherto separately written, would not be out of place. In compiling and abridging this from other writers, it has been a somewhat difficult task to condense it within the required limits, except at the expense of much of the interest that would attach to a more detailed ^account. To the works of Martin, Stoddard, and Gayarre, and to the Journal of Ellicott, the United States Commis- sioner for receiving possession of the country, I am in- debted for many of the facts which have been given, and I have not unfrequently adopted the language in INTRODUCTION. XVll which they were originally detailed. To these highly respectable and authentic sources of information with respect to our early history, it gives me pleasure to ac- knowledge my indebtedness. From the manuscript correspondence of the late Mr, William Dunbar " of the Forest," I have also been ena- bled to glean some interesting facts, and to the repre- sentatives of his family I have to express my thanks for the opportunity afforded me of consulting it. The Spanish archives preserved in the State, have also, to a limited extent, been consulted, and, had time permitted, might have been more profitably explored. I have to regret, notwithstanding, that this sketch is not more complete ; the more so, as there is reason to believe that some authentic and interesting documents are pre- served in the State, not as yet made public, which, if accessible, would no doubt serve to fill up some of the chasms and otherwise explain and illustrate our early history. These I should have been pleased to avail myself of. As a subject of interest to the landed proprietors of the State, the chapter on Land Titles was considered as germain to the subject, and entitled to the short space which it occupies. An attempt has been made to give a view of the early agriculture of the country, derived mainly from the ac- counts received from many of our older inhabitants, with whom I have conferred, aided by my own recollec- tions. In the details given of the different agricultural productions, the mode of cultivation, and the machinery for preparing these, I have been similarly aided. In all that has been said in this connection, universal concurrence is not expected. On matters in which there is such diversity both in XVlll INTRODUCTION. theory and practice, as in the course of cultivation and choice of implements especially, this is not to be at- tained. If it be maintained that any of these details are erroneous, I can only say that any such will be most willingly corrected, when it can be done on better au- thority than that on which any specific fact or statement has been given. The tables of agricultural and other statistics have been prepared from the best sources, and will form matter for convenient and useful reference. At this stage of the Survey, and in the first, and as it may be termed preliminary report, the notice of the Geology and other departments of natural history, will necessarily present a mere outline, and cannot assume that form and shape which will properly be given them in a final report. Such an arrangement has been adopted, however, as far as these subjects are embraced, as will, it is believed, give a reasonably comprehensive and famUiar view of those departments of the Eeport. Of the Fauna and Flora of the State, in the notice that has been taken of them, my own observations have been directed by the best available authorities j and in the. former department, among others the works of DeKay, and of Audubon, and Bachman, among the most recent published, and by inference, the most complete and cor- rect, have been consulted. The aid of distinguished naturalists, also, has been liberally afforded ; and I have to acknowledge my indebtedness, and express my thanks, to Professors Agassiz and Baird, and to Mr, Conrad, for their contributions to this department of the Eeport. The catalogues furnished by them, although not so complete or perfect as they will hereafter be made, have the stamp of authenticity and accuracy to recommend them. I should be remiss, were I to omit INTRODUCTION. XIX to acknowledge the obligations I am also under to Dr. Leidy and Mr. Cassin, of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia. As to the illustrations which accompany this Eeport, the limited means appropriated to the Survey, and the dearth of artistic skill available in this quarter, have made me dependent upon the early, imperfect, and self- taught attainment of drawing ; and which, having been almost wholly unpractised for nearly thirty years, makes an apology necessary for their rude and unsatisfactory execution. In making the collections required, the cases in the State Cabinet attest that a reasonable progress has been made with the means appropriated to this object, and upwards of a thousand duplicates have been deposited in the University at Oxford, for its cabinet. When this collection is further advanced towards completion, on the plan I have proposed, it will form, to some extent, a museum of economic geology and agri- culture, in which, not only specimens of natural history, the soils, marls, and minerals, may be preserved ; but also improved and rare agricultural productions and im- plements may be exhibited with profit and instruction to the planter, at the same time that the collection will form one of much interest to the scientific visitor, to say nothing of the means of instruction and gratifica- tion it will afford to the young and the curious of all classes. In my travels through the State, on this not very generally understood or properly appreciated mission, it was to be expected that occasionally little either of information or assistance would be afibrded. Such, however, has rarely been the case; and the degree of interest which has often been manifested in my pursuits XX INTRODUCTION. has been very gratifying, and augurs favorably for the future and more minute prosecution of this investi- gation. To those gentlemen whose hospitality and a^ssistance have been kindly and liberally extended to me, on my various excursions in different quarters, I can only offer my sincere thanks, and express the hope that they may derive some gratification, if not profit, from the final issue of the Survey. Washington, Miss. ^^ ^■■■^■' ^f^lvli^ii^ V I. HISTOEICAL OUTLINE. In presenting a view of the agriculture of the State, and tracing its condition and progress from the first occupancy of our territory by a civilized race, a brief sketch of the discovery and settlement of the country seems appropriate and necessary. Were a precedent required to sanction the very abridged historical outline here introduced, a distinguished one may be found in the able and elaborate memoir that forms the introduc- tion to the Reports on the Natural History of New York, embracing a much wider scope than is here proposed, and comprehending the political history and social pro- gress of the State. To keep this sketch within the prescribed limits, and to exclude all matter not intimately connected with the subject, it will be restricted to occurrences strictly within the present boundaries of the State, except so far as may be necessary to preserve the natural sequence of events. It will embrace little more, therefore, than a chrono- logical outline, which, if desirable, may, as far as neces- sary, be enlarged in the final report of the Survey. The State of Mississippi lies between the thirty-first and thirty-fifth parallels of north latitude, with the ad- dition of that portion lying between the first-mentioned 2 18 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. parallel and the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Borgne and east of Pearl Eiver. On the west it is bounded by the Mississippi and Pearl Eivers, and on the east by a line dividing it from the State of Alabama, which is drawn from the mouth of Bear Creek on the Tennessee River to the northwestern corner of "Washington County, Ala- bama, and thence south to a point on Grand Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, about seventeen miles due west from the Bay of Mobile. The State also embraces the islands in the Gulf within six leagues of the northern shore, the principal of which are Horn, Ship, and Cat Islands. The width of the State along the northern boundary is one hundred and twenty miles; on the sea-shore seventy-eight miles; and along the 31° of north latitude one hundred and eighty-six miles. The greatest length from north to south is three hundred and thirty miles. It embraces an area of 55,500 square miles or 35,520,000 acres. EXPEDITION AND DISCOYEKT BY DE SOTO. About the close of the year 1540, Fernando de Soto, in his adventurous and romantic expedition, commenced the preceding year at the Bay of Espiritu Santo, and designed for the conquest of Florida, penetrated to the country of the Chickasaws in the northeastern part of the State. With his shattered and disabled forces, the remnant of the most gallant and imposing expedition, for the magnificence of its equipage and the rank and opulence of those engaged in it, that ever set foot in the New world, he sought rest and repose during the winter in the Chicaza towns, after nearly two years of continual contest and warfare with the Indian tribes that he had HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 19 encountered. Here he continued, notwithstanding his disasters and the persevering and galling attacks of the Indians, until the 1st of April, 1541. The position of this winter encampment is conjectured to have been near the northeastern part of Pontitoc County, where, it is said, remains of ancient fortifications are still to be seen, and relics of European origin probably pertaining to this expedition have also been found. Thus, far in the interior, distant from the sea- shore, and remote from the Mississippi, was the territory of the State first en- tered upon by Europeans. It is needless to trace his subsequent wanderings if it were practicable, even with approximate accuracy, to do so. There is little doubt, however, that De Soto traversed the country comprising the county now bearing his name, and in May of the same year discovered the Mississippi River, called by the natives " Cicuaga," at a point near the extreme northwestern corner of the State.* After crossing the Mississippi at or near the Chickasaw Bluffs, and consuming another year in fruitless and wast- ing excursions far to the west, he returned to the Mis- sissippi, where his career was terminated at the village of Guachoya, "which was situated on two contiguous hills a bow-shot from the Mississippi," probably the site of the present town of Hellena in Arkansas,^ and his * According to Marbois, the northern Indians, bordering on Canada, called the Mississippi the "Namesi-si-pou," or River of Fishes. f This is the only point on the western side where the highland or "MZs" jut in upon the Mississippi below the Ohio. Some writers assign the mouth of the Arkansas, and others that of Red River, as the place of De Soto's death; and the town of "Guachoa" is laid down on an English map published in 1164 at the latter place. Neither of these points, however, answers to the description given of the 20 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. remains were committed to the great river which he was the first to discover. Still a year later, his followers, now led by Louis de Muscoso, failing to reach Mexico by land, returned to the same village on the Mississippi, on which the small remnant of the expedition, reduced to about three hun- dred and fifty survivors, little more than one-fourth of the number of which it was first composed, embarked on the 2d of July, 1543, for a final departure from the country, pursued and sorely harassed by the Indians, and arrived at the sea-shore after a voyage of twenty days. From this period, for an interval of nearly one hun- dred and thirty-eight years, the native tribes were left in undisturbed possession of the country ; and it was not until February, 1681, when La Salle, accompanied by the Chevalier de Tonti, descended the Mississippi from Canada, that the country was revisited by Eu- ropean adventurers. In April of this year. La Salle, having reached the ocean, on his return touched at the settlement of the Natchez, from which the hostile bear- ing of that people hastened his departure. Failing in his subsequent expedition, fitted out in France with a view to the establishment of a colony, to reach the mouth of the Mississippi by sea, having passed to the west of it. La Salle perished miserably in Texas by the hands of his despairing and mutinous followers ; and another interval of eighteen years elapsed before the country was again visited by Europeans. site; nor can we suppose that the fugitive remnant of the expedition, flying from a pursuing enemy, could have consumed twenty days in the descent from Red River to the mouth of the Mississippi. The authority of the map is not to be relied upon, since, among other inaccuracies, it places New Orleans above the Lafourche. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 21 AS A COLONY OF FRANCE, 1699—1^63. In February, 1699, an expedition led by Iberville ar- rived upon the coast, and occupied Ship Island. Iber- ville had offered to prosecute the plan of La Salle to colonize Louisiana, and under the patronage of Count de Pontchartrain, the French minister of marine, was put in command of an expedition fitted out at La Rochelle, consisting of two frigates and two smaller vessels, to be employed in this service. After exploring the shores and inlets in that quarter, it was resolved to establish the proposed colony on the main land in the vicinity, and accordingly a landing was effected on the eastern extremity of the Bay of Baluxi. A fort of four bastions, with twelve pieces of cannon, was commenced on the first of May following, the colonists brought over by the expedition numbering about two hundred, including women and children, were settled around the fort, and the first European settlement was established in Missis- sippi. Iberville, leaving his brothers in charge of the settle- ment, the elder, Sauvolle, as governor, and the younger, Bienville, as his lieutenant, set sail on his return to France for the purpose of reinforcing the infant colony he had founded, and procuring for it the necessary sup- plies. In July, soon after the departure of Iberville, the colony was visited by two missionaries, Montegay and Davion, who had wandered from Canada, and had been residing among the Indian tribes. Father Davion, who had been in turn among the Yazoos and Tunicas, had established himself at an eminence on the east side of the Mississippi, where an indurated clay or imperfectly 22 HISTORICAL OUTLmE. formed sand rock is seen ; hence the place became known to the French as " La Eoche a Davion," (Davion's Rock.) It is the point now known as Fort Adams, and the same called hy the English, Loftus Heights. Bienville, who engaged actively in exploring the passes and outlets of the Mississippi, encountered an English ship in the river, commanded by Captain Bar, one of two vessels sent out by Daniel Cox of New Jersey, to take possession of a grant of land of which' he was then the proprietor, made by Charles the First of England, in 1630, to Sir Robert Heath. It comprised a tract of truly royal dimensions, embracing not only the present State of Mis- sissippi, but included several other adjoining States. Captain Bar, doubting whether the stream he had entered was the Mississippi, was easily induced by Bienville to retrace his steps ; and the great bend in the river, at which his progress was terminated, has ever since been known from this circumstance as the "English Turn." In December, Iberville returned from France with two large armed ships. He hi^ought out Leseur, a Geologist, icJio was sent hy the French government to examine a green- ish earth or ochre which had heen noticed on the hanhs of the Mississippi.^' Furnished with a detachment of twenty fnen, Leseur proceeded up to the River St. Peter's, which he ascended a considerable distance. A greenish ochre was found covering the ground near a copper-mine, thir- teen thousand pounds of which were gathered, brought to Baluxi and shipped to France ; but no further notice appears to have been taken of it. In 1700, tire Chevalier de Tonti, hearing of the esta- blishment of the French colony, descended the river in a * This geological surveying expedition, fitted out within the limits of our State, was probably the earliest undertaken on our continent. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 23 pirogue, accompanied by seven men, to ascertain the truth of the report. This was the third voyage of this energetic and enterprising man down the Mississippi, first in company with La Salle, when he explored the river to its mouth, and again for the purpose of meeting his old associate and friend, who, he was apprised, was at- tempting to enter the MississipjDi by sea, in which he was grievously disappointed. De Tonti had distinguished himself in the European wars, and had lost a hand, which he had had supplied by an artificial substitute of iron, of which at times he was wont to make a formidable use, and which procured for him the sobriquet of the " Iron Hand." He met Iberville and Bienville at Bayou Goula, and they accompanied him on his return up the river as far as Natchez. There they met with St. Come, a mis- sionary from Canada, who had fixed his residence among this people. The Natchez, greatly advanced beyond the other Indian tribes in civilization, had been reduced from a once powerful nation, and now numbered only about twelve hundred warriors. The Great Sun, as their king was termed, welcomed the French at the head of a large retinue, borne in state on the shoulders of some of his attendants. They were worshippers of the sun, and maintained a perpetual fire in their temples. One of these, during the visit of the French, was set on fire by lightning, when the frenzied and superstitious women, at the call of the vociferating and demoniac priests, cast their infant children into the flames to ap- pease their irritated divinity. The country of the Natchez greatly interested Iber- ville, who, considering it the most eligible position for the principal establishment of the province, selected a commanding situation on the river for a town, for which 24 HISTORICAL OUTLIKE. he proposed the name' of Kosalie, in honor of the Countess of Pontchartrain. Sauvolle died in July, 1701, after the departure of Iberville, and was succeeded by Bienville as governor. The colonists suffered greatly from the want of pro- visions ; and in the fall, disease following in the track of famine, many died, the number of survivors being re- duced to one hundred and fifty. The return of Iber- ville from France, late in December, afforded a timely relief. Besides the supplies, he brought with him also a re- inforcement of troops. Under instructions from the king, Bienville moved his head-quarters to the western bank of Mobile River, leaving a detachment of twenty men in charge of the fort at Baluxi. A fort, with barracks and stores, was also erected on Dauphin Island, which possessed a better port and more convenient landing than Ship Island afforded. The seat of government of the Province being trans- ferred beyond the present limits of the State, and there remaining within it but the small settlement at Baluxi, it will suffice to state, in reference to the progress of the colony for many years, that it was characterized by an entire neglect of agricultural pursuits, and that it was subjected to great hardships from famine and disease, the occasional supplies derived from France, St. Do- mingo, and Vera Cruz, being so inadequate as to render it necessary occasionally to quarter the troops upon the adjacent Indian tribes to gain a precarious subsistence by hunting and fishing. In the mean time, Iberville had died, and the French government, disappointed in the slow progress of the colony, the limited extent of its trade, and the utter HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 25 failure in the discovery of minerals to whicli its expec- tations had mainly been directed, was induced, in Sep- tember, 1712, to make a grant of the colony and its exclusive commerce, with extensive privileges, to An- thony Crozat, an eminent merchant. Bienville, being appointed to the command of the es- tablishments on the Mississippi, learning that the Natchez had plundered and killed some Frenchmen, led a de- tachment of troops against them, in 1716, and, having decoyed some of their chiefs into his camp, compelled the restoration of the plundered goods and the punish- ment of the offenders; after which he accompanied the Natchez to their village, and with their assent com- menced a fort on the spot Iberville had before chosen. It was called Rosalie, and in June a small garrison was established in it under the command of an officer named Pailloux. The earthen mound or embankment which tradition points out as the site of this fort, is still to be seen crowning the bluff of the river, immediately below and in the suburbs of the city of Natchez. When the country came under the dominion of Great Britain, it was called Fort Panmure, after a barony of that name in Scotland, a name it retained during the subsequent rule of the Spaniards, being so designated in all the grants of land made by that government. Three of Crozat's ships arrived in March, 1717, with three companies of infantry and fifty new colonists. Bienville was superseded as governor ; and although the order of knighthood was conferred upon him in reward for his services, yet the arrival of L'Epinay, his suc- cessor, occasioned him much mortification, which the decoration of the cross of St. Louis, and the Royal patent conceding him the title to Horn Island, could not 26 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. wholly allay; his populfirity with the colonists, and the jealousy of his partisans towards the new chief, occa- sioned a schism in the colony very unfavorable to its progress. Failing to establish a commerce with the Spaniards in Mexico, and disappointed in all his expectations, Crozat, in August, 1717, surrendered his grant to the king. During his administration, a period of about five years, neither the commerce nor agriculture of the country was increased, and the whole population of every description, including the troops, did not exceed seven hundred persons. Marbois, however, attributes to him more statesman- ship than was possessed by the ministers, and adds that his plans were wisely conceived, and as far as depended upon him he sent to the colony only robust and indus- trious people, and families recommended by their morals, who were the only settlers that succeeded. In September, 1717, a charter was granted to a new corporation, styled the "Western Company," which originated with the celebrated Scotch adventurer and financier Law, a protege of the Eegent Duke of Orleans. It was also known as the "Mississippi Scheme." The lands, coasts, harbors, and islands of the colony were granted to this company for a term of twenty-five years from the 1st of January, 1718, with the exclusive commerce, in which all other Erench subjects were pro- hibited from engaging. The company was authorized to nominate the go- vernor and other officers, to grant lands, to levy troops, make treaties, and wage war with the Indians, and generally to exercise the most unlimited and extraor- dinary powers. On its part, the company engaged to introduce, during HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 27 the term of its privilege, six thousand whites and three thousand negroes. Of this powerful and privileged company, John Law was appointed Director-General. One of the first acts of the company, in February, 1718, was to recall L'Epinay, and to reinstate Bienville as governor — a measure which gave great satisfaction to the troops, and to the inhabitants generally. The failure of the plans of Crozat induced the com- pany to turn its attention to the introduction of agricul- ture, as promising better results than the fruitless search- ing for mines, or prosecuting a commerce so trivial as that derived from the traffic with the Indian tribes. As the most effectual mode of encouraging agricul- tural enterprise, it was deemed expedient to make con- siderable concessions of land to wealthy and powerful personages: among these were grants of large extent, on the Yazoo Eiver, to a company consisting of Le Blanc, Count de Belleville, Leblond, and others; and on St. Catharine's Creek, near Fort Rosalie, to Hubert, and a company of merchants of St. Maloes. The Bay of St. Louis was granted to Madame de Mezieres, and Pasca- goula Bay to Madame de Chaumont. The condition of all such grants was, the introduction of a certain number of emigrants upon them within a stated time. The experiment seems not to have been wholly suc- cessful; a few destitute peasants were first sent out to improve these lands, many of whom were prematurely swept away by the diseases attending the improvement of a new country and a change of climate. Experience also showed that, although these large grants facilitated the transportation of settlers, little was obtained from the labor of men brought over from a dis- 28 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. tant clime to cultivate lands, the proprietors of which remained behind. It was a fatal error that the plantations had not been established nearer together for mutual protection. As Marbois remarks, the colonists feeling free from restraint settled wherever fancy or hope conducted them, indifferent even to the sanction of a grant to secure their possessions ; they scattered themselves among the natives, and taking the Indian women for wives, were cordially received, and by right incorporated into the tribe. In June, 1718, De la Housaye and Scouvion, with their followers, eighty-two in number, settled upon the Yazoo. Of the emigrants of 1720, three hundred were destined for Natchez, and three hundred and ninety for the Yazoo. Three hundred colonists arrived in 1721, for the lands of Madame de Chaumont, at Pascagoula. In 1719, Bigart had been sent with a small detachment to the Yazoo River, where he built Fort St. Peter's. War having broken out between France and Spain the same year, the attention of the colonists was mainly directed to attacks upon the Spanish possessions. Pensacola was taken without resistance, but was surrendered again in August to a force sent from Havana to retake it. Three ships of the line arriving on the 1st of September, the place was again taken by the French with the Spanish shipping and eighteen hundred prisoners. In the summer and fall of 1720, Beaumanoir brought over sixty settlers to the grant on the St. Catharine's. In May, 1720, after a brief existence of little more than two years, the Eoyal Bank established by Law, and with which the company was intimately connected, failed; and in December, Law was compelled to fly from France, HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 29 attended bj a universal malediction, an object of popular abhorrence. A change in the seat of government being again deter- mined upon by the directors of the company's concerns, in opposition to the views of Bienville and Hubert, the Bay of Baluxi was chosen for that purpose ; a detachment of troops was sent to the western shore of the bay to erect houses and barracks, and the place thenceforth became known as New Baluxi. The privileges and powers of the Mississippi Company had been greatly enlarged by the acquisition of the pos- sessions and effects of the China and India Companies, which were dissolved ; and from that time it assumed the style and became known as the Company of the Indies. Although a peremptory order had been given for the removal to Baluxi, both Bienville and Hubert were op- posed to it; the former thought New Orleans was the most eligible site, and the latter went to France to induce the directors of the company to decide in favor of Nat- chez, near which, on the St. Catharine's, he had an im- mense grant with a large plantation and considerable im- provements. He was unsuccessful in his mission, and died a few days after his arrival. Finally, after consider- able delay and opposition in the summer of 1722, the order of council was executed, and Bienville and his staff removed to Baluxi. Large additions to the colony had been made the pre- vious year, chiefly of Germans, and negroes from the coast of Africa. On the 4th of June, 1722, a company's ship, commanded by the Chevalier d'Arensbourg, brought over two hundred and fifty Germans. With this vessel came the confirmation of the utter failure of Law and his schemes, and the consequent ruin 30 HISTOKICAL OUT-LINE. and distress which had ensued in France. This intelli- gence was received with great dismay, and an appre- hension was felt that the affairs of the colony, if not wholly neglected, would be prosecuted with less vigor; an apprehension soon realized to some extent in the failure of supplies. To provide against impending famine, the troops were distributed in small detachments on Pearl River and Pascagoula, among the Indian tribes, to procure subsistence by hunting and fishing. Exasperated by hunger and distress, some of these mutinied, and attempted to reach the English settlements in Carolina. The Indians were sent in pursuit, and all of them were captured or slain. The arrival of a ship in Sep- tember afforded some relief, and it was learned that the Regent, after the failure and flight of Law, had placed the affairs of the company under the direction of three Commissioners. In December of this year, Father Charlevoix descended the Mississippi River from Canada ; he visited the fort on the Yazoo, and spent his Christmas in Natchez. At that time, according to his account, the company had a ware- house, in charge of Seur Le Noir, at the latter place ; the appearance of the country he describes as very agreeable, extensive meadows and handsome clumps of trees pre- senting themselves on every side, after surmounting the hill at the landing-place. Fort Rosalie is spoken of by him as a Idnd of redoubt inclosed with a single palisade. The great village of the Natchez was situated near the St. Catharine, a few miles from the river, and about mid- way between the two French grants which formed a tri- angle with the fort, being distant from the latter and each other about one league ; the St. Maloes grant being the lowermost on the creek, which discharged itself into the Mississippi about three leagues below. He describes HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 31 this plantation as being ^^ screened on all the hack parts hy a magnificent cypress forest." The village of the Natchez he represents as reduced to a very few cabins; the more populous towns of the tribe |)eing at some distance, in order to be more out of the reach of the Great Chief, or Sun, who had a right to take from his subjects anything they possessed. The Tioux, allies of the Natchez, had a village in the neighborhood. Charlevoix regarded the country about Natchez the finest and most fertile in all Louisiana. In January, 1723, Laharpe, on his way to the Arkan- sas, touched at Natchez, and found Port Rosalie in a state of ruinous decay. Maneval, who commanded it, having only eighteen soldiers. Ascending the Yazoo River at the distance of nine miles from the mouth, he reached the settlement called Fort St. Peter, commanded by De Grave. According to his statement, there was not more than thirty acres of arable land surrounding the fort, which was hemmed in by stony hills. The site of this fort was at the place now known as Hayne's Bluff, where the limestone is seen cropping out of the base of the hills. A group of mounds, one of them of considerable size, and about thirty feet high, is situated near the spot. At that period, the Mississippi still flowed through what is now known as Old River ; the cut-off, or present channel of the river, according to Charlevoix, having been recently formed, was not passable for boats, except at a hio:h sta2;e of water. In May, the copper coinage provided for the colony arrived at Baluxi. It was ordered to be used in pay- ment of the troops, and was made a lawful tender in the company's stores. Specimens of this coin have been found at St. Peter's, and at several other points in the 32 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. State, formerly occupied by the French. An earthen vessel of Indian fabric containing several pieces of it was dug, some years since, from an Indian mound near the mouth of Pearl River. One of these coins, found on the reputed site of the governor's quarters in New Baluxi, is preserved in the State cabinet; and a similar one, from the mound, in the cabinet of the State university. These coins bear date in 1721 and 1722. They bear on the face the cipher of Louis, the French monarch, surmounted by a crown, and surrounded by the legend, " Sit nomen domini bene- dictum." Across the reverse is inscribed : " Colonies FranQoises," with the date below.* The seat of government was again removed beyond the present limits of the State, and Bienville, in accom- plishment of his long-cherished desire, fixed his head- quarters at New Orleans. In September, a destructive tornado desolated the Province, prostrating many houses in New Orleans, and extending to Baluxi and Natchez; the crops were de- stroyed, and the inhabitants were menaced with im- pending dearth. An unexpected crop of rice, however, springing from the seed scattered by the hurricane, promised some relief The Indian tribes were becoming more open in their hostilities. In 1723, a predatory band of Chickasaws killed a sergeant belonging to the garrison at St. Peter's, and his wife. The Natchez also became involved in an affray with a sergeant at Fort Rosalie, in which an Indian was killed; the Indians retaliated, and in considerable force attacked the settlement, but were repulsed with * See Plate. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 33 the loss of several of their number. Guenot, the di- rector of the grant on St. Catharine, was fired upon and wounded; some negroes were shot; two planters were taken and their heads cut off, and a number of cattle and horses were stolen. When Dustine, an officer of the garrison, arrived at New Orleans, bringing this in- telligence, two suns of the Natchez were on a visit to Bienville. No punishment was inflicted upon the offending Indians; but these chiefs were dismissed with presents, under a pledge to put a stop to these outrages. In consideration of the spiritual wants of the pro- vince, a number of Jesuits, and monks of other orders, as well as nuns, were introduced into the colony, and liberally provided for by the company, and curates were also provided for the missions. For several years, great distress was felt in the colony, growing out of the failure of Law's Scheme^ and the attempts of the French government to regulate the currency, and to palliate the consequent embarrassment by the alteration of the value of money. The colony, notwithstanding, had made rapid strides since it passed under the charge of the company. The military force had increased to eight hundred men. Twenty-five hundred redemptioners, and eighteen hun- dred Africans had been introduced, and agriculture had engaged to a greater extent the attention of European capitalists. In 1724, Bienville was called to France to answer to charges preferred against him. Notwithstanding his able defence, he was removed, and Perrier was appointed in his stead on the 9th of August, 1726. Of the Indian tribes occupying the country at the period of its settlement by the French, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and the Natchez were the most numerous. 3 34 HISTOEICAL OUTLINE. There were many otters, however, though too feeble and insignificant to merit more than a passing notice. Among these were the Baluxis and Pascagoulas to the south. The Yazoos, lonicas, Coroas, OfFagoulas, Otasees, Chachoumas, Outayhis, and the Tapouches were distributed along the Yazoo and its tributaries. Of the larger tribes, the Choctaws were by far the most numerous and powerful. They owned fifty im- portant villages, and could assemble twenty thousand warriors. They were first attached to the French, who managed, by their diplomacy and presents, to retain, throughout, a large majority of them in their interest. The Chickasaws are described as a turbulent, warlike, and ferocious race; from their intercourse and trade with the English of Carolina, they espoused their in- terest, and were readily engaged in hostilities towards the French, and were consequently embroiled in con- tinual warfare with the Choctaws. The Natchez, by far the most enlightened and furthest removed from barbarism, were rapidly declining from the condition of a numerous and once powerful tribe. The institution of human sacrifices engrafted into their theology was the most efficient cause of their rapid course towards extinction. They were pacific in their disposition ; but the French, by their harshness and en- croachments upon their rights, forfeited their friendship and provoked their deadly hostility. It was the policy of Bienville, and most of the other governors, for the security of the colony from the united hostilities of the Indians, against which it could not have existed, to encourage the feuds among themselves. The Choctaws, the most powerful of these, were con- ciliated, and aided in repelling the attacks of their chief enemy, the Chickasaws, until, in turn, they became HISTOEICAL OUTLINE. 35 their persevering and victorious assailants. This was done chiefly by keeping the traffic with them in their own hands, to the exclusion of the English traders of the Carolinas, and by supplying them with goods suited to their wants. Perrier, as the successor of Bienville, proved more harsh and less politic in his intercourse with his Indian neighbors ; and when, from the failure of .the necessary remittances from France, it became impossible to supply all the wants of their red allies, and to make them the customary presents, a considerable faction of the Choc- taws became disaffected, and united with the Chickasaws in a scheme of general and concerted hostility with a view to the total destruction of the French colony in all its settlements; and although this design was suspected, and for the time disconcerted and postponed, the day was approaching when the French colonists were to re- ceive a severe and ruinous blow. The commandant at Natchez under Perrier, an officer named Chepar, was a man of intemperate habits, and of overweening vanity and self-importance. Professing an utter contempt for the Natchez, his conduct towards them was severe and exacting. On a beautiful and elevated plain on the western margin of Second Creek, about ten miles from Fort Rosalie, was situated the "Whiteapple Village." A group of mounds, two of them of considerable elevation and extent, yet clothed with stately elms and evergreen oaks, which have spread their umbrageous shades over them for centuries, and which the good taste of the past and present proprietors have religiously preserved, still marks the spot. The land embracing this favorite vil- lage of the Natchez was coveted by Chepar. Alledns; the orders of Perrier, the surrender of it was 36 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. rudely demanded, with a threat to seize it by force if not voluntarily yielded before a stated period, which was not remote. The Natchez could not bring themselves to submit to this new act of aggression. But their remonstrances were unheard, nor was the offer of other lands as an equivalent embraced. They were constrained, there- fore, to feign a reluctant acquiescence in the demand. The suns and chieftains of the different villages held a secret council, and, resolving against submission, de- termined themselves to become the principals, instead of auxiliaries in the conspiracy against the French. Ac- cordingly, they set to work to secure the co-operation of other tribes hostile to the French, and to destroy the whole settlement. The necessary messengers were dispatched, each pro- vided with a bundle of sticks of equal numbers, one of which was to be withdrawn daily, to insure a concert of action between the allies, the attack to be made on the day that the last stick was removed. This conspiracy was designed to be kept a profound secret among the chiefs, and especially from the women, some of whom were known to be too well affected to their French neighbors. That some secret and moment- ous measure was on foot was soon divined by one of the most shrewd and observant of the female suns, who, se- verely upbraiding her son in private for his want of con- fidence in her, artfully drew from him the details of the plot, which she lost no time in imparting to an officer of the garrison ; but her warning was unheeded. Chepar, deluded into false security by the address of the chiefs, with whom he was even engaged in drunken revels on the very eve of his destruction, would listen to no caution, or credit any intimation of the intended HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 37 assault. Not satisfied with this, the female sun, having in consideration of her rank access to the fane in which the bundle of sticks for her village was kept, secretly withdrew one or two of them at a time, trusting thus, by precipitating the attack by the Natchez before the arrival of the confederates, to afford the French a fur- ther chance of escape. Deceived by this artifice, and tempted also by the arrival of some boats laden with merchandise just landed from New Orleans, on the morning of the 29th of No- vember, 1729, before the arrival of the day first ap- pointed, a simultaneous attack upon the garrison, town, and different plantations was made, a shot fired upon the boats, by a party who had secretly descended the hill for that purpose, being the concerted signal. So well was the attack planned that, in less than three hours, upwards of two hundred Frenchmen were massacred, two only, a carpenter and tailor, being spared. Ninety- two women and one hundred and fifty-five children, and all the negroes, w^ere captured. The usual atrocities practised by savages ensued -, the fort, houses, and boats were pillaged; and the liquor ob- tained furnished the means of a long-continued scene of carousal and debauchery. A few only escaped, and succeeded in reaching New Orleans, bearing the first intelligence of this sad disaster. The first of these who arrived was Richard, followed shortly after by Couillard, and a few others. Among the principal persons who fell were the Kol- lys, father and son, who had just arrived to take pos- session of the grant of Hubert on the St. Catharine's, which they had purchased. One house only, that of Laloire, the principal agent of the company at the post, made any defence. This was made good through the SS* HISTORICAL OUTLINE. day witli the loss of six* out of eight men, by whom it was defended. The two survivors escaped under cover of the night. Laloire himself, who chanced to be on horseback when the attack commenced, defended himself bravely, and killed four Indians before he fell; these, with eight others killed from his house, twelve in all, constituted the entire loss of the Natchez. As to Chepar, he was held in such contempt and ab- horrence, that death by the hands of a warrior was deemed too honorable for him, and at the conclusion of the massacre he was dragged from the garden to which he had fled, and beat to death with clubs by the most degraded of the Natchez race. The destruction of the fort at Natchez being com- plete, and the habitations of the French reduced to ashes, some of the Yazoo tribe who were present at the massacre, accompanied by a party of Natchez, pro- ceeded to the settlement on the Yazoo. The fort was garrisoned by only twenty men, and the commander, Du Codier, having already perished at Natchez, where he chanced to be on a visit at the time of the massacre, was easily surprised, and the soldiers and the few fami- lies settled near it were put to death. Thus the French settlement on the Yazoo was en- tirely destroyed about the 1st of January, 1730. It has been charged that the Choctaws were to have aided in this massacre, and to have made a simultaneous attack upon New Orleans; and that, in consequence of the derangement of all their plans, and their disappoint- ment in not sharing the plunder, by the premature attack made by the Natchez, they determined to avenge them- selves by the destruction of that people. How far other and better motives may have operated HISTORICAL OUTLINE. " 39 with some of the principal chiefs and their followers, they co-operated afterwards with the French, not only against the Natchez, but subsequently, in the war that ensued with the Chickasaws, with general fidelity and efficiency. No sooner had they learned that the Natchez threat- ened to put to death the women and children that had been captured, than they assembled a considerable force, headed by Leseur, a Frenchman, and attacked the Natchez on the 27th of January, whilst revelling on the banks of the St. Catharine, killed many of them, rescued the carpenter and tailor, and upwards of fifty French women and children, recovering at the same time about one hundred of the negroes. In this attack fell the chief who had instigated the Natchez massacre. Perrier, the governor, who was assembling a force at Tunica to march against the Natchez, was less prompt in his movements. The Choctaws had marched a great distance by land, and were compelled to wait for many days for the ar- rival of the French, with whom they were to co-operate ; and it was not until the fourteenth that Loubois, the French commander, after fruitless parleyings, had posted his artillery, and made his arrangements for an attack upon the forts in which the Natchez had entrenched themselves. The guns of the French were mounted on the mound on which stood the great temple, and com- manded the forts of the Indians ; they were, however, only four pounders, hardly fit for service, and so badly managed that they made little impression. The In- dians opposed three pieces, whicii were still more clum- sily handled. More than ten days were consumed in this siege. On the 15th, intimidated by the more active prepara- 40 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. tions made by the French, but more by the threats of Ahbamo Mengo, one of the most formidable of the Choctaw chiefs, the Natchez were brought to terms; and on the 27tb, delivered to the hands of the Choctaws all the women and children, and most of the negroes in their possession. On the night of the 18th, eluding the vigilance of the besiegers, or, as some assert, witJi the connivance of the French ! they made their escape, crossed the Mississippi, and took refuge among the Washitas. Thus, with the escape of the Natchez, ended this ex- pedition, so little creditable to the French arms, in which the rescue of the captured women and children, and whatever else of success attended it, were owing mainly to their Choctaw confederates. The women and children thus rescued were sent down the river to New Orleans, and most of them were eventually settled on concessions of land made to them at Point Coupie. The country being thus abandoned, the French commenced the erection of a brick fort, the command of which, with a garrison of one hundred men, was given to the Baron de Cresnay. Another expedition was set on foot, at the head of which Perrier placed himself, and in January, 1731, having discovered the place of retreat, and the fortified camp of the Natchez, near the junction of the Washita and Tensas, eventually succeeded in capturing forty-five men and four hundred and fifty women and children ; the others escaped. The prisoners captured by Perrier, including two suns and a princess, were taken to New Orleans, transported to San Domingo, and sold into slavery.* * In January, 1131, application having been made to M. de Maure- pas to relieve the company of the expense incurred on account of HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 41 Altliougli driven from their country, and destroyed as a separate nation, the Natchez were not exterminated. Those who escaped from Perrier were headed by the Chief of the Flour, who led such of his tribe as he could collect against St. Deyns at the Post of Natchi- toches, whom he attacked with a force of about two hundred warriors ; but he was repulsed. Pursuing his advantage, St. Denys, at the head of his small force, a few Spaniards and an inconsiderable num- ber of Natchitoches Indians, sallied out, forced the en- trenched camp of the Natchez, killed ninety-two of them, including all of their chiefs, and put the rest to flight. Thus St. Denys, with a very inconsiderable force, inflicted upon the Natchez the most fatal blow they had yet received. The survivors of this fated race were now scattered among the Washitas and other small tribes ; but most of them sought an asylum among the Chickasaws, with whom they '^incorporated themselves. They continued for several years, in conjunction with the latter tribe, to attack and harass the French on all favorable occasions, and still numbered two hundred warriors. When informed of these disasters, the company of the Indies decided that it was impracticable to sustain any longer so profitless and expensive a colony, and the di- rectors proposed to surrender to the king the charter, the obligations of which it was thought would involve it in ruin. After much negotiation, the retrocession was accepted, the French government resumed the adminis- tration of the colony, and on the 15 th of November, these Indian families at Cape Francois, he replied that he was not aware of any other course to adopt than to order their sale or to send them back to Louisiana. They were thereupon ordered to be sold. — Marhois. 42 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 1731, issued the necessary ordinances for winding up the affairs of the company, which, after a struggle of fourteen years, had failed to fulfil its sanguine but visionary expectations. The hostile disposition of the Indians, which had been so disastrous, and which seemed to be extending to all the tribes, was attributed in a great degree to the harsh- ness of Perrier ; and the return of Bienville was urged under the belief that his mildness and humanity would conciliate the Indians, with many of whom he had ever been a favorite, and possessed great influence. Accord- ingly, under the new organization of the colony, Bien- ville was reappointed governor in 1734, and on his ar- rival, which was hailed with much joy by the colonists, Perrier returned to France. From this period until near the close of the French rule, the country embraced in the limits of the State was little more than the theatre of Indian hostilities and warfare. The Natchez and the Yazoos, who had taken refuge among the Chickasaws, resumed their predatory war upon the remote settlements of the colony, in which the Chickasaws frequently united with them, and intercept- ed or obstructed all communication by the way of the Mississippi. Bienville, therefore, sent an officer to the Chickasaws to demand that the Natchez should be given up. This being refused, he commenced the preparation of an expedition against them. Leblanc, one of his officers, was sent with orders to the Chevalier d'Arta- guette, who was in command at Fort Chartres in the Illinois, to repair to the country of the Chickasaws, with all the French and Indians he could collect, to co-ope- rate with the troops to be sent from New Orleans by HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 43 way of Mobile and the Tombigbee River about the 10 th of May. The party of Leblanc, although attacked by the ene- my near the Yazoo Kiver, reached its destination. Another officer was sent among the Choctaws, and by the aid of liberal presents engaged the chiefs to unite their warriors with the force Bienville proposed to lead from New Orleans. The Chevalier d'Artaguette had distinguished himself in the war with the Natchez, and had subsequently been placed in command of the Fort at Natchez. In obedi- ence to his orders, with such forces as he could assemble, he repaired to the place of rendezvous on the 9 th of May, the day previous to that on which he was directed to arrive. He encamped in sight of the enemy until the 20th, when he was no longer able to restrain his auxiliaries, who determined to fight or withdraw. Thus situated, he embraced the first alternative, and with an impetuous charge drove the enemy from the fort before which he was encamped, and the village it protected ; the second fort was carried with equal gal- lantry; and he was in full pursuit of the foe, retreating to their third and last entrenchment when, unfortunately, he fell under repeated wounds. His Indian confederates now basely deserted him, and fled in all directions. Forty-eight soldiers, all he could bring with him, and Father Senac, his chaplain, stood bravely by in defence of their prostrate leader ; but they were too few to re- sist the overwhelming force by which they were assailed. Overpowered by numbers, many of them were captured and led prisoners, with their wounded chief, to the fort. And where was Bienville and his army in the mean time? Having sent before a strong detachment to erect 44 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. a fort on the Tombigbee, two hundred and fifty miles above Mobile, as a depot for his provisions and ammuni- tion, with the regular troops at his disposal, two compa- nies of militia and nearly fifty negroes ofiicered by free blacks, a force amounting altogether to nearly six hun- dred men, he embarked on the Bayou St. John with thirty boats on the 4th of March, and did not arrive at the fort on the Tombigbee until the 20th of April. On the 4tli of May he reached his landing-place within twenty-seven miles only of the nearest Chickasaw vil- lage ; here the last detachment of his Choctaw auxilia- ries joined him, amounting in the whole now to twelve hundred warriors. Here they loitered, erecting houses and stores, within a day's march of the enemy, for more than twenty days.* At last their march commenced, and on the following day, the 26th of May, 1736, at noon, the army arrived before an entrenched village protected by a strongly constructed fort. The British flag was flying, and several Englishmen were observed in the fort, which was surrounded by thick palisades pierced with loopholes for firing through ; and within, the Indians were further protected by trenches, from which they could securely fire without exposing themselves to the shot of their assailants. Bienville wished to avoid this village, and attack a neighboring one of the Natchez, against whom the ex- pedition was chiefly designed ; but the Choctaws, sup- posing this town would yield the most plunder and * This landing-place and depot of Bienville was doubtless at the point now known as Cotton-gin Port. Since the settlement of the country by the present inhabitants, two small field-pieces and a bos of bullets have been here recovered from the river, into which they were probably thrown on the retreat of the French army. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 45 afford some provisions, of which they began to be in need, overruled the designs of the commander. Against this stronghold the force of Bienville was therefore led, powerless to inflict damage on an enemy thus protected, whilst the assailants were exposed and galled by an incessant shower of balls, which, however, was sustained for several hours, when, several of the best officers being killed or disabled, a retreat was or- dered, after a loss of thirty-two killed and sixty-one wounded. The French did not renew the attack. The following day the Choctaws had some desultory skirmishing with the enemy, and on the 29th the army commenced its retreat for the landing-place, where it arrived on the third day with the wounded. After distributing the remainder of his goods to his Choctaw allies, Bienville re-embarked his troops, floated down the river, and re- turned to New Orleans ; thus terminating a most disas- trous expedition, reflecting the deepest disgrace upon the French arms, the prowess of which was lowered im- measurably in the estimation of the savage foe. In the mean time, the gallant but unfortunate D' Arta- guette, suffering with his wounds, had been kept a pri- soner, with his captured companions, under the belief that their ransom would secure favorable terms from Bienville, of whose imposing force, on its approach, they were in great dread. When it was known that he had been repulsed, and had ingloriously withdrawn, these gallant men were brought out into the plain, and D'Ar- taguette. Father Senac, and fifteen others were burned alive. A sergeant of D'Artaguette's party succeeded in obtaining his liberty, reached New Orleans on the 1st of July, and made known the fate of his gallant commander. The foregoing account of this unfortunate expedition 46 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. is derived mainly from Martins Louisiana. Gayerre gives a somewhat different version. According to his account, the force of D'Artaguette was much greater than rej)resented ; and his attack, although sufficiently gallant, was less successful. He had also been apprised by a messenger of the delay of Bienville, and the cause. The battle of Ackia was so called from the town of that name, on which the attack was made. It was situated, among several other villages, in a beautiful prairie of about six miles in extent, probably near the site of De Soto's encampment of 1541.* The attack on this point was, as has been stated, made contrary to the judgment and wishes of Bienville, to accommodate the views of his Choctaw confederates, who, however, during the fight, kept at a very safe dis- tance, wasting their ammunition and expending all their valor in the most savage yells, adding to the horrors of the fray. The French officers were also deserted by the larger portion of their men, whom it was impossible to force into battle. Feats of daring heroism were performed by the officers and a few of the men, many of the former being killed or wounded. Among the slain were the Chevalier d'Contre Coeur, Captain De Lusser, and D'Jusan. Of the * The Chickasaws appear to have been much harassed at an early period by the Northern Indians, and for common defence were settled in contiguous villages at the place known now as Old Town, in Ponto- toc County. It was not until after the British sent Mcintosh among them as' agent, that they were induced to leave their towns «.nd form separate settlements. To effect this dispersion, considered essential to the welfare of the nation, the agent established himself at a place near Tocshish, in the same county, represented in the early maps of the country as Mclntoshville. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 47 wounded; were the Chevalier d'Noyan, the nephew of Bienville, who led the attack, D'Hautrive, Grondel, and others. It is due to the reputation of Bienville to say that he alleged, in defence of his retreat, that he had reason to apprehend the desertion of the Choctaws, and could place no reliance upon the cowardly vagabonds who had been sent him as soldiers, very few of whom were five feet in height, and many of them under that stature. A second expedition against the unsubdued Chicka- saws was recommended to the French government by Bienville, to proceed up the Mississippi, instead of by the more direct and truly less objectionable route up the Tombigbee, formerly pursued, to be undertaken when the proper force, and an armament suited to the object, could be furnished. The plan was approved, and, after considerable delay, Bienville was supplied with artillery, arms, ammunition, and provisions, and seven hundred men. With these was M. de Noailles d'Aime, with bombardiers, cannoniers, and miners, to be used in this second expedition if deemed of absolute utility. D'Noailles was especially recommended "as having the necessary talents and experience to command," an intimation that implied a doubt very mortifying to Bien- ville of his own fitness for such service. The greater part of the year 1739 was occupied with preparations for this expedition. In the mean time, the Choctaws had become somewhat disaffected, and many of them had espoused the English interest. This produced a civil war among them, in which the French party were predominant, and contin- ued to harass the Chickasaws; and the English traders were plundered and put to flight. 48 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. D'Noyan, who was sent into the nation, succeeded in engaging thirty-two out of forty-two villages in the French cause, and parties of warriors were formed to unite in the great expedition now on foot. In August, 1739, D'Noyan, with the advance guard of the army, arrived near the site of the present city of Memphis, the place of rendezvous appointed ; the troops from Illinois and Canada, including a company of cadets under Celeron, soon after joined him, and whilst await- ing the arrival of the main body of the army, erected a fort called Assumption. Bienville, leaving New Orleans on the 12th of Sep- tember, claims much credit for the celerity of his move- ments in arriving with his army in only two months. Much precious time had already been lost; the troops fresh from Europe, and from the more northern districts, exposed for months during the most sickly season to the miasma of the river bottom, became fatally diseased, and a large number of them perished. Bienville's force, when reviewed after his arrival on the 12th of November, amounted to twelve hundred white men, and two thousand four hundred Indians. Yet, with this imposing force, under the pretence of seeking a practicable road to the Chickasaw towns, the army remained here inactive in a state of indecision until February, 1740, when, their provisions becoming nearly exhausted, a council of war, composed of the principal officers of the expedition, decided that, under all the untoward circumstances, it would be liazarding the reputation of the king's arms to march against the enemy. The most remarkable feature of this affair was that, after the principal part of the army had moved off down the Mississippi, Celeron led his company of cadets, to- HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 49 getlier with about one hundred Frenchmen and four or five hundred Indians, against the Chickasaw towns, and those Indians, alarmed at the vast preparations the French had made, and believing Celeron's party was only the advance guard of the French army, presented them- selves before him, and sued for peace in the humblest terms, promising to deliver up the Natchez in their pos- session, and to exterminate the rest of that doomed race. Celeron, accepting the terms, dispatched some of the chiefs after Bienville, who was overtaken on the Missis- sippi, and concluded a peace with them on the proposed conditions, not including the Choctaws, however, in this pacific arrangement, that nation being left free to prose- cute their hostilities at pleasure. The Chickasaws, according to the stipulation of the treaty, delivered a few of the Natchez to Celeron, who transferred them to New Orleans, and after demolishing Fort Assumption, returned to Canada, being the only ofiicer who had distinguished himself or gained any reputation in this pompous and abortive expedition. The miserable remnant of the Natchez, finding no longer any security among their late friends, retired finally among the Cherokees in Georgia, with whom they found a secure asylum, and in time became merged in that nation. In 1741, the Marquis of Vaudreuil was appointed governor of Louisiana, and Bienville, who had asked to be recalled, left the province for France, never more to return, much esteemed and regretted by the colonists. For more than forty years he had been connected with the colony, remaining in it continually, except during the administration of Perrier, and most of that time as the chief in command. He was perhaps more devoted to its interests, and did more to advance them than any 4 50 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. other individual ; but he was peculiarly unfortunate in his expeditions against the Chickasaws, for his failure in which the attempted defence in his dispatches to the French government did not satisfactorily account nor wholly excuse. Of the condition and progress of that part of the colouy, embraced within the limits of our State, for more than twenty succeeding years, the accounts of his- torians are meagre and unsatisfactory in the extreme. We have therefore little to chronicle during that long period ; yet the archives of the French government would doubtless, if carefully explored, afford some ma- terials for fiUiDg up this broad hiatus in our history. Of the colony generally/, it is recorded that, during this period, its commerce, relieved from the restraint of ex- clusive privilege, began to thrive ; its agriculture was more prosperous ; indigo was cultivated to a considera- ble extent, and with much success ; the rice and tobacco produced afforded easy means of remittance to Europe, whilst lumber found a market in the West Indies. In what degree our portion of the province contributed to this trade, is not said. The Chickasaws had for some years been less trouble- some, but making an irruption again upon some of the back settlements, the Marquis of Vaudreuil, in 1752, led an army of seven hundred men, and a large number of Indians, into their country by the route pursued by Bienville in his first expedition against that nation. Finding the Chickasaw towns strongly fortified, and defended by block-houses, in the construction of which they were aided and instructed by the English among them, he lost little time in fruitless sieges, but contented himself with overrunning their country, destroying their crops, and wasting their supplies. The expedition, al- HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 51 tliough not very satisfactory or successful, probably in- flicted as much injury as a more direct attack would have done. The Choctaws continued their hostilities against the Chickasaws during many years with constantly increas- ing success, and the latter seemed in danger of sharing, in the end, the fate of the exterminated Natchez. Sorely beset, they sued for peace to the French, but were left to the mercy of their vindictive and perse- vering foe. The Marquis of Vaudreuil having been appointed governor of Canada, on the 9th of February, 1753, Ker- lerec, a distinguished officer of the French navy, who had displayed much courage and ability, and received several wounds, was installed governor of Louisiana. He adopted a liberal policy towards the Indians, whom he endeavored to conciliate by dealing more justly by them, and providing larger and better supplies of goods for the Indian trade. He undertook also to ransom several prisoners who had long been detained among the Indians. Indulging less in pomp and splendor than his prede- cessor, he was less popular ; and however faithful and energetic he might have been, or judicious and well in- tentioned in the reforms he proposed, his administration was unfavorably compared with that of Yaudreuil by the disaffected and factious. Although menaced by the English, exposed to Indian incursions, and distracted by internal broils, to the ag- gravation of which the different orders of priesthood contributed, the French government not only failed to afford the necessary aid to meet the emergencies of the times, but also withdrew a large portion of the military force from, the colony. It is no matter of surprise. 52 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. therefore, if Kerlerec proved unequal to the crisis which the colony was rapidly approaching. France and England having engaged in a war, the final issue was the fall of Canada, and with it the loss of all the possessions of France in North America. By the treaty of Paris of the 16th of February, 1763, all that part of the colony, embraced in the State of Mississippi was ceded to Great Britain, terminating the French rule over that district, which had lasted sixty- four years. It becomes interesting to inquire, at this juncture of the affairs of the colony, as to the then situation of the once promising settlements made near Natchez, and on the Yazoo, which we have seen were from time to time so largely and liberally reinforced with emigrants and laborers, about the period when the colony was placed under charge of the Mississippi Company. What had become of the extensive plantations Jind the hundreds of emigrants and slaves that had been set- tled upon them? Conjecture alone must answer the in- quiry, for our historians have failed to enlighten us. With all the disadvantages of climate and exposure, these people could not probably have so speedily per- ished by the ordinary course of nature, and the massacre cannot account for all, certainly not for a tithe of those settled on the Yazoo. Many of them doubtless wandered off among the Choctaws, became traders and hunters, adopting their mode of life and intermarrying with them, founding families, perhaps, as the Lafiours, Jusans, and others, whose descendants yet remain ; the residue probably withdrew to the newly-founded city of New Orleans, and contributed to its population ; the negroes perhaps being transferred to the plantations nearer the city. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 53 But in the long period of thirty years after the Natchez were driven from the country, were not those favorite and desirable settlements reoccupied? We must infer not, or to a very limited extent. We glean that, after the massacre, the erection of a fort at Natchez was commenced by Perrier and garrisoned; but it ap- pears also that the troops from all such interior posts were drawn ojQf wholly or in part to be employed in the Chickasaw wars. That no new settlements had been made in that quarter, may be inferred from the fact that the most recent attacks by the disaffected Choctaws and other hostile Indians were made as low down as the settlements of Point Coupee, at the German coast, and even on the lakes near New Orleans. In a census of the colony, taken in 1745, it appears that there were only eight white males and fifteen ne- groes at Natchez. Baluxi and Pascagoula are not men- tioned at all in the returns, although it is difficult to suppose that these, the earliest and once most populous settlements, had been wholly broken up. In 1751, when Governor Vaudreuil had received an accession to the military force of the colony, fifty sol- diers were stationed at Natchez. ' AS A BRITISH PROVINCE ; 1^63—1^9. Great Britain had acquired, at the same time that the French possessions east of the Mississippi had been ceded to her, the possessions of Spain in Florida also. The knowledge of the extent and geographical fea- tures of the country, by the English at least, was then exceedingly imperfect, as may be seen by a reference to the early map of the country published by Eman Bowen, 54 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. an English geographer in 1764. A portion of this map, embracing the present territory of the State, is annexed to this report. Many changes in the channel of the Mississippi have taken place since that period, but the greatly exagge- rated width of the river, and the numerous islands with which it is studded, could not even at that time have had any foundation in truth ; the' former extending over much of the swamp lands periodically overflowed. The position of New Orleans is singularly inaccurate, being placed above the Lafourche ; the more correct position would have been one near that occupied on this plan by the Oumas village. Pearl, the principal river, having its entire extent in our State, is scarcely noticed upon the map, whilst its true sources are connected with the Pascagoula. Of these joint acquisitions two provinces were formed, called East and "West Florida ; the latter extending to and embracing all the territory of our now State south of the 31st degree of north latitude. The seat of go- vernment was established at Pensacola, and in 1764, George Johnston, a captain in the royal navy, was ap- pointed governor. By the treaty between Great Britain and France, the inhabitants within the ceded district were secured in the free exercise of the Catholic religion, and eighteen months were allowed them to dispose of their property to British subjects and to retire from the country. Complaints were subsequently made, however, that some of the British officers had required the French inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance within three months to be secured in their property. In February, a number of officers, with three hundred and twenty soldiers, commanded by Major Loftus, with HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 65 a number of women and children, embarked at New Or- leans in ten large batteaux and two pirogues, to ascend the Mississippi to take possession of the newly-acquired establishments of the British in Illinois. On the 19th of March, the boats reached Fort Adams, or as then called, La roche a Davion, when the pirogues, which were in advance, were fired upon by a small party of Indians, not exceeding thirty in number, belonging to the Tunicas, Yazoos, and some other small tribes who were concealed on the bank. Six men were killed and seven wounded. Suspecting the treachery of the French, and supposing that a large Indian force was lying in wait for them, without firing a gun, the boats dropped down the river and returned to New Orleans. The place became known thereafter as Loftus Heights. The subsequent charge made by Major Loftus, who returned to head-quarters at Pensacola, that this attack was made by the instigation of the acting governor, D'Abbadie, was exposed as a black and atrocious calumny. On the contrary, the governor had used his utmost en- deavors to induce the Indians to remain quiet, having caused them to be harangued in behalf of the English, and ordered the French commandants of the posts on the river to afford aid and protection to Loftus and his party ; an interpreter had been furnished, and in fact everything in the power of the French had been done for the security of the expedition. The Indians of many of the villages in amity with the French were exceedingly averse to a change of rulers, and many of the Choctaws, Tensas, and Aliba- mons, from their aversion to the English, crossed over to the west of the Mississippi, and settled on lands given them by the French. It being represented to the British monarch that there 56 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. were considerable settlements on the left bank of tbe Mississippi above the thirty-first degree of north lati- tude, by the commission of Governor Johnston, dated the 10th of June, 1764, the northern boundary of the province of West Florida was extended so as to embrace them, the line being drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo River. During the summer of 1764, a large detachment of British troops occupied Fort Rosalie at Natchez, which was thenceforth known as Fort Panmure. In 1765, a number of families, chiefly from the Roan- oke River in North Carolina, came to West Florida and settled above Baton Rouge ; some of these families sub- sequently removed to the neighborhood of Natchez. In December, 1766, a small stockade fort was built at the Bayou Manchac, the extreme southwestern point of the British possessions, which was named Fort Bute. This post being on the line of the Spanish dominions, and convenient to New Orleans, became a place of illicit trade, which was carried on with the inhabitants of Louisiana on a considerable scale, as it was also at Natchez. This trade, profitable as it was to the English, was so convenient and advantageous to the colonists of Louisiana, that it was indulged in with little restraint on the part of the Spanish authorities. Supplies of goods were accumulated at those posts, and in " floating warehouses" which traded along the coast, and, with the connivance of the public officers, even supplied the French boats trading to Illinois and up Red River and the Arkansas. The proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763, by the king of Great Britain, seems to have been the first offi- cial act of the British government in reference to its newly-acquired possessions on the Mississippi. By that HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 57 proclamation it was that the province of "West Florida was established with the thirty-first degree of north lati- tude for its northern boundary. Grants of land were authorized tp be made to the in- habitants of the province, or those who might resort thereto, in quantities suited to their means of cultivation, and under such laodevsite quitrents, services, and acknoio- ledgments as had been prescribed in other colonies. To testify the royal sense and approbation of the con- duct of the ofiicers and soldiers of the army, the gover- nor was also empowered to make to such reduced officers and privates as had served in North America in the late war, and who should actually reside there and apply for the same, grants of land in quantity proportioned to their rank. Field-officers to be entitled to 5,000 acres, captains to 3,000, subalterns to 2,000, non-commissioned officers to 200, and privates to 50 acres. Officers of the navy, who had served at the reduction of Louisburg and Quebec, were entitled to similar grants. All persons were interdicted from acquiring land by purchase or grant from the Indians. In January, 1768, the first grants of which we have any record were made under the authority of the king's proclamation. They were executed by Monfort Browne, lieutenant-governor of the province of West Florida at Pensacola, among the first being two grants of 3,000 and 2,000 acres respectively to Daniel Clarke, a reduced cap- tain of the Pennsylvania troops. These grants were situated on the St. Catharine, about three miles south of Fort Panmure, and embraced lands that had been in part cleared and improved under the French govern- ment. Similar grants were made to others, by Lieuten- ant-Governor Browne, in the following year. Grants 58 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. dated in January, and -to the 19th of March, 1770, were signed by Elias Durnford, as lieutenant-governor. On the 2d of March of this year, the hmits of West Florida having been extended to the Yazoo, as has be- fore been stated, Peter Chester was commissioned the successor of Elliott, as governor of West Florida. No subsequent grants are known to have been made during this, or the following year. In 1772, and each of the succeeding years to the 3d of September, 1779, numerous patents, many of them for tracts of large dimensions, were granted by Governor Chester. Philip Livingston was Secretary of the province in the years 1772, 1773, 1776, 1777 and 1778. Alexander Macullough held that office in 1774 and 1775 ; and Elihu Hall Bay, afterwards a distinguished Judge of the State of South Carolina, and himself the grantee of several large tracts, as well as the proprietor by purchase of many others, was the Secretary in 1779, and at the close of the British rule in the province. In 1768, Daniel Clarke was the Clerk of the Council under Lieutenant-Governor Browne, and Francis Pous- sett held that office in 1769 and 1770. Charles Durn- ford was the Surveyor-General, and E. Rush Wegg, under whose revision the patents all passed, was the Attorney- General of the province. These grants, and the deeds of conveyance by which they passed to other hands, are exceedingly prolix, and abound with the technicalities and minute legal phrase- ology of the age. The following extract from the former is worth preserving, as a curious illustration of the esti- mation in which some of the ceded rights and privileges were then held, which are at this day common and dis- regarded. The patents ran as follows : — histoeical outline. 59 "West Florida, ss. " George the Third, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, and so forth. " To all to whom these presents shall come greeting. Know Ye that we, of our special grace, certain know- ledge, and mere motion, have given and granted and by these presents, for our heirs and successors do give and grant unto, &c. &c., his heirs and assigns, all that tract or parcel of land, &c. &c., together with all the woods and underwoods, timber and timber trees, lakes, ponds and fishings, waters, watercourses, profits, commodities, &c. &c., together with the privilege of hunting, haivhing, and fowling, &c. &c., reserving, &c. &c. With a quit- rent of one penny sterling per acre, to be paid at the feast of St. Michael's in every year." Then follow the conditions of clearing three acres out of every fifty, of seating and seeding, draining marshes and quarrying rocks, &c., proof of which is to be made under a penalty of forfeiture within a stated period. The following are among the principal grants made in .the Natchez District: The Earl of Egglenton, 20,000 acres near Natchez • Captain Amos Ogden, 25,000 acres on the Homochitto ; Thaddeus Lyman, 20,000 on both sides of the Bayou Pierre, between Port Gibson and Grand Gulf; the Earl of Sarcourt, 10,000 acres; Ad- miral Bentinck, 10,000 acres; the heirs of Thomas Comyn, 10,000 acres; Elihu Hall Bay, several tracts, 16,000 acres; Admiral Sir George Bridges Rodney, 5,000 acres; Sir William Dalling, 5,000 acres; Philip Barbour, Governor of Virginia, 2,000 acres on the Mis- sissippi near Grand Gulf; Admiral Sir Richard Onslow, 1,000 acres, and Colonel Anthony Hutchins, several large 60 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. tracts embracing the White Apple Village of the Natchez on Second Creek. Two of these grants, known as Ogclen's Mandamus and Lyman's Mandamus, were of a different character from the others, emanating directly from the king. To Captain Amos Ogden, a retired officer of the Pro- vince of New Jersey, the king, at the Court of St. James, on the 13th of May, 1767, issued his order to the governor of his majesty's province of West Florida, to cause 25,000 acres of land to be surveyed in one " con- tiguous" tract, in such part of said province as the said Ogden or his attorney shall choose, and to pass a, grant therefor to the said Ogden under the seal of the province. On the 14th of April, 1772, Captain Ogden sold 19,000 acres of this grant for the sum of nine hundred pounds proclamation money of New Jersey, to two brothers, Samuel and Richard Swayze. This grant was located on the Homochitto River, about fifteen miles from Natchez, and the purchasers, with their families and connections, removed to it and formed what is known to this day as the Jersey settlement. Major-General Phineas Lyman, of Connecticut, had served with distinction against the French in Canada, and subsequently led a large detachment of provincial troops to co-operate with Lord Amherst against the West Indies, and after the fall of Havana was placed in command of that place. Standing in high favor with the British government, and contemplating after the close of the war the establishment of a company of military adventurers chiefly composed of the officers and soldiers who had served with him for the purpose of making a settlement on lands in the west, he repaired to England in 1763, to solicit the grant of a body of HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 61 land for that object. Before his arrival, a change had taken place in the English ministry, and his friends were out of ]30wer ; he remained, however, nearly ten years in fruitless attendance upon a court which seemed to have forgotten his services until he had become old and dispirited, and was fast sinking into a state of imbecility resulting from chagrin and disappointment. Finally, he obtained a simihar mandate as that of Ogden to the governor of West Florida, for a grant of 20,000 acres. Returning to Connecticut, and finding that many of his old associates had died or removed, and most of the others disinclined from advancing age to encounter the hardships incident to new settlements, after a short delay, he proceeded with his eldest son Thaddeus, and a few friends, to Mississippi to locate his lands. Before this was completed he died, and the patent was granted on the 2d of February, 1775, to his son Thaddeus on condition of his conveying portions of it to his brothers Thompson and Oliver Lyman, and his sisters Elizabeth and Experience, which was done. Four thousand acres of his portion of the tract were also sold in different par- cels to some of the officers of the government at Pensa- cola, Livingston, Macullogh, and Bay. It has been seen that the British government was pro- fuse in its grants of land in the Natchez District, and it becomes interesting to know its actual condition and the progress that had been made in its settlement. We have the testimony of some of the early settlers, who survived to an advanced age, and whose statements have been preserved, that, in 1776, twelve years after the English first occupied the fort at Natchez, the town then consisted of only ten log cabins and two frame houses, all situated under the bluff. The site of Fort Eosalie- was overgrown with forest trees, some of them more 62 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. than two feet in diameter ; several old iron gans were lying about, supposed to have been left by the French. About seventy-eight families, dispersed in different set- tlements, constituted the whole population of the dis- trict, few of which, according to these statements, had emigrated to the country previous to the year 1772. There were four small mercantile establishments in the town J these were owned by Blomart, James Willing, Barber, and the firm of Hanchet & Newman. Blomart was a reduced British officer, Willing became afterwards unfavorably conspicuous, and Hanchet was one of the followers or associates of Lyman. In 1777, the British held a treaty with the Indians at Mobile, when the limits of the Natchez District were defined; and in 1779 the eastern boundary line was surveyed and marked; between this line and the Missis- sippi, the Indians relinquished all their claims. The line commenced on the thirty-first degree of north lati- tude, about fifty miles east of the Mississippi, running rather west of north and approaching the river by a not very direct line, until it reached -the Yazoo River, pass- ing only about six miles east of the present city of Vicksburg. A large portion of the district bordering on the Mississippi and the principal streams was covered by British grants, which were now being rapidly settled by the emigrants resorting to the country. The war of the Revolution had broken out ; but it was not to be expected that so remote and inconsidera- ble a settlement as this, absorbed with the cares and struggling with the privations and difficulties incident to newly-settled countries, would take any active part in the contest, or that the peaceful and absorbing avoca- tions of its inhabitants would be interrupted or disturbed by hostile incursions. Circumstances, however, pre- HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 63 vented the neutrality that otherwise would have been observed, and led the inhabitants to resent wrongs wan- tonly inflicted upon them in the name of a cause towards which there is no reason to doubt many of them were well affected. In the city of New Orleans, some merchants from Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, had established themselves, who were warmly interested in the cause of independence. The most prominent of these was Oliver Pollock, who possessed much influence, and enjoj^ed the favor of the Spanish governor Galvez. These men suc- ceeded in accumulating considerable supplies of arms and ammunition for the American troops, probably with the aid, and certainly with the knowledge, of Galvez. To procure these military stores. Colonels Gibson and Linn were dispatched from Fort Pitt in 1766, and suc- ceeded in transporting them safely up the Mississippi, to be used in defence of the American forts on the Ohio. In the following year, Captain Willing, of Philadel- phia, and lately one of the few merchants at Natchez, was dispatched by the Continental Congress to New Or- leans, on a similar mission. He visited the English set- tlements on the Mississippi, and enjoyed the hospitality of his former neighbors and acquaintances ; but they could not be induced to take a part in the war ; the sparseness of the population, the remoteness from the other colonies, and the consequent diflSculty of receiving aid or assistance from them in their need, influenced their conduct, and inclined them to neutrality. In January, 1778, Willing again visited New Orleans with a party of about fifty men. Pollock now acted openly as the agent of the Americans, with the counte- nance of Governor Galvez, who, at different times, con- tributed seventy thousand dollars out of the royal 64 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. treasury, by which meuns the frontier inhabitants of Virginia and Pennsylvania were furnished with arms and ammunition for the defence of their forts. WiUing now engaged in a marauding excursion against the planters on the Mississippi. At Manchac, he cap- tured a small vessel, which was lying there at anchor, and proceeded as far as Natchez, laying waste planta- tions, destroying stock, burning houses, and carrying off all the slaves he could seize ; the inhabitants being too few and scattered to make any effectual resistance. Among those plundered in this manner were Colonel Anthony Hutchins, Isaac Johnson, and Alexander Mc- intosh. This wanton and unwarrantable attack upon the inoffensive inhabitants, standing in no hostile atti- tude, the liberality and hospitality of many of whom "Willing had enjoyed the year previous, and now requited by burning their houses and plundering their effects, was regarded as an enormity justified by no laws of war, and uncalled for by his commission. Well affected as the people of Louisiana were to the cause of the United States, they viewed with indignation this wanton and unprovoked attack upon a helpless and unoffending communit}^ Keturning to New Orleans with his booty, a party of new recruits, under the command of Witling's lieuten- ant, returned up the river to prosecute further depreda- tions against the other plantations which had so far escaped. Intelligence of the approach of this party being conveyed to the inhabitants, many of them put their effects out of its reach ; among these, Mr. WiUiam Dunbar, and others acting under his advice, removed their slaves across the Mississippi into the Spanish pos- sessions. A party of Natchez settlers was also raised, and headed by Hutchins, Blomart, Mcintosh and Percy, HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 65 assembled at the White Cliffs, or Ellis Landing, where the boats of the approaching party were decoyed into shore. A skirmish ensued, in which the lieutenant and five or six of his men were killed. Shortly after the foregoing occurrences, Governor Chester sent Colonel Magellan to raise four companies of militia, and with orders to fit up Fort Panmure. The command of these troops was given to Lyman, Blomart and Mcintosh, who were soon ordered to Baton Rouge in consequence of the prospect of a war with Spain, and a Captain Foster, with a hundred men, was left in com- mand of Natchez. The British rule in the province was, however, now on the eve of a very sudden and unlooked-for termina- tion. In May, 1779, war was declared by Spain against Great Britain. Don Bernardo de Galvez, who had hith- erto been acting temporarily, received with the intelli- gence of this rupture the king's commission as governor ; and a royal order of the 8th of July having authorized the subjects of the king in the Indies to take part in the war, Galvez proposed an immediate attack upon the English possessions in the neighborhood. A council of war, however, rejected the proposition, being inclined to postpone the enterprise until a reinforcement of troops could be obtained from Havana. Galvez, impatient of inactivity, set about collecting a body of men of suffi- cient force to justify him in taking the responsibility of acting in opposition to the will of his advisers. There were, at this time, many persons in New Orleans from the United States, who offered their services; these, with the volunteer militia, and the regular troops at the disposal of the governor, amounted to a force of fourteen hundred .men. After a forced march, which considerably reduced his force by disease, he reached Fort Bute on Bayou 5 66 ^ HISTORICAL OUTLINE. Manchac, which was taken by assault on the 7th of September, in less than sixty days from the date of the royal order authorizing the king's subjects in AmericS, to take part in the war. Without loss of time the army was marched to Baton Rouge. Colonel Dickson, in command of the British garrison at that place, had a force of about five hundred men, including militia ; he was well supplied with ammunition and provisions, but his men were sickly, and the fort was out of repair. Galvez immediately invested the fort, mounted some heavy ordnance, and a cannonade of little more than two hours compelled a surrender. On the 21st of September, 1779, Colonel Dickson agreed to a capitulation, which included also Fort Pan- mure at Natchez, and another small post on the Amite River. This expedition, so promptly conceived and success- fully executed, reflected much honor upon Galvez, and afforded an example of energy and ability that had not for a long period before been exhibited by the rulers of the colony. Don Carlos de Grand Pr6 was left in com- mand of Baton Rouge, with two officers under him in command of Fort Panmure and Fort Bute. Thus closed the British rule in the province of West Florida, which had existed, dating from the Treaty of Paris, about six- teen years. AS A PROVINCE OF SPAIN; 1^9—1798. By the capitulation of Colonel Dickson, commanding the British garrison at Baton Rouge, on the 21st of Sep- tember, 1779, the Natchez District, including Fort Pan- mure, and two small posts on the Amite and Thomp- HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 67 son's Creek, passed under the dominion of Spain, and the British rule that had existed for sixteen years was terminated. Spain now, two hundred and thirty-nine years after the discovery and exploration by De Soto, was for the first time possessed of the country. Galvez, leaving Colonel De Grand Pre in command at Baton Rouge, with two officers under him at Fort Bute and Fort Panmure, returned to New Orleans. In the mean time, four years before the close of the war of Independence, Congress, informed of the rupture between Spain and Great Britain, entered into negotia- tion with the former, claiming this territory as part of the United States, and insisting upon the right to the free navigation of the Mississippi. This claim was resisted by Spain, by whom it was contended that no part of the territory was included within the limits of any of the States, but that as a part of Florida, it was a possession of the British crown, and as such might be legitimately subdued by the Span- ish arms, and held as a permanent acquisition. This conquest by Spain was therefore made under a virtual protest by the United States. The population of the Natchez District was at this time composed in a great part of the English; reduced officers and soldiers of the British army, and their asso- ciates, together with numbers who had emigrated from the American States. None of these were well affected towards the Spaniards, and the sudden change of rulers and of institutions was very repugnant to their feelings. They complained that they had been sacrificed, and the country surrendered, by the capitulation of Baton Rouge, without giving them an opportunity of resistance. Uninformed of these changes, Congress, in the same 68 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. year, commissioned James Robinson, a friend and com- panion of Willing, who with thirty or forty followers came to Natchez, to carry out the enterprise first under- taken by Willing with the view of securing the allegi- ance of the inhabitants to the United States. Finding the country in the possession of the Spaniards, the ex- pedition was broken up and dispersed, and the leader soon afterwards died. In July, 1781, Don Carlos de Grand Pre, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Eegiment of Louisiana, came to Natchez as the civil and military commandant of the District. Galvez, in the meantime, had reduced Mobile, and was besieging Pensacola, when, with a confidence in the invincibility of the British arms which the result did not justify, some of the leading inhabitants of the dis- trict, among whom Thaddeus Lyman, son of General Phineas Lyman (who has before been spoken of in con- nection with his extensive grant of land under man- damus of the king), and his associates were prominent, offered to produce a diversion in favor of the British cause by taking Fort Panmure, and re-establishing the British authority. The persons who took the lead in this enterprise, ac- cording to the late Calvin Smith, and given as the re- collections of his boyhood, during which he witnessed the scenes of rebellion and resistance to the Spanish authorities, were Colonel Anthony Hutchins, Captain D. Blomart, a late British officer, Jacob Winfrey, Christian Bingaman, the two Alstons, and Turner Mulkey, a Bap- tist preacher. An application was made to Governor Chester at Pensacola for aid. Distrusting his ability of maintaining Pensacola against the assailants, the gov- ernor hesitated to encourage the revolt, fearing that the Natchez inhabitants might be precipitated into an uu- HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 69 successful and ruinous struggle. Such supplies as he could spare, however, he sent, and Mann, the messenger from Natchez, was directed to set out upon his return ; but to stop in the Choctaw nation with Fulsom, a white man who had married an Indian wife and become a chief, and there to await further instructions. Feeling assured that, in the event of defeat, they at least would be secure from Spanish retribution by a timely retreat among the Choctaws, Mann, by repre- senting to Fulsom the prospect of gain from the plunder of the Spanish fort, and of some boats expected to arrive from Illinois, engaged his co-operation, and, disregard- ing the prudential instructions of the governor, resolved to precipitate the attack. Assembling some twenty white men and as many Indians, Mann and Fulsom proceeded to Natchez, where the inhabitants engaged in the plan of revolt, and, being apprised of their approach, sanctioned, as they supposed, by Governor Chester, and whose support they might consequently calculate upon, flew to arms. Assembling at the house of John Row, afterwards the residence of the late Job Routh, the British flag was raised on the 22d April, 1782, in full view of the fort. Seeing these preparations for an attack, an officer was sent by the commandant of the fort to the insurgents to represent to them the folly and danger of the rebellion, to counsel them to deliver up their leaders, and to promise the royal clemency should they disperse. These overtures were not listened to, the disaflection of the inhabitants was too decided and general to think of re- linquishing their designs. There was no sympathy be- tween the people of the two nations ; speaking difierent languages, and cherishing so many social and national antipathies. Restive under the government of their m'f: 70 HISTOEICAL OUTLINE. foreign rulers, and feeling a false confidence in their superior force, and having little else to employ them, the people ran to arms in a spirit of reckless frolic and bravado, without duly considering their true situation, and the great evils to which they were exposing them- selves. An old damaged field-piece, ploughed up at the French Meadows on the St. Catharine's, probably left there by the French at the period of the Natchez massacre, and two swivels, captured from a boat ascending the Missis- sippi, which was waylaid below Natchez, at a point where the strength of the current compelled the crew to land, were mounted near Row's house to the southeast of the fort, where the assailants were protected by a deep ravine. From this point the attack was carried on against the fort, Blomart being in command, aided by Captain Win- frey and Lieutenant Smith. A small house, behind which some of the besiegers had sheltered themselves, was demolished by the guns of the fort, and a shot from the assailants passed through the commandant's house in the fort, and a corporal in the garrison was killed, the only life lost, it is said, during the attack. The fort was strong, the ramparts eight or ten feet thick, of solid earth, and protected by a stockade of thick cypress timber. The guns of the assailants were too light, and at too great a distance to do much damage, and the siege was continued for more than a week with more noise than effect, when an emissary or spy of the insurgents found means to introduce himself into the fort, and represented to the commandant that the fort was undermined and would be blown up in a few days. A number of persons having been seen as if engaged in ■some proceeding in a deep ravine which ran near the HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 71 works, gave some coloring to this report, and other cir- cumstances tended to persuade the garrison and the com- mandant that it was not unfounded. A parley ensued, when a capitulation was agreed upon. The fort was surrendered to the British party, and, after delivering up their arms, and taking an oath not to serve again against the British during the war, the prisoners were sent under escort to Loftus Heights, and suffered to proceed to Baton Rouge. The fort was strong, and said to be well provided with provisions and ammunition, and capable of sustaining a long siege. The commandant excused the surrender, however, affirming that his men were worn down and exhausted by several days of fatigue and watching, and that his supplies were nearly exhausted. The appre- hension of the explosion of the mine is generally re- garded as the cause of surrender. Even to this day, the tradition is preserved among the Choctaws, who yet en- joy the ruse practised upon the commandant. The escort with the captured garrison had scarcely reached Loftus Heights (now Fort Adams), when a con- siderable Spanish force, accompanied by a large body of Indians, was seen ascending the river. The party met with at Loftus Heights proved to be a detachment of French militia from Opelousas, with a body of Indians, making a force of about three hundred ; they landed and surprised a detachment of twenty men stationed at Captain Winfrey's house, fourteen of whom were killed. The inhabitants were forced to retire into forts, of which there were two between the French Meadows and Natchez; but being greatly harassed, aroused themselves to resistance, and the Spanish party were forced to retire, and take a position at the White Cliffs on the Mississippi. About the middle of June, 72 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. the Natchez iuluibitauts had assembled a jTorco of about two hundred men to attack them, when they were filled with consternation by the arrival of an express from Pensacola, bringing intelligence of the fall of that place. Finding tliat the British tlag could no longer protect them, and that thej' were struggling as unsupported in- surgents against the monarchy of Spain, the attack was relinquished, and Mulligan, the leader of the Opelousas party, was suffered to ocoup}- Fort Panmure. With the fate of the victims of 0'1-veiley staring them in the face, many sought safety by iliglit. Among these were Lyman and many of his associates from Connecticut, who deter- mined to nuike their escape to Savannah. The caravan was a large one, including women and children, and being compelled to take a very circuitous route to avoid the hostile Indians, they sufiered incredible hardships, oi^ which an interesting detail has been given in the travels of President Dwiglit, of Yale College, Although the greater part of the inhabitants were in- volved in the rebellion, there were some memorable ex- ceptions. Among these was Alexander Mcintosh, who prudently kept aloof, and had consequently acquired the displeasure of his neighbors. They were now, however, glad to avail themselves of his services, and he was sent to New Orleans to negotiate an amnesty, and to sue for forgiveness of the offenders, man^^ of whom were screened through his influence and exertions. In the mean time, Mulligan's pledges of protection were ineffectual; for thirty days plundering parties roamed through the country, seizing the property and destroying the houses of the inhabitants, until Colonel De Grand Pre arrived A^-ith a battalion of troops, and took regular possession of the country. The leaders of the insurrection who had not tied were niSTORICAL OUTLINE. 73 arrested, sent to New Orleans, and imprisoned. Among these was Blomart, styled in the proceedings had against his estate, the " Chief of the R^ibels." It is believed he was subsequently sent to Spain for trial. Yrinfrey, George Alston, Smith and others were also sent to New Orleans in confinement. Bingaman was spared through the intercession of Mcintosh; and Colonel Anthony Hutchins, subsequently discovered to have taken a part in the insurrection, was compelled to make his escape to Georgia, which he effected with some difiBculty, whence he went to England and remained some years. By the exertion of some unknown influence, Piemass, when Governor-General of Louisiana, suffered his pro- perty, with the exception of twelve negroes sent to New Orleans, to remain in the possession of Mrs. Hutchins. Subsequently, his extensive British grants were con- firmed to his children, and in the end Colonel Hutchins was permitted himself to return to the country. He ac- quired considerable influence, and on some occasions was quite useful about the period of the surrender of the country to the United States. One of the Alstons had escaped among a tribe of In- dians called the " Chits," an abbreviation of the Chitima- ches, it is supposed, carrying with him the principal part of his negro property. On the death of his wife, which occurred shortly after, the Spanish commandant at Natchez appointed Mr. Mcintosh the guardian of her children, leaving the remaining property in his charge for their support, and annulling some fraudulent sales by which he had disposed of a portion of the property to keep it out of the reach of the Spanish authorities. All sales executed at the time the rebels were in pos- session of the fort at Natchez were declared invalid. In the confiscation of the estates of Parker Carradine and 74 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. John Smith, sent to New Orleans as " rebels," and im- prisoned, the rights of their wives to a separate property in their estates were recognized, and such property was left in their possession. The families of all the fugitives, it seems, were regarded with indulgence, and the part of the propert}^ held by them at least was assigned for their support. The large British grant to Lyman of twenty thousand acres was confiscated, but upon application to Grand Pre, the sale of one-half of the tract was arrested, and it was granted to Salome, the daughter of Thaddeus Lyman, left destitute in the country with her grandfather Waterman Crane. Butler, who derives his information chiefly from the oral account given him by the late Calvin Smith, states that many of the insurgents joined with Colbert, a Scotchman who was living with an Lidian family among the Chickasaws, and established themselves at the Chickasaw Bluffs, now Memphis, and became quite formidable, stopping and plundering the passing boats at pleasure. To prevent the other refugees among the In- dians from joining these predatory parties on the river, they were invited by proclamation to return to their homes in peace. In September, 1782, Don Estevan Miro, Governor- General of Louisiana, ad interim, was at Natchez in the capacity of civil and military commandant. He was succeeded in the laitter office in the following November by Don Pedro Piernass. The war of the Revolution was now terminated, and by the preliminary articles of peace between Great Brit- ain, France and Spain, of the 20th of January, 1783, the King of Great Britain acknowledged the indepen- dence of the United States, and recognized as their HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 75 southern boundary the thirty-first degree of north latitude. The definitive treaty between Great Britain and the United States was signed at Paris on the 3d of Septem- ber following. Great Britain having, in the latter, warranted the province of West Florida to Spain, the claims of Spain and the United States were not easily recognized, as the King of Spain claimed to the line drawn east from the Yazoo Kiver, as the north boundary of that province, it having been so extended by Great Britain in the com- mission of Governor Johnston of the 10th of June, 1764, and had remained unchanged to the date of the treaty. "The United States contended that they had the right of going as far as the thirty-first degree, and Spain could not urge her warranty from Great Britain against the United States, who had Sbjprevious title from her warrantor."* Piernass having withdrawn to New Orleans in June, 1783, Francisco Collett, a captain in the garrison, be- came civil and military commandant ad interim. On the 3d of August, he was superseded by Don Philip Tre- vino, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment of Louisiana. That the Natchez District would soon come under the government of the United States, as embraced within her limits as established by the treaty recognizing her independence, was now the confident expectation and desire of many of the inhabitants, and the influence which a free and stable government would exert on the prosperity of the country was thus early foreseen. Mr. William Dunbar writes to his friend in June, 1783. " I am sorry to say that our plantation (near Baton Rouge) falls considerably without the American line, in conse- * Judge Martin. 76 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. quence of which it may not be worth a pinch of S7mff as a salable commodity. * * As Natchez is considera- bly above latitude thirty-one degrees, we believe here it must soon become a settlement of great consequence, al- though we have not learned the intentions of Congress respecting it. Mrs. Pollock gives out that her husband (Oliver Pollock, a merchant of New Orleans), is coming out as governor," &c. Again, on the 15th of August following, he adds : '' The definitive treaty of peace has not yet reached us; the officers of government, also, de- clare themselves in the dark, having received no orders from their court consequential to the peace." Such was the confidence of Mr. Dunbar, that this change was to be the immediate and natural consequence of the treaty, that he meditated an early removal above the thirty-first degree of latitude, a design which was not long after carried into effect. Many others, influ- enced by similar considerations, removed to the district. In August, 1783, Don Philip Trevino assumed the duties of civil and military commandant of the district, and Spain continued to maintain her possession. After the eighteen months had expired which, by the treaty, were allowed for the British subjects to dispose of their property, the Spanish government by proclama- tion hoice prolonged the period two years or more, and it was not until after the second term that the lands were considered as reverted to the crown, and were granted out to petitioners.* The lands of the leaders of the rebellion were declared forfeited, and sold. It was not until the 20th of April, 1784, four or five months after the date of our treaty establishing the south- ern boundary at lat. 31°, that Governor Estevan Miro * Mr. Dunbar. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 77 issued the first order of survey for lands in the district. From this period until the 1st of September, 1795, numerous orders of survey and patents were executed, the people becoming gradually reconciled to the Spanish government, and finding it more liberal and tolerant than they had been led to believe. Emigration increased rapidly the facility with which lands were obtained by the actual settler, and their great productiveness attracted many to the country, "The prudent and circumspect had nothing to fear from the government; it depended upon themselves to render a residence in the country agreeable." As to the laws and their execution, it was said : " British property here is in the utmost security ; an Englishman may come here and recover his debts, and obtain as much justice as in West- minster Hall."* The execution of the laws, it is true, was summary, but in the main just. The fraudulent who attempted to make way with their effects, or to abscond to avoid their creditors, were promptly dealt with. The property of such was seized, appraised by their neighbors appointed for the purpose, was sold after proper notice, and the proceeds were distributed, pro rata, on the spot to their creditors. Most of the matters involved in dispute, such as the settlement of accounts or other claims, were adjudicated and settled on a petition to the commandant by arbitra- tors appointed by him; and the Spanish archives show that the men of the highest standing and greatest pro- bity in the country were most usually employed in the settlement of these disputes. On more than one occasion, the government interposed to protect the debtors from their too importunate foreign * Mr. Dunbar. 78 HISTOEICAL OUTLINE. creditors, by procuring further indulgence at times when the embarrassments of the inhabitants had become general, and the consequence of some transient cause ; but in these cases an inventory of the property of the debtor was furnished on oath, and it was regarded as pledged for the debts. It had the effect of a judgment, and the property was subject to sale on failure to meet the debt at the stipulated time. In October, 1785, Don Francis Bouligny came as com- mandant to Natchez; he was succeeded, in the March following (1786), by Don Carlos de Grand Pre, who re- turned again to resume that office which he henceforth filled until 1792, six years. By the census taken in 1785, it was found that the population had greatly increased, that of the District of Natchez amounting to fifteen hundred and fifty persons. A garrison of sixty soldiers was maintained at Fort Panmure, at an annual expense to the Spanish crown of six thousand five hundred dollars. This year a number of agents of the Jamaica merchants came to collect the debts due them. Governor Miro found it necessary to interpose for the protection of the debtors, and he allowed a resort to the last extremity only against those who acted fraudulently or with bad faith. He also extended the time allowed for British subjects to remain in the country and dispose of their property. This indulgence was approved by the King of Spain, who further directed that such persons should be permitted to remain permanently in the province upon taking the customary oath of allegiance and fidelity. To render the priests more acceptable to the people, Irish clergymen were procured who spoke the English language, in order to induce the inhabitants and famihes to embrace the Catholic faith. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 79 In June, 1786, Galvez was succeeded bj Don Estevan Miro as Governor of Louisiana and "West Florida. Although the treaty of 1786 provided expressly that the navigation of the Mississippi should forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States, yet, with the exclusive policy characteristic of the Spanish nation, the claim of the United States to its enjoyment was resisted, and the boats of the western people, who ventured to descend the Mississippi, were arrested by the first officer who met with them, and, together with the cargo, were confiscated in every case. This state of things, so exasperating to the people of Kentucky, and of that quarter to whom the Mississippi afforded the only outlet for their surplus productions, continued until the Governor of Louisiana began to apprehend that the western people, already highly inflamed by the denial of this reasonable and, to them, essential right, might be excited, forcibly, to open a way for their trade. Under these circumstances, General Wilkinson conceived the idea .of a regular trade to New Orleans, and with this view descended the Mis- sissippi with a venture of tobacco, flour, bacon, &c. He stopped at Natchez, and the boat was suffered to proceed down the stream to New Orleans, the commandant of the former place forbearing to seize it under the belief that Governor Miro would be induced to make an excep- tion in the case in which a distinguished general officer of the United States was interested. When the boat arrived in New Orleans, in advance of its owners, steps were taken for its seizure, and a guard sent on board by the revenue officers. A merchant of some influence, and a friend of Wilkin- son, called upon the governor, and intimated that the proposed step might be attended with unpleasant conse- 80 HISTORICAL OUTLINE, quences, enlarged upon the exasperation of the people of Kentucky in consequence of the seizure of the property of those who attempted the navigation of the river, and hinted that the general possessed great popularity and influence among those who were capable of inflaming the whole of the western inhabitants; that, probably, the sending the boat to New Orleans, that it might be seized, was a scheme of the government of the United States to produce such an excitement as to induce the people to choose Wilkinson as a leader, and to overrun and desolate the country. Alarmed by these representations, the governor directed the guard to be withdrawn, and the boat was delivered to Wilkinson's friend to sell the cargo without paying duty. In his first interview with Governor Miro after his arrival, Wilkinson artfully encouraged the delusion which had influenced his action. The apprehensions of Miro being thus thoroughly awakened, he thought he could not do better than to secure the influence of Wilkinson in restraining his tur- bulent and dangerous countrymen from making an attack upon Louisiana. Such, it is said, was the origin of the contract between Wilkinson and the Spanish government, and which se- cured him a monopoly of introducing the productions of the western country into New Orleans ; a privilege which, however beneficial to both parties, and, perhaps, advan- tageous to the country at large, wrought much injury to the agricultural interest of the Natchez District. The cultivation of tobacco had been found to succeed in the districts, and, to encourage it, the King of Spain became the purchaser of all that was delivered and passed inspection at his warehouses in New Orleans, at an established and liberal price. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 81 The production of tobacco under this arrangement was found so lucrative that it was engaged in extensively, and for a few years the prosperity of the country was rapidly advancing. This, however, could not withstand the blighting and injurious effects of the competition with the Kentucky tobacco introduced under Wilkin- son's contract, when the patronage of the king was with- drawn. The cultivation of tobacco consequently gave way to that of indigo, which, however disagreeable and offensive, was much more profitable. To this succeeded cotton, which, up to the present day, promises to maintain its stand against all competition. • In 1788, another census was taken, and the population of the Natchez District was found to amount to 2,679 persons, an increase of 1,129 in about three years. In 1789, General Wilkinson visited New Orleans for the second time, and was informed by Governor Miro that he was instructed to admit the immigration of set- tlers from the western country. Accordingly, several tracts of land were granted to such settlers as presented themselves ; these established themselves chiefly in the Natchez District and Feliciana, Many, however, under the pretence of settling perma- nently in the country, took advantage of the permission to make several trips and to introduce their goods and produce duty free, and in this manner a market was gradually opened for the produce of the Ohio. On the 1st of January, 1792, the Baron de Carondelet was appointed Governor of Louisiana, and the following July we find Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, governor at Natchez. At this time, the possessions of Spain on the Missis- sippi were seriously menaced in different quarters, of 6 82 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. which the governor was early informed by the Spanish minister to the United States. Genet, the Minister of the French Republic, conceived the project of reacquiring for his country the possessions she had lost in Louisiana by an expedition to be fitted out in the United States ; and to this end commissions were issued by him to some of the citizens of the United States disposed to embark in the enterprise. Danger was apprehended also of British invasion from Canada. The United States having failed by negotiation to get possession of that part of its territory comprising the Natchez District, or to secure the enjoyment of the free navigation of the Mississippi, _ the inhabitants of Ken- tucky, or the " "Western Country," became impatient and restive. Their increasing productions demanded an out- let to a foreign market, which they were resolved on some terms to obtain. But, however united on this point, they dijfifered in their projects for attaining it. Some meditated the dismemberment of the country, and the establishment of a government independent of the United States. Of these, some favored a connection with Spain and a submission to her laws ; others were inclined to the French interest. And still another party, to which some of the English royalists of the Natchez District adhered, looked with a distant and vague hope to the re- establishment of the British rule. To counteract these adverse projects, and to foment and encourage others calculated to strengthen and per- petuate the Spanish authority, engaged Governor Caron- delet in a course of intrigue during his entire adminis- tration. His first step, after putting the country under his jurisdiction in an improved state of defence, was to dis- HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 83 patch an emissary, an intelligent Englisliman named Power, to Kentucky, to confer secretly with the most influential individuals who were disposed to a separation from the Atlantic States, and an alliance with Spain; to give assurances of the concurrence of the government of Louisiana, and to make a tender of arms, ammuni- tion, and money. The affairs of the province were further complicated by the demand made by Georgia, through her commis- sioner Colonel Thomas Green, for the surrender of that part of the province lying north of latitude 31°, as being within her chartered limits. The demand was treated with derision, but this bold assumption of Colonel Green, a Spanish subject, who had but recently emigrated from Tennessee, rendered him an object of suspicion, and on the first plausible pretext he was placed in confinement. The vigilance of the government of the United States rendered Genet's scheme abortive, and his agents in the south were arrested in consequence of measures taken by the legislature of South Carolina. ' Power, on his return, having recommended that an officer of rank should be sent to the mouth of the Ohio, to meet with several influential individuals of Kentucky whom he had visited, and who still entertained the de- sign of a separation of the western people from the Union, Don Manuel Gayoso de L^mos, then the com- mandant at Natchez, was accordingly dispatched by Baron de Carondelet, early in the summer of 1795, on this mission, but with the ostensible object of erecting a fort at the Chickasaw Blufls. Power, sent by Gayoso for the purpose, met with Se- bastian at the Red Banks. Innis, Nicholas, and others expected, were prevented by various causes from being 84 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. present. Sebastian, however, claiming authority to treat with Gayoso in their names, was conducted by Power to the latter, who was found engaged with his party in some trivial works on the right side of the Mis- sissippi, opposite the mouth of the Ohio. Gayoso pro- posed that Sebastian should accompany him down the river to a conference with Governor Carondelet, and after a short delay they proceeded together, accompanied by Power as far as Natchez, where they stopped. In January, 1796, Gayoso, Sebastian, and Power, went to New Orleans, from whence the two latter sailed for Philadelphia. With a knowledge of these circumstances, the motives for procrastination, and the impediments thrown in the way of the surrender of the country to the United States, in pursuance of the treaty of San Lorenzo, which was concluded the 27th of October, 1795, will be better understood. By the latter treaty, the southern boundary of the United States, as given in their treaty of peace with Great Britain, was fully recognized, and the navigation of the Mississippi for its whole breadth, from its source to the gulf, was declared free to the subjects of the King of Spain and the citizens of the United States. The Spanish officers in New Orleans, however, had embraced the belief that this treaty was entered into at a critical junction in the affairs in Europe, to secure the neutrality of the United States, and to counteract the projects of Great Britain, in which latter they believed it had failed, and that Spain, no longer interested in fulfilling its stipulations, would not carry it into effect. Under this persuasion. Baron de Carondelet renewed his negotiations with the Kentucky malcontents. Power was again sent among them to keep alive the scheme of HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 85 secession by the western people. He delivered the packets given him in charge by the Spanish governor for General Wilkinson, at Greenville. On his return, how- ever, he reported an entire change in the dispositions and views of the people of Kentucky, who, he now found, were perfectly satisfied with the Federal govern- ment, since it had obtained for them, by the late treaty, the principal object to attain which only the separation from the Union had heretofore been thought of; and such a measure was now viewed with utter aversion. Not yet satisfied of the futility of his machinations, Carondelet determined on still another and final effort to detach the western people from the Atlantic States. Power was again sent on this errand. Bribery was to be adroitly employed; assurances were to be given that, " if a hundred thousand dollars, properly distributed in Kentucky, could induce the people to resist, it should be furnished;" and money and arms, including twenty pieces of artillery, were freely offered. General Wilkin- son, then the commander of the forces of the United States, was to be dazzled with the prospect of the bril- liant and easy career opened upon him; the glory of being the liberator and founder of the Western States was to be presented to his view ; at the least movement, he was to be told, the people would hail him as the general of the new republic, his reputation would raise him an army, and France and Spain would enable him to pay it. Power again met Sebastian at Louisville, when certain stipulations were considered, without which none could be expected to embark in the enterprise. The former then proceeded to meet General Wilkinson at Detroit, and the latter was to communicate the baron's propositions to Innis and Nicholas. On learning the arrival of Power, Wilkinson caused 86 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. him to be arrested, and brought into the fort ; gave him a cold reception; and treated the baron's project as chimerical and impossible to be executed. The people having obtained, by the treaty, all they wanted, had no need of connection or alliance with Spain. He was told that a full compliance with the treaty, and the delivery of the country under existing circumstances, was all that remained for the governor to do. In September, 1797, Wilkinson, delivering his answer for the baron to Power, sent him out of the country under a military guard. The treaty with Spain had stipulated that the com- missioners of both nations should meet at Natchez, within six months after the ratification. Andrew Elli- cott was appointed commissioner on the part of the United States, and Gayoso on that of Spain. Furnished with a military escort, EUicott left Pittsburg on the 23d of October, 1796. For the accommodation of his party and stores, he was provided with four boats, including a barge with a comfortable cabin, in which General Wil- kinson had just ascended the river. About the close of December, his progress was arrested at the mouth of the Ohio by ice, in which his boats were blocked up for some time. Here Ellicott met with Philip Noland, a man who had acquired considerable celebrity for his enterprise and travels among the Indians in the Spanish territory, where he had been engaged in taking wild horses; he had with him two trading-boats, and was induced by Ellicott to accompany him down the river, and proved very useful. On the 2d of February, the expedition arrived at New Madrid. Ellicott's party was saluted by a discharge of artillery from the Spanish garrison, and was hospitably HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 87 entertained by the commandant and officers of the gar- rison. Here the commandant communicated to him a letter received from the Governor-General Baron de Carondelet, in the preceding November, directing him not to permit the party to descend the river until the posts were evacuated, which could not be done until the water rose. The commandant remarked that he felt much embarrassed by the order, but, as the objection on the score of low water no longer existed, he agreed, upon the representations of Ellicott as to the delays he had already experienced, not to oppose any obstacle to his proceeding. On the 8 th of February, the party arrived at the Chickasaw Bluff. The commandant received the com- missioner with politeness, but appeared embarrassed by his arrival and surprised that he had been suffered to pass New Madrid. At the Walnut Hills (now Vicksburg), which was reached on the 19 th, considerable works were found to have been erected by the Spaniards. The post was con- sidered a very important one, and capable of being made very strong. The boats were brought to by the firing of a piece of artillery ; but the same politeness and hospi- tality received at the other posts were extended to Ellicott and his party. The commandant, however, affected an ignorance of its object and even of the exist- ence of the treaty. A short distance below the Walnut Hills, Ellicott was overtaken by an express sent after him in a light boat, with a letter which had just been received at the fort. The communication was from Governor Gayoso, inform- ing Ellicott that he was not prepared to evacuate the posts immediately for want of vessels, but which were soon expected, and to request him to leave the troops 88 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. (composing his escort) about the mouth of the Bayou Pierre. The object was stated to be to prevent any un- foreseen misunderstanding between the Spanish troops and those of the United States. Although the request was deemed indecorous and un- reasonable, the escort was left at the Bayou Pierre, where they arrived in the afternoon of the 22d of February. At this place, a friend of the commissioner, Colonel Peter Bryan Bruin, an 'officer of the revolu- tionary army, and subsequently one of the judges of the Mississippi Territory, had resided for some years, and from him Ellicott derived much useful information re- specting the principal inhabitants of the country, and their sentiments towards the United States, and the measures proper to be adopted to carry out the im- portant trust committed to him. In order to be of further service, it was agreed that Colonel Bruin should repair to Natchez, which, to prevent suspicion, and not to be seen with Ellicott until after the interview of the latter with the governor, he did, in one of Noland's boats, and the day after their arrival was formally introduced by Gayoso to Ellicott as an entire stranger. Immediately after arriving at the Natchez landing, on the evening of the 24th of February, 1797, the commis- sioner addressed a note to Governor Gayoso, apprising him of his arrival, and requesting him to state when it would be convenient to receive his credentials. On the same day the reception of the note was ac- knowledged through Mr. Vidal, the Secretary of the governor; but, as he avoided fixing a time for the pro- posed interview, several verbal messages were exchanged before tbis point was arranged. It was finally agreed that a meeting should take place at the government house, on the afternoon of the 25th. HISTOKICAL OUTLINE. 89 The credentials of the commissioner were then pre- sented, and the governor being pressed to name a day on which their operations should commencCj named the 19th of the following month. , Having, on the 27th, notified the Governor-General, the Baron de Carondelet, of his arrival, by letter directed to New Orleans, EUicott on the same day fixed his encamp- ment on the hill at the upper end of the town, about a quarter of a mile from the fort. This encampment was a short distance to the northeast of the present site of the mansion house. On the 29th, the American flag was hoisted, and about two hours after a message was received from the governor directing it to be taken down, a request that met with a positive refusal, and the flag "wore out upon the staff." The suspicions which the occurrences at the different Spanish posts in coming down the river had inspired, that the delivery of the country was to be delayed if not refused, were now confirmed. Before encamping, Ellicott was informed, through a confidential channel, that Carondelet had stated in pri- vate conversation, before the arrival of Ellicott, that the treaty would not be carried into effect. Gayoso had made a similar statement in a letter to a confidential friend. The delay on their part, it was said, would render the treaty a dead letter. It was also asserted that the country either was or would be ceded to France. From prudential considerations, and not to excite suspicions injurious to those from whom it was derived, this information was kept a profound secret. All the evasions and subterfuges which, it will be seen, were subsequently adopted, as shown in the correspondence with Carondelet and Gayoso, although assigned to dif- 90 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. ferent causes, were designed to gain time whilst Power was endeavoring to carry out the schemes of the go- vernor-general in Kentucky. The first step taken by Ellicott, under these untoward circumstances, was to sound the disposition of the in- habitants, when it was found that a large majority of them were desirous of becoming citizens of the United States. Although many of them had removed from the British colonies before the conclusion of the peace with Great Britain, with the suspicion of having been on the wrong side on the question of independence, and that not a few of the influential class were Englishmen who had been connected with the army or held office under the government of West Florida, yet now, under altered circumstances, and with better views, there were very few who did not prefer the free government of the United States to the intolerant and arbitrary one of Spain. The party of EUicott encamped in Natchez, exclusive of the escort under Lieutenant McClary, left at Bayou Pierre, consisted of about thirty persons, generally armed with rifles, and expert in the use of them; and the commissary was directed to procure privately, as large a supply of ammunition as could be done among their friends. The Indians, of whom considerable numbers were always loitering about the town, having been insolent and made threats against the American party, Ellicott seized upon the occasion to justify an application to Gayoso to withdraw his objections to his escort's joining him at Natchez. In reply, Gayoso stated that the conduct attributed to the Indians was very unusual there; but that he had foreseen some such difficulty from the time that Ellicott manifested a desire of having his colors flying, " before HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 91 all the transactions were terminated," (alluding to the evacuation of the Spanish garrison.) . As to the escort, he had not the least objection to its being withdrawn from its actual position; being answerable for the tran- quillity of the country, however, he felt sensibly hurt at the necessity of withholding his consent to its landing at Natchez, feeling positively confident that some disagree- able circumstances would happen by the conjunction proposed. He expressed his regret that the arrival of Ellicott had been delayed until after war had ensued between Spain and Great Britain, which had so added to the cares and duties of the governor-general that he could not leave New Orleans long enough to attend to the running of the boundary line, and that that duty had now devolved upon him, Gayoso, but that as yet he was unprovided with everything requisite for the business. The geometer, and other officers to be employed, were already on their way from New Orleans to Clarkesville, a point near latitude 31°, where the operations were to be commenced, and that he would himself repair thither as soon as his equipage should arrive. He suggested, therefore, that Ellicott should repair to Clarkesville or Loftus Cliffs, where his escort might join him without apprehension of any disagreeable collision. By the refusal, contained in this letter, of permission to land the escort at Natchez, Ellicott found himself in a dilemma, having already sent an express to direct Lieutenant McClary to join him with his command, and his arrival was momentarily expected. He replied, therefore, immediately to the letter of Gayoso, objecting to leaving Natchez, as that place was designated in the treaty for the meeting of the joint commission; but he added that, as the conduct of the 92 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. Indians had ceased to be objectionable, he was now the less anxious that his escort should be stationed at his present encampme^it, and proposed that it should be di- rected to come down to Bacon's Landing, a short distance below Natchez, from whence it could secure its requisite supplies. To this the governor politely assented by a communi- cation through his aid, Major Minor. On the next day the escort arrived and took up its encampment at Bacon's Landing. Major Stephen Minor, above mentioned, was a native of Pennsylvania; he first visited New Orleans in 1780, to procure military stores for the American posts on the Ohio and Monongahela. On his return, with a caravan of loaded mules, not far from the present post of Arkan- sas, his stores were plundered and his men all murdered ; his own escape being due to a most fortuitous detention by sickness, a few hours behind his party. He afterwards repaired to New Orleans, joined Galvez in his expedition against Mobile, where his remarkable skill with the rifle, and his acts of gallantry during the siege, attracted the notice, and secured the favor of the general, by whom his position in the Spanish army was advanced. In 1783, he was sent to Natchez, where his rank seems to have been that of "Aid-Major" to the post. He remained at Natchez during the whole term of the Spanish jurisdiction, acting during the latter period as aid to Governor Gayoso, by whom, when appointed as Governor-General of Louisiana, he was left as acting commandant of the post of Natchez ; and De Grand Pre, appointed to succeed Gayoso, not assuming the duties of the office. Major Minor continued to act until the coun- try was evacuated. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 93 Subsequently, he acted as commissioner on the bound- ary line in place of Gayoso. He is said to have endeared himself to his country- men, the American settlers, by his acts of friendliness and protection, and was applied to on all occasions, in cases of difiiculty. Many were the instances in which his influence with the governor prevailed, where the party menaced had, through too great a spirit of independence, or perhaps, turbulence, become involved in a collision with the Spanish authorities. Lieutenant McClary had been but a few days at his new quarters, at Bacon's Landing, when complaint was made that he had caused to be arrested and detained against their will, several persons claimed to be deserters from the American army. About the same time, the artillery taken from the fort to the landing for shipment, was taken back and re- mounted. On the 23d of March, Ellicott, in a letter to Gayoso, cites this fact, mentions some insolent treatment which American citizens had recently met with at the Walnut Hills, and adverts to the delay in entering upon the running of the boundary line, as giving grounds for apprehension that the treaty would not be observed with good faith by the Spanish government, and asks from the governor an explanation. He further inquired if it was not true that every exertion was then making, to put the post at Walnut Hills in a complete state of defence. The explanations of Gayoso were considered incon- sistent and unsatisfactory. It was now known that Lieutenant Pope, with a de- tachment of troops, was descending the river. 94 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. Averse to any reinforcement of the American troops, Gayoso dispatched his aid, Major Minor, to the Wahiut Hills, with a request to Lieutenant Pope, to delay his arrival until he was prepared for the evacuation of the Spanish posts. Ellicott declined uniting with the governor in this request, as desired, but at the same time wrote to the lieutenant, that the sooner he arrived at Natchez the better. About this time, an individual arrived at Natchez with a confidential communication for Ellicott. He ap- pears to have had some connection with the designs of William Blount, of Tennessee; but, learning from the commissioner that their estimation of the character of that individual did not accord, the communication was not made. He remained at Natchez a few weeks, in close associ- ation with Colonel Anthony Hutchins and Mr. Rapalje, both of whom were in the British military establish- ment. Ellicott admits that he was much embarrassed by the mysterious conduct of this individual, whose name he withholds, but intimates that he held some office in the United States, and was paid for his services, whatever they were, by the public. On the 29 th of March, 1797, Gayoso issued a procla- mation, assigning as a motive, his apprehensions that the dangerous insinuations of busy and malignant persons might agitate and disturb the public tranquillity. The public were cautioned against being led by their ^Hnnocent credulity r into any measures which might frustrate all the advantages they would have a right to expect, if they continued, as heretofore, their strict attachment to his majesty. These advantages are stated to be the HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 95 support of his majesty to the rights of the inhabitants in their real property, and protection from distress on account of their depending debts. Assurances were given that although the established Catholic religion only could be publicly allowed, yet none should be molested on account of their religious principles, or hindered in its private exercise. And finally, the inhabitants were ad- monished not to deviate from the principles of adhesion to the government, until the negotiations now on foot between the United ■ States and Spain were concluded, and thereby the real property of the inhabitants secured. This proclamation, although artfully conceived by the governor, and calculated to attach two large classes of the community to his interests (the landholders and the debtors), yet failed fully to quiet the minds of the people. The fact, now distinctly announced, that the evacuation of the country was indefinitely postponed, or at least during the pending negotiations, produced much irritation. To counteract this effect, when the governor became aware of it, he caused Ellicott to be informed that he had received orders from the Baron de Carondelet to have the artillery and stores removed from the forts, which were to be given up to the American troops on their arrival. Under this excitement, a number of respectable inhabi- tants called upon Ellicott, and presented an address, drawn up, it was said, by Narsworthy Hunter, after- wards the delegate to Congress. In style, this address was inflated, and it must be confessed the enumeration of grievances exaggerated. It ended by calling upon Ellicott, " in the name of every friend of that emblem of peace and science (the American flag ?) which had been recently displayed to them, to stand forth with a confi- 96 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. dence suitable to the dignity of his commission, and de- mand of the governor passports with leave for all such as would dispose of their property and avail themselves of a change of situation by withdrawing to the United States." Extracts from this address were communicated by Ellicott to Governor Gayoso. In doing so, he took occa- sion to state that, since his arrival in the district, he had uniformly counselled the inhabitants to submission to the government now in force, until the jurisdiction of the United States should be extended over them, the period of which could not be distant, and which they were led to expect. But his excellency's proclamation, the remounting the guns in the fort, and sending his aid to the Walnut Hills to stop the descent of the American troops, had produced doubts as to the intended delivery of the country to the United States. The governor denied that there was a word of truth in the address. No notice, he said, had been taken of the satisfaction which some had expressed of speedily becoming citizens of the United States ; nor had any one been molested on that account. There had been no instance of opposition being made to any person to the selling their property and removing from the country ; the demand for such permission was therefore unneces- sary. The proclamation had been deem.ed necessary to quiet the people, and to explain the cause of delay ; and he was now authorized to state that the general-in-chief found it necessary to consult his majesty on a point of difference between himself and General Wayne, the latter requiring the surrender of the posts as they stood, and the Baron de Carondelet claiming that they should be dismantled and razed. The intentions of the Spanish government being now HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 97 clearly understood, it became a matter of interest to secure the country to the United States, and to protect those of the inhabitants who had avowed their attach- ment to it; some of whom had indiscreetly committed themselves by intemperate expressions towards their present rulers. Offers were made to Ellicott of aid in expelling the Spanish garrison, and taking forcible possession of the country. Among these. Col. Green, who, in 1793, had acted as the commissioner in behalf of Georgia, and had manifested an imprudent zeal in favor of the immediate surrender of the country, made an offer to Ellicott of his services, with a hundred volunteers, to seize upon it. Indiscreetly permitting his designs to become known to the governor, his arrest was ordered; but he had the fortune to escape to Tennessee. The most extraordinary proposition was that which Ellicott states was made to him by Col. Anthony Hut- chins, which was no other than to seize the governor by surprise, and convey him a prisoner among the Chicka- saws. Ellicott, who seems to have been at all times suspicious of the motives of the colonel, was particularly so on this occasion, for reasons which he assigns. The proposition was one of so singular a nature as not to be entertained for a moment. It was of course rejected; but in a man- ner not to give offence, as Col. Hutchins possessed much popularity with one class of the inhabitants, and might, at the proper time, be useful to the cause of the United States. It being deemed prudent to increase the strength of the military escort, the officer commanding it enlisted several recruits. This was complained of by the governor as an in- 7 98 HISTOEICAL OUTLINE. fringement of the sovereignty of the Spanish monarch, and he requested that the men should be discharged. This was evaded, however, and the governor was in- formed that those enlisted were persons who could not be considered subjects of his Catholic majesty. Some of the soldiers at Bacon's Landing becoming sick, the escort was removed on to the high land, about a mile and a half from the river, and the same distance from Ellicott's quarters. Intelligence being received of the arrival of Lieut. Pope at the Walnut Hills, Ellicott immediately dispatched an express to inform him' of the probability of an early rupture between the United States and Spain, and to advise him to come to Natchez immediately, that the in- habitants, nine-tenths of whom were attached to the United States, might, in the event of a rupture, have a rally ing-point. Doubting the propriety of this step after it was taken, Ellicott saw that it would be better, at all events, to have the sanction of the governor ; an interview was had with him; the peculiar situation of Lieutenant Pope was forci- bly represented. It was shown that, being a military man on a separate command, ordered to a certain duty by his superior, he must perform it or make the attempt; he had no choice; come or attempt it he must; and it would be better that it should be done in peace than that hostilities should be provoked by meeting with opposition. The governor, under this view of the case, gave a reluctant consent that he should proceed down the river without interruption. A second express, with the ne- cessary orders, was dispatched, and being stimulated to activity by extra compensation, he arrived a very short time after the first express, and barely in time to prevent a collision between the Spanish garrison and the Ameri- HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 99 can detachment, the latter preparing to embark, and the former to resist it. On the 24th of April, in the forenoon, Lieutenant Pope arrived at the Natchez landing, where he remained until next morning. In the mean time, orders were given to the escort below the city, and at an early hour next morning, the two companies met at the north part of the town in excellent order, colors flying, attended with their music, and after the usual salutations marched a short distance in the rear of the commissioner's tent, and encamped on a commanding eminence, having both the fort and the government house in full view. The junction of the two detachments was not fore- seen or intended by Gayoso, who saw with extreme cha- grin the whole parade, but too late to prevent it. This measure, and the good appearance of the men, inspired great confidence in the citizens, who had now no doubt of being able to keep possession of the country. On the 1st of May, Governor Gayoso made Ellicott an official communication, as he states, by order of the com- mander-general, the purport of which was, that he was advised that an attack was proposed against the Spanish possessions in Illinois by the British from Canada; that, as such an expedition could not proceed except by pass- ing through the territories of the United States, an offi- cial communication had been made to the United States government, requiring that orders should be issued to have their territory respected, which no doubt was enter- tained would be acquiesced in; that the commander- general found himself in consequence, under the neces- sity of putting the fortifications at the Walnut Hills in a state of defence, to cover Lower Louisiana in case the British should succeed against Illinois, for which pur- 100 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. pose a competent force would be sent to the Walnut Hills to repair and defend that post; that this formed an additional reason for suspending the evacuation of the posts, and running of the line; and as, in consequence, considerable delay must ensue, the proposal was made to the commissioner, either to remain at Natchez, go down to Lower Louisiana, or, as was thought preferable, to remove to Villa Gayoso, where there were sufficient buildings for the accommodation of the commissioner's party, including the troops. Villa Gayoso was situated about twenty miles north of Natchez, on the Mississippi Bluff; the site handsome and commanding. The place was quite new, and the build- ings, which were comfortable, and of recent construction, consisted of a church, priest's house, officers' quarters, and barracks for soldiers. As Lieutenants Pope and Ellicott did not agree in the reply proper to be made to this communication, and as the lieutenant considered that it should come from him, Ellicott merely addressed a short note to the governor, reiterating his intention, previously expressed, of remain- ing at Natchez, and for the rest referred him to Lieuten- ant Pope's communication as commander of the United States detachment, whom the governor's communication chiefly concerned. On the 2d of May, Colonel Guillimard, the surveyor appointed in behalf of his Spanish majesty under the late treaty, arrived. On the following day, laborers and arti- ficers were engaged in repairing the fort, and several additional pieces of artillery were mounted. On the 7th a reinforcement of forty men arrived, and on the 9 th Colonel Guillimard, with several officers and a boat-load of intrenching tools, proceeded to Walnut Hills. Ellicott lost no time in calling this fact to the notice of HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 101 the governor, and requesting a definite answer as to the time he would be ready to proceed with the running of the line. He was informed, in reply, that the execution of the treaty would depend upon the ministers of the two na- tions to whom the business was intrusted, and through which channel both the commissioner and the comman- der-general would be informed of the time when the boundary would be run. A company of grenadiers arrived at the fort on the 16 th of May, and after a short delay proceeded to the Walnut Hills. Philip Noland, who, from his singular management and address, possessed much of Governor Carondelet's confidence, had been some weeks in New Orleans. The governor informed him that the troubles were becoming serious at Natchez, and that he was determined to quiet them by giving the Americans lead ; and he was asked if he would take a part ; to w^hich Noland replied am- biguously, " a very active oner On the 17th of May, more troops passed Natchez on the way to Walnut Hills. The reinforcement of that post, and the fort at Natchez, kept the inhabitants in constant fear, as they considered these preparations as designed against them. To avert the calamities which they in consequence apprehended, many plans for attacking the Spaniards were devised and communicated to Ellicott, and rejected as premature, and calculated to involve the United States in war. About this time, a serious difficulty took place between the Baron de Carondelet and Governor Gayoso, the true nature of which was not known, but which doubtless em- 102 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. barrassed their proceedings and to some extent discon- certed their plans. On the 1st of June, a proclamation of the Baron, of the 24th of May, was communicated to Ellicott, and which, having some doubts of its authenticity, he found was not known to either Gayoso or Minor. The proclamation, after adverting to some evil-disposed persons, who had nothing to lose, having endeavored to draw the inhabitants of Natchez into improper measures, the consequences of which would fall only on those who possessed property, whilst the perturbators would screen themselves by flight, proceeds to detail or reiterate the causes which had delayed the evacuation of the country, and the suspension of the measures for establishing the line of demarcation, attributing these delays to the im- perious necessity of putting the country in a state of de- fence, to protect it from the apprehended attack by the English from Canada upon the Illinois, and Lower Louis- iana. In conclusion, the hope was indulged that the in- habitants of Natchez would behave with tranquillity, and give proofs of their affection and attachment to the Span- ish government. In this, the governor gave "proofs that he was ignorant of, or mistook, the temper and wishes of not a few of the inhabitants of the district, to some of whom nothing would have been more acceptable than the re-establish- ment of the British rule. The great majority of the people, however, were impatient to become citizens of the United States. The appearance of this proclamation, so far from quiet- ing, wrought up the public mind to the point of explosion. At this time, an itinerant Baptist preacher, named Hannah, asked permission to preach in the American camp ; but, as public worship in the Spanish provinces HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 103 was allowed only to the Catholics, there appeared to be an obstacle in the way. Upon application, however, Go- vernor Gayoso gave his consent without hesitation. As the country was in a highly inflamed state, it was stipu- lated by Ellicott that the preacher should not touch upon or make any allusions to political subjects in his dis- course. The novelty of a Protestant sermon drew together a large number of persons; and the preacher, being a weak, vain man, was greatly puffed up with the atten- tion he received. Highly elated with the reception his sermon received, which was more owing to its novelty than its merits, and emboldened by permission to speak in public, the preacher mingled with the people of the town, and his enthusiastic zeal being somewhat heightened by stimu- lants, entered into a religious controversy with some Irish Catholics, who, in return for the offensive manner in which he spoke of their religion, gave him a beating. He immediately called on the governor with a pe- remptory demand for redress, threatening, if his request was not complied with, to seek it himself. The governor, with great forbearance and temper, calmly desired him to reflect a few moments upon what he had said. The same language and threats being re- peated, Gayoso justly became highly incensed, and or- dered him into confinement. This proceeding of the governor was construed by the inhabitants as an attack upon the privileges of an American citizen. It was the spark required to inflame the public mind and to produce the long foreseen explosion. Early the next morning, the town was found to be in a state of great tumult and confusion. The governor 104 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. and the officers of the government, with several Spanish families; took refuge in the garrison. Thus, in a few hours, by an impolitic, but, it must be admitted, just exercise of power, the governor found his authority restricted to the narrow compass of the fort. At this juncture, an address to the inhabitants from the Baron de Carondelet, as ill-timed and injudicious as his late proclamation, made its appearance, and, to- gether with the late infringement of the liberty of an American citizen in the person of Hannah, the preacher, rendered the disaffection and hostility of the inhabitants general. There was as yet, however, no system or rallying- point in the movement. Some were for attacking the fort, others for capturing the galleys and getting posses- sion of the river. On Sunday, the 11th of June, the day after the governor retired to the fort, a number of the most active opponents of the Spanish authority called upon Commissioner Ellicott and Lieutenant Pope, and de- clared their intention of commencing hostilities. To encourage them was deemed improper, as the United States had not yet extended its jurisdiction over the country; and to offer direct opposition was impolitic, as that would have forfeited all influence and power to be useful. It was sought, therefore, to divert the atten- tion of the people, if possible, from immediate acts of hostility, and by address and management to reduce their proceedings to some system by which they might be rendered more efficient, and at the same time might be restrained and checked if necessary. The spirit of the people was therefore ^^liigJily com- ]}limented" on account of their present exertions. But, as it was necessary that the United States should have HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 105 some evidence that their exertions tended to the esta- blishment of its sovereignty, it was suggested as proper that some declaration to that effect should be signed before they could with propriety call on the United States for support. On the following day, an interview was requested with Ellicott and Pope, by the governor, as private gen- tlemen, to see if some plan could be devised to quiet the present disturbances of the country. Lieutenant Pope refused the invitation, and Ellicott therefore informed Major Minor, the bearer of the message, that he must decline attending alone. The following day, Gayoso informed Ellicott by letter, that there was no doubt that the inhabitants of the dis- trict were in a state of rebellion, with the probable design of attacking the fort; that several of the in- surgents were riding through the country, obtaining signatures to lists already subscribed by many styling themselves "Citizens of the United States;" that he could not believe that the proceedings had the sanction of the commissioner; but should he take an active part in them, as he was represented to do, that he, Gayoso, protested, in the name of the governor-general, against his conduct, and would hold him answerable for the consequences. A 'positive answer was requested. Ellicott replied that, under the late treaty, the people of the district had a right to consider themselves citi- zens of the United States ; the compact between the two nations was notorious. The governor had recognized him as the agent of his government to carry that com- pact into effect. No human assurances could have gone further than those repeatedly made by his excellency, that the treaty would be faithfully executed. Could there have been any causes more powerful to produce 106 HISTOEICAL OUTLINE. the present commotion than the repeated violation of these assurances? By no principle of national law could the people of the district, now in anywise be re- garded as subject to the Spanish monarchy. Conceiving themselves to be citizens of the United States, they had individually come forward to express their wishes and intentions. As an offset to the governor's declaration that Ellicott should be held responsible for his participa- tion of the acts of the inhabitants, the latter added : "As you have assisted me in confirming the sentiment that this country belongs to the United States, on its part, as its commissioner, I protest against the officers of his majesty landing any troops or repairing any fortifi- cations in the territory. I shall consider such conduct as a violation of the treaty, and an attack upon the interest, honor, and dignity of my country." The governor was assured, however, that, if he had any plan of accommodation to propose, consistent with justice and honor, he, Ellicott, had every wish to enter into a discussion for that purpose. At the instance of the governor, a private meeting took place next morning at the house of George Cochran, at which a rather angry and intemperate discussion en- sued, which was near bringing it to an end. The prin- ciples of a plan of accommodation were discussed, and the concurrence of Lieutenant Pope was obtained to an attempt at conciliation by the address of Mr. Cochran and others. The proclamation which the governor published the next day (the 15th of June), contained some expressions very offensive to the people. Although not concurred in by Ellicott, it met with no opposition from him. Its reception by the people might have been foreseen ; it was torn to pieces, and treated with contempt. HISTOEICAL OUTLINE. 107 The opposition now assumed a grave aspect, and ac- quired some form. Several companies of militia were organized, and made ready for service ; and it was deter- mined to hold a meeting of the principal inhabitants on the 20th inst. Both parties, in the mean time, continued their pre- parations, and the governor exerted himself in rein- forcing and strengthening the fort, his force being too inconsiderable to justify offensive operations. One of the guns of the fort was brought to bear upon the tent of the commissioner, and a slight collision took place between the patrols of the two parties at night. Shots were exchanged, but without much damage. On the 19th, by the request of the governor, Ellicott met him at the house of his aid. Major Minor, which the governor reached privately by a circuitous route through the canebrakes and thickets passing to the north of the plantation, and through the cornfield. The humiliating state to which he was reduced, had made, says Ellicott, a visible impression upon his mind and countenance ; his situation was poignant and distressing. He assured Ellicott, that he was sincerely desirous of coming to terms of accommodation with the people ; and as he learned that the latter intended to be present at the appointed meeting of the inhabitants, desired him to use his influence to bring about a compromise. A party of Choctaw Indians, returning from a war expedition against another tribe west of the Mississippi, arrived at Natchez at this period. Stopping as usual to pay their respects to the governor, they found him shut up in the fort : their respect for him and his people was sensibly diminished in consequence; and this incident had the effect of attaching the Choctaws to the American interest, and increasing their attentions. 108 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. On the 20th of June, 1797, the proposed meeting of the inhabitants took place at the house of Benjamin Bealk, about eight miles eastward of Natchez, near the then crossing of the Natchez trace, at the muddy fork of St. Catharine's Creek. In consequence of the arrangements previously agreed upon by persons of property and influence in the coun- try, little difficulty was found in prevailing upon the people to submit the future management of their affairs to a committee to be chosen by themselves. Colonel Anthony Hutchins, contrary to expectation, took an active, usefal, and decided part in bringing about this result. The election was consequently held, and resulted in the choice of Anthony Hutchins, Bernard Lintot, Isaac Gaillard, William Ratliff, Cato West, Joseph Bernard, and Gabriel Benoist. To the foregoing committee, with a singular impro- priety, as would now seem, considering their official re^ lations, and in which it seems strange they should have acquiesced, Andrew EUicott and Lieutenant Pope were added by unanimous vote. On the same evening the committee assembled at Natchez, and informed the governor of their appoint- ment. The governor offered them the use of the govern- ment-house, which they declined, and then proceeded to business in a building of Mr. William Dunbar, which was in the course of preparation for the use of Ellicott, having been gratuitously tendered to him. On the 22d of June, the committee submitted the fol- lowing propositions to Governor Gayoso, and requested him to obtain the concurrence of Governor Carondelet therein : — HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 109 " First : The inhabitants of the District of Natchez, who, under the belief' and persuasion that they were citizens of the United States, agreeably to the late treaty, have assembled and embodied themselves, are not to be persecuted or injured for their conduct on that account, but to stand exonerated and acquitted. " Secondly : The inhabitants of the government afore- said, above the thirty-first degree of north latitude, are not to be embodied as militia, or called upon to aid in any military operations, except in case of Indian inva- sion, or for the suppression of riots during the present state of uncertainty, owing to the late treaty between his Catholic majesty and the United States not being fully carried into effect. "Thirdly: The laws of Spain in the above district shall be continued, and on all occasions be executed with, mildness and moderation ; nor shall any inhabitant be transported as a prisoner out of this government under any pretext whatever : and, notwithstanding the opera- tion of the law aforesaid is hereby admitted, yet the in- habitants shall be considered to be in an actual state of neutrality during the continuance of their uncertainty as mentioned in the second proposition. " Fourthly : We, the committee aforesaid, do engage to recommend it to our constituents, and to the utmost of our power endeavor to observe the peace, and promote the due execution of justice. Anthony Hutchins, Cato West, Bernard Lintot, Joseph Bernard, Isaac Gaillard, and William Ratliff, Gabriel Benoist." The foregoing propositions were agreed to by the 2;overnor as follows : — \ J 110 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. "Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, Brigadier in the Koyal Armies, Governor, Military and Political, of the Natchez and its dependencies, &c. " Being always desirous of promoting the public good, we do join in the same sentiment with the committee, by acceding to their propositions in the manner follow- ing : By the present, I do hereby accede to the four foregoing propositions established and agreed upon for the purpose of establishing the peace and tranquillity of the country; and that it may be constant and notorious, I sign the present under the seal of my arms, and coun- tersigned by the secretary of this government at Natchez, the 22d day of June, 1797. Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, Joseph Vidal, Secretary T On the following day, the governor and his officers left the fort and returned to their houses. It is worthy of remark that during the two weeks in which the inhabitants were in a state of revolt, no act of violence or breach of the peace took place. The necessity of electing a permanent committee to aid in preserving the good order and peace of the country, was strongly impressed upon the governor, who, fully concurring in the propriety of the measure, issued a proclamation on the following day for that pur- pose, and the following gentlemen were chosen : Joseph Bernard, Peter B. Bruin, Daniel Clark, Gabriel Benoist, Philander Smith, Isaac Gaillard, Roger Dickson, William Ratliff, and Frederick Kimball. The election of this committee in effect put an end to the Spanish authority in the country. All but one of the committee (Frederick Kimball, whose sentiments were doubtful, and whose residence proved to be below HISTORICAL OUTLINE. Ill the line), were stanch friends to the government of the United States. The committee held its first meeting in the house occupied by the American commissioner, on the 15th of July, having as before declined the use of the govern- ment house tendered for that purpose. Contrary to expectation. Colonel Hutchins declined serving on the last committee, pleading his age and infirmities in excuse. He attended the first meeting of the committee, however, as a spectator, and manifested great dissatisfaction with its proceedings, which were directed first to securing the country to the United States, and secondly to the preservation of peace and good order. Having established their neutrality, and rid them- selves of the Spanish authority so far as it was seriously obnoxious to them, dissensions soon ensued between the inhabitants themselves, and rival parties sprung up, and an abortive attempt was made to supersede the permanent committee by the choice of another. The newly-acquired liberty of the inhabitants was jeopard- ized, and the Spanish officers looked on with complacency at a state of things which promised in the end to restore their lost authority. By some very original and unauthorized devices, the semblance of a counter-committee was got up ; but beyond denunciation, which proved harmless, and the getting up a memorial to Congress, which was disre- garded, its labors were fruitless. Although threatened at one time with an armed force of forty men, who were assembled on the Bayou Pierre, assured of the protection of the American arms, the com- mittee pursued the even tenor of its way. 112 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. In the death of its chairman, Mr. Bernard, the com- mittee and the whole country sustained a sensible loss. Mr. Gabriel Benoist, who succeeded him as chairman, was a very estimable French gentleman, who came to the United States with other volunteers from France, to assist in achieving our independence ; he had married the daughter of a very respectable planter settled in the country, and held some office under the Spanish govern- ment. He was obnoxious to the turbulent and dis- affected, and was accordingly assailed as a French Jaco- bin, and vituperation revelled in the vindictive epithets bestowed upon him. EUicott has left in his journal copious details of these differences and bickerings. He had, however, by his too active participation in these events, considering his official relations, rendered himself obnoxious to some of the leading and prominent men engaged in them. His statements may be regarded in some degree personal, rather highly colored, and tinctured with partisan pre- dilections, and it would perhaps be unsafe to adopt them implicitly as historical facts. Let it be remembered that the country had passed under the rule of three different monarchical govern- ments, and but recently under that of Great Britain during the period of our revolution. Many of the older inhabitants had been royalists from principle. Some of them were British officers, and continued to receive their pay and pensions even after the acquisition of the country by the United States. Not a few had migrated from the sister States, with strong suspicions of having fought on the wrong side of King's Mountain. The rivalries of these for power and influence, were but the common instincts of ambitious men wherever they may be placed. HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 113 With a change of circumstances and of political insti- tutions came also a change of views and opinions, and many of these persons became none the worse citizens, from their antecedents. The descendants of many of them, grown up with attachments to American institu- tions, have earned for themselves positions of respect- ability and influence. It would answer no good purpose, therefore, to annoy the over-sensitive of the present age, by rending the veil which time has spread over the "bygones" of a past generation. Let them rest in oblivion. On the 26th of July, Gayoso succeeded the Baron de Carondelet as governor-general by appointment from the Court of Madrid. On his departure for New Orleans on the 30th, he left Major Minor to represent him in the government at Natchez. Governor Gayoso was called to rule over the district at an un propitious time. Subjected to the superior authority of the governor-general, the Baron de Caron- delet, it became his duty to execute orders and carry out the measures of the Baron, many of which, we have reason to believe, were distasteful to him. The repug- nance of the inhabitants to the Spanish rule, and the impatience exhibited to throw it off before a substitute was organized by the United States, made it necessary for the good order and well-being of the country, for which he was responsible, to maintain his authority. This, under the adverse circumstances in which he was placed, rendered his situation annoying and harassing in the extreme. In his private intercourse with Ellicott and other Americans, he was ever courteous and honor- able, and, apart from the duties imposed by his official station, he enjoyed for his many good qualities the 114 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. respect and esteem of a large number of the most intel- ligent inhabitants. He appears to have been just and upright in his ad- ministration, and to have advanced, as far as in his power, the interests of the district. The city of Natchez, on the hill, was founded by him, the land being purchased and the town laid off under his direc- tion, and various public improvements were executed or commenced under his orders. He survived his promotion to the office of Governor- General of Louisiana but a short time, and, in dying 'poor, he left the best evidence of these times, of his honesty and disinterestedness. In July, 1797, the yellow fever prevailed at Natchez; one of Ellicott's assistants, and several of his men, were carried off by it. As soon as the sick could be carried, they were removed to the country, about seven miles east of Natchez. Ellicott accompanied them, and the spring, at his encampment near the present site of Jeffer- son College at Washington, has ever since gone by his name. Here his men were restored to health, but re- turning to Natchez too soon, he was himself attacked by the fever on the 7th of October. In November, 1797, the appointment of Colonel De Grand Pre, as Governor of Natchez and its dependencies, was announced. The Permanent Committee immedi- ately took a firm stand, and resolved that he should not be received in the capacity of governor; and that the assumption of the office by him would be regarded as a violation of the neutrality agreed upon, and be resisted accordingly. The proceedings of the committee were transmitted to Governor Gayoso. Grand Pr6, therefore, did not at- HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 115 tempt to take upon himself the authority of his appoint- ment, but remained quietly in New Orleans. In the early part of December, Captain Guion, with a considerable detachment of United States troops, arrived at Natchez, and superseded Lieutenant Pope in the command. The new commandant was much indisposed at the period of his arrival, and, although a man of superior capacity, and ardent patriotism, it is alleged that his judgment, for a time, seemed to be impaired. He was surrounded, at the period of his arrival, by many of the turbulent, aspiring, and disaffected, who took advantage of his situation to prejudice his mind against some of the best friends of the United States. Jealous of his authority, and determined not to be " made a cipher of" he viewed with suspicion the anomalous Permanent Com- mittee, and treated it with little respect. Taking advantage of the adverse relations between the constituted authorities, and the little cordiality sub- sisting between the commandant and the commissioner, some designing and ambitious persons in the country labored assiduously but ineffectually, to supersede the authority of the committee by establishing, a military government. But the people had experienced too much of despotism to yield any of their newly-acquired privi- leges. On the 10th of January, Governor Gayoso informed Ellicott by letter, that he was ordered to evacuate the forts at Natchez and the Walnut Hills. The event, however, did not take place for more than two months. Ellicott gives the following account of it. "Late in the evening of the 29th of March, 1798, I was informed through a confidential channel, that the evacuation would take place the next morning before 116 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. day. I rose at four o'clock, walked to the fort, and found the last party or rear guard just leaving it, and as the gate was left open, I walked in, and enjoyed from the parapet the pleasing prospect of the galleys getting under way. They were out of sight of the town before daylight." The same day the American troops took possession of the works. Pane 117 Plate I Sriil of lhoFro\iiic*o of HVhI FiorifLtattiirhedlofhofiritish PatoiiTs I'l. (■ «.,,!,.. ,(,1 IVnii,,, l.irtiW l,\'K«-,.T,triStuuebj MK.i.tcnlhal Crumol.ilh hi I N R.i-.i-nlti,il I'tiil.' LAND TITLES. 121 treaty of San Lorenzo, of the 27tli of October, 1795, by which Spain finally yielded possession of this territory, to the United States. The American government, however, with a paternal regard for the inhabitants occupying these lands, made provision for the confirmation, not only of the Spanish titles, but those of Great Britain, so far as they had been recognized by the former government, and were duly occupied. The incomplete titles, or Spanish orders of survey, if occupied and cultivated at the date of the treaty, were also to be confirmed under the character of donatiotis from the United States, when in fact the whole series, both of British or Spanish grants, of whatever grade, might so be regarded, being equally void or illegal, ex- cept so far as they were recognized by the act of Congress providing for their adjudication. Large portions of the country being held under Spa- nish grants, covering lands claimed by non-resident British grantees, much uneasiness was exhibited by the holders, to whom they had been confirmed by the Ame- rican government, when the British claimants manifested a disposition to test the validity of their rights, through agents, sent over from England for that purpose. Suits were instituted to eject the holders under the Spanish grants, and the anxiety of the people became so great that Congress was petitioned to compromise and quiet those claims. A report of a committee of the House of Representatives, made as late as 1814, nearly ten years after the claims had been confirmed by the Board of Commissioners, adverse to the prayer of the petitioners, which seemed to accord superior validity to the British grants, from their anterior date, was not calculated to allay the anxiety of the occupants. 122 LAND TITLES, The decision of the District Court of the United States, in the suit instituted by the heirs of Harcourt, and which was fully affirmed by the Supreme Court, settled the question finally, and the British grants are now no more regarded than that of Sir Robert Heath. This decision of the Supreme Court was subsequently ably controverted by Chief Justice C. P. Smith, of the High Court of this State, when engaged, some years since, as counsel for the representatives of Campbell, who claimed a tract of land, embracing the town of Rodney, under a British patent dated 11th July, 1772. It was maintained by Judge Smith, in an elaborate argument, sustained by indisputable authority, " That the British government had the right, and had exercised it re- peatedly, of dismembering or altering the limits or boundaries of its royal colonies ; that the crown retained the right of property in the soil; that the extension of the limits of West Florida, from the thirty-first degree of north latitude to a line drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo, was a right legitimately exercised, and the grants made within those limits, by the Governor of West Florida, were consequently valid." The rejection of the British claims should have rested, therefore, solely on their non-recognition by the Spanish and American governments, and a failure of the fulfilment of the conditions of those grants, and not upon want of jurisdiction in the British government. So far, all grants of land were confined to districts to which the Indian title had been extinguished previous to the accession of the country to the United States. In 1777, the British government entered into a treaty with the Indians at Mobile, by which the boundaries of the lands claimed by the French, on the sea-coast and in the Natchez District, were defined; and in the year 1779, LAND TITLES. 123 the eastern boundary of the latter district was run, and marked by the English surveyor. By the treaty of Hopewell, made by Col. Hawkins, the American commissioner, with the Indians at Keowee, on the 3d of January, 1786, the boundary was again established, and, finally, by the treaty held by General Wilkinson, at Fort Adams, with the Choctaw Indians, on the 17th December, 1801, was fully recognized, and a survey authorized under the superintendence of com- missioners, which was soon afterwards made by order of the American government. By the treaty of Mount Dexter, made on the 16th of November, 1805, the Choctaws ceded to the United States all the lands embraced in the counties of Lawrence, Covington, Jones, and Wayne, and those lying to the south of them, except perhaps Jackson, Harrison, and Hancock, which probably belonged to the Baluxis, and some other small tribes, which had removed or become extinct before the acquisition of the country by the United States, as it does not appear that the Choctaws claimed the lands in that quarter west of the Chickasa- hay River. A further cession was made, at the treaty of Doaks- stand, on the Natchez road, on the 18th of October, 1820, of the lands on the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Yazoo to a point nearly opposite the Arkansas River, comprising the counties of Washington, Yazoo, Madison, Rankin, Simpson, Copiah, and Hinds, as first established. j"-- The residue of the Choctaw possessions in the State I were ceded by the treaty of Dancing Rabbit, made on the 27th September, 1830, and the Choctaws removed to the west of the Mississippi, to lands given them in exchange by the United States. By the treaty made at Pontotoc Creek, on the 20th of 124 LAND TITLES. October, 1832, the Chickasaws also ceded all their lands in Mississippi, to be sold hy the United States, and the proceeds, deducting expenses of survey and sale, jpaid to them, and within three years removed across the Mis- sissippi Eiver to lands purchased by them from the Choctaws.* By all of these treaties, from that of Mount Dexter, certain reservations were made ; these consisted of im- provements of some of the Indians who chose to remain — of larger reservations to the chiefs and others, and for the benefit of Indian orphans. Besides these, Congress, in providing for the sales of the public lands, made other reservations, such as the sixteenth section of every township for schools — the grant of a township of lands to Jefferson College, and two townships for a State University. Congress also granted two sections to the State, for a seat of government, upon which the city of Jackson was laid off. Large grants have also been made to the State, for internal improvements; and lastly, all the swamp lands have been surrendered to it to constitute a fund for the purpose of reclaiming them from inundation, and to fit them for cultivation. In addition to the claims derived from the British and Spanish governments, and the lands sold and patented by the United States, all the grants and reservations enumerated, constitute the basis of title by which the citizens of the State hold their lands. The quantity of land, held by title derived from for- *By a convention at Washington City, the 24tli of May, 1834, the Chickasaws obtained a modiiication of the treaty to allow of grants in fee simple to all heads of families and others. LAND TITLES. 125 eign governments, and confirmed by the United States, amounts to 767,547 acres, 545,480 of which lie in the Natchez district, and 222,067 in the Augusta land dis- trict, east of Pearl Kiver. The whole area of the State has elsewhere been stated at 35,520,000 acres ; of this, it would appear, from data furnished by the census report of 1850, 10,490,000 acres are held by individuals, of which 3,444,000 are in cultivation. The unimproved lands amount therefore to 32,076,000 acres, of which 25,036,000 acres are still held by the United States, or by the State of Mississippi. III. AGEICULTUEE. THE EARLY STATE AND PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE. Several years elapsed, after the establishment of the French colony at Baluxi, before even the common vegetables of the garden were cultivated, and the sterile soil of the sea-shore was not calculated to invite a more extended culture, if the character and habits of the colonists, chiefly soldiers, deriving all their supplies from the mother country, had inclined them to such pursuits. It was, therefore, not until the province came under the control of the Company of the Indies, that the tillage of the earth became to any extent a fixed pursuit. The first impulse was then given to planting by the large grants to European capitalists, who sent out laborers to open and improve their lands. The most efficient of these were German redemp- tioners ; but the nature of the climate, and the heavy labor of removing the dense forests, rendered the pro- gress of improvement tedious and discouraging. It was soon found necessary to resort to Africa for suitable operatives for the prosecution of agricultural enterprise ; these were introduced by the company, from time to time, to a limited extent, and disposed of to the 128 AGRICULTURE. colonists at established and moderate rates, payable in annual instalments in the products of the soil. These products were naturally confined, for a con- siderable period, to articles of necessity for home con- sumption, and notwithstanding some large grants were made near Natchez, and on the Yazoo, ostensibly for the cultivation of tobacco and indigo ; and, although some " large plantations, with extensive improvements," were established near the former place, it does not appear that anything beyond the spoils of the chase, or the peltries procured by traffic with the Indian tribes, was exported from the country. By the massacre of the inhabitants by the Natchez, in 1729 and 1730, these establishments were broken up, and from this period the French were too much engaged in exterminating the Natchez, and in hostile incursions among the Chickasaws, to reoccupy and cultivate, ad- vantitgeously, their regained possessions. ^ It was, therefore, under the occupancy of the country by the English that we trace the first germ of successful and systematic agriculture in Mississippi. The emigration which ensued, on the change of rulers, being chiefly from the Carolinas, Virginia, Jersey, and New England, was from a class differing essentially in habits from their more volatile and restless predecessors, ^the French, who were more addicted to the chase and to trafficking with their Indian neighbors, than to more laborious and settled pursuits. Many of these settlers were accustomed to agriculture, and being generally accompanied by their families, re- sorted at once to the tillage of the earth as a means of support. Their cultivation was necessarily rude, and their im- plements few and imperfect; yet their products were AGEICULTURE. 129 varied and for the purpose of subsistence ample. Al- most every article of prime necessity, which the soil could yield, was produced by them to the extent of their wants. "^^ Cattle and swine required little other attention than protection from the bear and wolf of the forest, and were raised abundantly; whilst the small farms, frequently confined to a few acres, exhibited a variety of productions that is now rarely found together in the country. Indian corn, wheat, oats, rye, rice and pota- toes, cotton, flax, tobacco and indigo, were almost uni- versally cultivated, but rarely, if at all, for exportation. In the early stages of the settlement of the colon}'-, many of the common conveniences of life were neces- sarily dispensed with, or supplied with such substitutes as ingenuity or skill could devise and fabricate from the productions of the country. Not many years since, were to be seen the moulds in which the head of one of the most respectable and wealthy families of the present day was wont to cast the pewter platters and spoons which constituted the only plate of himself and neighbors. The inventories of the confiscated effects of some prominent, and as then regarded, opulent persons, yet preserved among the Spanish archives, exhibit a simplicity of attire and fur- niture in strong contrast with that which would now satisfy those of very contracted means or humble station. The scarcity and high price of iron, and the con- sequent imperfection of agricultural implements, was perhaps most felt and least easily remedied. At that * In ITTS, Mr. Dunbar enumerates among tlie productions of his plantation, rice, tobacco, flaxseed, indigo seed, corn, buckwheat, barley, peas, besides many other things. 9 130 AGRICULTURE. period cut-nails were not invented, and the wrought-nail cost a dollar a pound. Tools and all iron implements bore a corresponding price, owing, in some degree, to the high freights on heavy articles up the Mississippi ; the voyage from New Orleans to Natchez, made by keel- boats and barges, requiring several weeks. A set of plough-irons was, therefore, an acquisition of no little value. Iron entered into the composition of few of the wagons or carts, and the wheels were often made of a transverse section or disk sawed and properly fashioned from the trunk of a tree of suitable diameter. These trucks constituted, to considerable extent, the only means of transportation of heavy articles. Even as late as after the introduction of Whitney's saw-gin, a now opulent planter, a venerable and highly respected citizen, a native of Adams County, states that, in a wagon of this kind, he hauled his crop of cotton for two years to a neighboring gin ; a framework of cane serving in lieu of plank in the construction of the body. Not many years before, the same gentleman was reduced to the necessity of fabricating his only plough by framing a common mattock into a beam, that being the only implement suited to the purpose left on his plantation by the depredating Indians. This was only about sixty-five years since, and oc- curred within ten miles of Natchez, and to an individual belonging to one of the most opulent and influential families in the country at that day. Flax was raised chiefly for shoethread and similar uses, but in some families linen cloth was made. Leather was commonly tanned throughout the country in large troughs dug out of the trunks of trees. From the earliest occupancy by the English, cotton in small quantities, sufficient for domestic purposes, was AGRICULTURE. 131 habitually cultivated ; it was of the black or naked seed variety, was planted in hills, and cultivated with the hoe. Ffty or sixty pounds was the ordinary quantity gathered in a day. The seeds were picked out by the hand, or separated from the lint by means of the small roller gin.* It was spun and woven at home, and con- stituted the chief apparel of the inhabitants ; the small quantity of indigo then grown, and the numerous dye- stuffs that the forests afforded, supplied all the coloring materials required for dyeing the cloth. f Rice formed an important article of diet, supplying largely the deficiency of flour ; the colonists, especially the French, accommodating themselves slowly and re- luctantly to bread made from the Indian corn. It was prepared by pounding in common wooden mortars, and perhaps was not as fair as that which we now purchase, but of far richer flavor and more nutritious. In the absence of mill-stones, when they could not be obtained, the Indian corn was reduced to meal by pound- ing in the same way. Large herds of cattle were owned by the more opu- lent inhabitants, for which the garrison at Natchez aflbrded the chief market, and some were driven to New Orleans shortly previous to the change of government. The price of common stock cattle was about the same then as at this time. * See Plate YII., Figs. 1 and 2. f The first indigo made by Mr. Dunbar was by steeping it in barrels. 132 AGRICULTURE. THE CULTIYATIOIS' OP TOBACCO. When the country came under the dominion of Spain, a market was opened in New Orleans ; a trade in tobacco was established, and a fixed and remunerating price was paid for it, delivered at the king's warehouses. Tobacco thus became the first marketable staple production of Mississippi.* The tobacco plant, indigenous to the country, soon came into general cultivation. The larger planters packed it in the usual way in hogsheads. Much of it, however, was put up in carrets, as they were called, resembling in size and form two small sugar-loaves united at the larger ends. The stemmed tobacco was laid smoothly together in that form, coated with wrappers of the extended leaf, enveloped in a cloth, and then firmly compressed by a cord wrapped around the parcel, and which was suffered to remain until the carret acquired the necessary dry- ness and solidity, when, together with the surrounding cloth, it was removed, and strips of linn-bark were bound around it at proper distances, in such a manner as to secure it from unwrapping and losing its proportions. The rope used for this purpose was manufactured by the planter, from the inner bark of the linn, or bass- wood, then one of the most common trees of the forest. One end of the rope was made fast to a post, in front of which the operator, seated with the roll of tobacco * In 1183, Mr. Wm. Dunbar, writes: "The soil of Natchez is par- ticularly favorable for tobacco, and there are overseers there who will almost engage to produce you between two and three hogsheads to the hand, besides provisions." AGRICULTURE. 133 on Ills knee, and his foot against the post, connected the other end with the carret, turning it with his hands whilst the necessary tension was maintained upon the ro|)e, wrapped it securely and evenly from end to end. In those days, when the roads were indifferent, and wagons and carts were few, the tobacco hogsheads were frequently geared to a horse by means of a pair of rude temporary shafts, connected with the heading, and in this manner rolled to the shipping point, or to market at Natchez; much being transported in this way from the settlements on Cole's Creek, and from greater dis- tances. To convey the tobacco to market in New Orleans, it was usual for several planters to unite and build a flat- boat, with which one of the number would accompany the joint adventure, deliver the tobacco at the pub- lic warehouse, and, if it passed inspection, receive the proceeds, and return home by land, generally on foot; the payment being made in a written acknowledgment, or hon, as it was called, which entitled the holder to re- ceive the amount from the governor or commandant at Natchez, thus obviating the labor and risk of packing the specie several hundred miles. The monopoly of the tobacco trade was retained by the King of Spain, and the price paid for all that passed inspection at his warehouses was uniform. The price was regarded as liberal, and yielded a fair return for its production, whilst the stability and cer- tainty of a market encouraged an increased cultivation ; the country began to prosper, and the planters were en- abled to make purchases of slaves, the current price of wdiich averaged about three hundred and fifty dollars. There was no classification in the sale of the tobacco. If the article passed inspection, it was taken, and the 134 AGRICULTURE. quality was generally such that for that cause it could not be rejected. NeverthelesSj it sometimes happened that an unobjectionable article was left upon the planter's hands, if, from ignorance of established iisage, he had omitted the customary douceur to the inspector. This, however, soon came to be better understood. The capacious pockets of the inspector were not worn without a purpose, and the expected purse was habitu- ally dropped into it without at all shocking the moral sense of the wearer. It was not necessary, or perhaps altogether proper, to couple the offering with expressed conditions; that, if not indelicate, would have been quite superfluous, it be- ing quite safe and effectual to make the silent contribu- tion. Nor was any particular secrecy or concealment at all necessary. This was not considered bribery; the king always paid his servants indifferently, and these were but the perquisites of office which indemnified the needy official for his poorly requited services. Whether these usages, reacting upon the producers, had any effect upon the quality or condition of the tobacco in the end, is not, perhaps, altogether clear; but it is certain that, from some cause, either from fraud in packing, the falling off in quality, or from the com- petition of the Kentucky tobacco introduced into New Orleans, under General Wilkinson's contracts with the Spanish authorities, or by their connivance, the price was so reduced, that the further cultivation of it in Missis- sippi, for exportation, was in a few years wholly aban- doned, greatly to the injury and embarrassment of the planters, who had, for the purchase of slaves, contracted debts which they now found it difficult to discharge. AGEICULTUEE. 135 THE CULTIYATION AND PREPARATION OF INDIGO. The tobacco crop being no longer profitable, indigo, which had been cultivated for some time in Louisiana, was now resorted to.* This most offensive and unwhole- some pursuit was nevertheless the most profitable one in which the planter could engage. Seed was obtained at the cost of about fifty dollars per barrel, and some of the small farmers engaged in cultivating the indigo exclusively for the seed to supply those whose larger means enabled them to erect the necessary fixtures, and to prosecute the cultivation and manufacture on a profit- able scale. Indigofera tinctoria, from which the indigo pigment of commerce is prepared, said to have been introduced from India, flourishes luxuriantly in the Southern States, where a variety termed the Atramentum anil is said to grow spontaneously. It was cultivated in drills, and required careful handling when young and tender, the subsequent cultivation being similar to that of the cot- ton plant. » When mature, in good land, it attained the height of about three feet. It was then, previous to going to seed, cut with a reap-hook from day to day, tied in bundles in quantities suited to the capacity of the steeping-vats, to which it was immediately transferred. These vats or uncovered reservoirs were constructed in pairs above ground, of thick plank dovetailed together in such a * Indigo liad not been cultivated in the Natchez District as late as 1183, and until after the failure of the tobacco business it was produced only for the seed, which was supplied to the Point Coupee and other settlements on the Mississippi. 136 AGKICULTURE. manner as to be perfectly water-tight ; tlie larger one, or steeping-vat, so elevated as to permit the draining off of the liquid into the smaller, or beater, in which it is churned or agitated. This vat was usually about four feet deep, eight feet wide, and about fifteen feet in length. Two or three pairs of these vats were sufficient for the largest indigo establishments in the country. One pair ordinarily sufficed. The vats were placed near a pond of clear soft water (spring or hard water would not answer), and the shallower the ponds, and the greater the surface of water exposed to the sun, the better. Into the steeping-vat the indigo weed, as cut, was thrown, and the water pumped on to it. The steeping generally required a day ; but this depended in a great degree upon the temperature of the weather during the process and that of the water used. When the steeping was carried to the proper point, and the fermentation suffered to continue until all the coloring matter or grain was extracted, which was ascer- tained by examining the liquid in a silver cup, the turbid liquid was drawn off into the beater. If drawn off prematurely, a loss in the coloring matter was sustained, and if deferred too long, putrefactive fer- mentation ensued, which injured the quality of the dye. Attached to a shaft, revolving across the smaller vat, was a set of arms or paddles, by which the liquid was churned or agitated. In small establishments, the shaft or beater was turned by hand, but generally horse- power was connected with it. The beating or churning process was continued for several hours, during which the precipitation was aided by adding a small quantity of lime. Other substances AGRICULTURE. 137 were often substituted, however, some using a mucilage obtained from the ocra plant, the sassafras, or from a plant known as the moave. The grain or coloring matter being separated, as ascer- tained by test with the silver cup, flakes of the pigment being seen spreading or settling on the bottom, it was suffered to subside, and the supernatant liquid was drawn off through a series of holes descending towards the bottom. The indigo deposit was then removed by wooden shovels from the vat into draining-boxes lined with canvas, and placed upon beds of sand, afterwards tranferred to moulds lined in like manner, dried in the shade, and cut into cubes. After undergoing a further curing by being laid on smooth plank shelves, where it underwent a sweat, it was packed in boxes for exportation. A variety of a delicate light blue color was called "floton;" but that termed the "pigeon neck," from its prismatic colors, was most esteemed. The price obtained for the best quality is variously represented, some affirming that it was from one and a half to two dollars per pound. A second cutting of the suckers or sprouts was ob- tained, but the indigo produced from it was of inferior quality. About one hundred and fifty pounds of indigo are said to have been produced to the hand. The whole process was of the most disgusting and dis- agreeable character. Myriads of flies were generated by it, which overspread the whole country. The plant itself, when growing, was infested by swarms of grass- hoppers, by which it was sometimes totally destroyed, and the fetor arising from the putrid weed thrown from the vats was intolerable. The drainings from these 138 AGRICULTURE. refuse accumulations into the adjacent streams killed the fish. Those in Second Creek, previously abounding in trout and perch, it is said were destroyed in this way. It is not surprising, therefore, that the cultivation of indigo was abandoned in a few years, and gave way to that of cotton, so remarkable for its freedom from the disagreeable concomitants of tobacco and indigo culture, and comparatively so light, neat, and agreeable in its handling. THE COTTON PLANT, ITS ORIGIN AND YARIETIES, AND ITS ENEMIES AND DISEASES. The cotton plant, to which the generic term Gossypium has been applied by botanists, is of the order Pol^^andria, belonging to the Monadelphia class of plants.* Although comparatively of recent introduction here, the cotton plant was known in the earliest ages in the Old World. Herodotus describes the plant as " producing in the Indies a wool of finer and better quality than that of sheep." Pliny mentions certain "wool-bearing trees which were known in Upper Egypt, bearing a fruit like a gourd of the size of a quince, which, bursting when ripe, dis- plays a ball of downy wool from which are made costly garments resembling linen." At the commencement of the Christian era, it had become an article of commerce in the ports of the Red Sea; and the remote provinces of India had at that early period acquired a celebrity for their cotton fabrics. * See Plates III. and IV. AGRICULTURE. 139 The popular name Cotton, from the ItaUan Cotone, is said to be derived from its resemblance to the down which adheres to the quince, termed by the Italians Cotogni. Many varieties of the plant are described, and among them the perennial or tree cotton, which grows sponta- neously in Brazil and Peru. The annual herbaceous varieties, only, are those cultivated in the United States. The average height of the plant in land of medium quality, is about five feet. In a very fertile soil, it at- tains to double that height, whilst in one exhausted and sterile it becomes quite a dwarf. Its appearance somewhat resembles that of the ocra plant, but is much more branched, and the leaves less in size and of more uniform shape. The branches are long and jointed, occasionally bifur- cated, and bearing at each joint a boll or capsule con- taining the wool and seed. Each boll is accompanied by a broad indented leaf, springing from the same joint of the branch, resting upon a footstalk three or four inches in length. The woody fibre of the plant is white, spongy, and brittle, but is invested in a thick, brown epidermis, which is very pliant and tenacious. The root is tuberous, penetrating deeply into the sub- soil, and is thus less afl'ected by drought than most other plants. The blossom is cup-shaped, two or three inches in length, never very widely expanded, white on the first day until past noon, then changing gradually to a red — closing, gradually, for the next day or two, with a twist at the extremity over the germ of the young boll, by which it is speedily detached in its rapid growth, when it withers and is cast off", leaving the boll invested by a 140 AGRICULTURE. capacious tripartite, dentate caljx, sufficiently large to inclose it until half grown. The calyx containing the germ of the flower is trian- gular in shape, and is technically known as the square, or form. In this stage of growth, these are liable to be disjointed and fall, from the long prevalence of drought; but more so when a rainy season suddenly suc- ceeds, occasioning a second growth from the rapid elabo- ration of sap, which in its circulation seems not to enter into the footstalk as freely as into other parts of the plant. The flower of the Sea Island cotton is, in its first stage, of a bright sulphur color, the boll small, trilobate, and more elongated, whilst the other varieties produce bolls of larger size, which open or divide into four and occasionally into five valves or cells. The cotton plant commences flowering about the first of June, and ceases about the first of November, when the plant is killed by the frost. The bolls are egg-shaped, rather under the size of the egg of the domestic fowl, pointed at the extremity, ex- panding widely when fully mature, exhibiting a brown tough, woody, membranous seed-vessel, somewhat horny in texture, to which the expanded locks of fibre or lint adhere. The culture of cotton was introduced into China about the thirteenth century, and has extended largely ; and the Nankin variety especially, produced there, has acquired a wide notoriety, forming a distinct fabric, which is even yet imported to some extent into the United States. In England, although among the last countries where its manufacture was introduced, it had becom.e well established at Manchester as earl}^ as 1640. In 1719, it was suggested that the climate of South i AGRICULTURE. 141 Carolina was favorable for its production, and the first Provincial Congress of that State, in 1775, "recom- mended to its people to raise cotton." Georgia is said, however, to have taken the lead in its cultivation ; yet the first shipment of cotton known was in 1784, when eight bags were seized by the custom- house officers at Liverpool, it not being credited that even the small quantity of two thousand pounds had been raised in the United States. Seed was introduced into Georgia from Jamaica and Pernambuco in 1786; but the cultivation of the Sea Island variety was not established until 1789. The Upland, or the Georgia (bowed cotton), was successfully introduced about the same time. Cotton was doubtless indigenous to America, having been found growing wild in Hispaniola and other West India Islands when discovered by Columbus ; and at the period of the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, the natives made "large webs, as delicate and fine as those of Holland." Their other cotton fabrics were varied and beautiful, and constituted their chief article of dress. When and from whence the plant was first introduced into Mississippi, is not certainly known, most probably by the early French colonists from St. Domingo, which was a touching point for the company's ships, and the place whence they derived much of their supplies. It would seem, indeed, that its cultivation here and in Louisiana on a small scale for domestic purposes pre- ceded that of Georgia. Charlevoix, on his visit to Natchez in 1722, saw the cotton plant growing in the garden of Sieur Le Noir, the company's clerk. Bienville states, in one of his dispatches, dated in April, 1735, that the cultivation of cotton proved ad- vantageous. 142 AGRICULTURE. It is stated by Major Stoddard to have been culti- vated in the colony in 1740; and Judge Martin quotes from a dispatch of Governor Vaudreuil, of 1746, to the French Minister, in which he mentions cotton among the articles received by the boats which came down annually from Illinois to New Orleans. This period is some thirty years prior to that in which it is claimed to have been cultivated in Georgia. Among the varieties of the cotton plant may be enumerated the Sea Island, the Upland, the Tennessee green seed, the Mexican, Pernambuco, Surinam, Deme- rara, Egyptian, &c. &c. The four first named are those which have been chiefly cultivated in Mississippi. The Sea Island is confined to a very few plantations on our seaboard. It is superior to all others in length and fineness of fibre, and is on that account in much request on the continent of Europe, for delicate and costly fabrics, such as laces, and for intermixture with silk goods ', it bears a high price, generally thrice as much as the best Uplands ; but, being necessarily prepared for market in the roller-gin, at a heavy cost of time and labor, and being more difficult to gather, is upon the whole not more profitable than the short staple. The Upland first cultivated here, difiers from the pre- ceding in the color of the blossom, the size and form of the boll or capsule, and in the length and fineness of the staple. Both have the smooth, black, naked seed. All other varieties seem to have a tendency to return to this by long-continued cultivation. The Tennessee cotton has a seed invested with a thick green down, adhering firmly to it. It is diflicult to gather, and superseded the latter, or black seed, for a AGRICULTURE. 143 few years, from its freedom from the rot — a disease with which the latter became infected. They both gave way in time to the Mexican, which is now itself chiefly cultivated, or is the basis of all the varieties now in favor. The superiority of the Mexican consists in its vigor- ous growth, the size of the boll and its free expansion affording a facility of gathering by which three times the quantity can be picked, as was formerly the case. The objections to it originally, and these have been in a great degree corrected, were the coarseness of the staple, and the loss sustained by its falling out, if not gathered speedily. Like the Tennessee, the seeds, although larger, are coated with a coarse, felt-like down, of a dingy white or brown color. - The Mexican seed is believed to have been first intro- duced by the late Walter Burling, of Natchez. It is related by some of our older citizens, who were well acquainted with him and the facts, that, when in the city of Mexico, where he was sent by General Wilk- inson, in 1806, on a mission connected with a threatened rupture between the two countries, in relation to our western boundary, he dined at the viceroy's table, and in the course of conversation on the products of the country, he requested permission to import some of the Mexican cotton seed — a request which was not granted, on the ground that it was forbidden by the Spanish government. But the yiceroy, over his wine, sportively accorded his free permission to take home with him as many Mexican dolls as he might fancy — a permission well understood, and which in the same vein was as freely accepted. The stuffing of these dolls is understood to have been cotton seed. Many accidental varieties have been introduced of late 144 AGRICULTUEE. years, originating in a promiscuous cultivation of differ- ent kinds, by which the pollen became intermixed, and the different qualities assimilated. Some new and excellent varieties have thus been pro- duced, which have been preserved and further improved by a careful and judicious selection of seed in the field. These, together with some spurious kinds, which have been palmed off upon the planter from time to time, have been known by rather whimsical and fantastic names, having little or no relation to their distinctive character. Many of them have had their day, whilst others deservedly maintain the high estimation to which their superior qualities entitle them. The diseases of the cotton plant are the rust, the rot, and the sore shins. The first is most probably attributable to the mineral properties of the soil, as it is local and partial in its effects J and on the spots of ground affected by it, the difference of soil is obvious to the eye. The appearance of the plant so diseased, suggests the existence of micro- scopic fungi, which exhaust, by their parasitic growth, the sap of the leaves, and cause them to wither and fall. The rot, or disease of the boll, has been assigned to various causes. The first external indication of its ap- proach is the appearance of an almost imperceptible puncture on the side, and generally near the base of the boll, surrounded by a slight discoloration or change of tint, presenting the semblance of a minute spot of grease — a character given it in the common conversation of planters, in speaking of the disease.* The most received opinion, and that best supported is, * See Plate VI. ^■ BT.rWn^- (hnirfif GEOLOGICAL STRATA See pa6e 2.07 B.L CWtllES OEL LN ROSCMTIIALS CROMO J.f»H P«IL lY. GEOLOGY. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Addressed, as the present report is, mainly to those engaged in agricultural pursuits — a class which, how- ever intelligent or educated, it is no disparagement to suppose, in common with many others, not deeply versed in the principles of geology, or conversant with its teachings— a familiar style, and an avoidance of technicalities as far as practicable, will obviously be regarded as most appropriate. Whilst scientific details will, therefore, in a great measure, be omitted, explanations will, to some extent, be unavoidable, which, to the well-read and practised geologist, would seem commonplace and unnecessary. This earth is not composed, as some may suppose, of a heterogeneous and chance agglomeration of rocks and minerals ; but these are found distributed through the different strata with an order and consistency that indi- cates design, and a conformity with fixed laws. These laws, properly understood, present the only safe guide to those who engage in exploring the earth's crust for its treasures. Apart from the speculations as to the composition of 208 GEOLOGY. the earth's centre, of which, practically, we know nothing, the investigations of geologists as to its exterior coating or crust, so far as it can be explored, have re- sulted in establishing, out of several different systems that have been proposed, certain principal divisions, separated by such striking differences of character as to be easily distinguished, and which for convenience it has been found desirable to adopt. These are composed of groups of allied or analogous strata, supposed to have been produced under similar circumstances and about the same epoch, and are desig- nated in general terms, as the Primary, the Secondary, and the Tertiary formations ; and, although they have become less adequate to represent the present state of geological knowledge, are sufficiently definite for the present purpose. The Primary is composed of the primitive, earliest existent, or Tiypogene rocks, so called, as being formed most remote from the surface. They are of a crystalline structure, and are referred to an igneous origin, and, so far as known, are desti- tute of organic remains, indicating a commencement anterior to that of animal or vegetable existence. The Secondary succeeds in the ascending order, and is composed of marine and fresh-water deposits. Arena- ceous, argillaceous, and calcareous rocks form the prin- cipal masses, and are associated with beds of chert, ironstone, and coal. The strata of this formation are characterized by innumerable organic remains of fish, mollusca, Crustacea, &c., belonging wholly to extinct species, and especially by numerous and gigantic forms of saurian reptiles, indicating that the portion of the earth which, during this period, had emerged above the surface of the waters, was too frequently subject to in- GEOLOGY. 209 undations and atmospheric irregularities to be occiipiedj to much extent, by a higher order of beings. With this period, also, two distinct assemblages of terrestrial plants appear to have flourished and become extinct, embracing the flora of the Carboniferous era. With the cretaceous system (including the Maestricht beds), which sometimes connects it with the succeeding formation, ends the series of deposits which are ranked as strata of the Secondary period of geology. The Tertiary formation comprehends all those varied stratiform deposits, more recent than the Secondary, which underlie the modern group, and are characterized by distinct species of fossil animals and plants ; present- ing the striking feature of repeated alternations of marine deposits and those of fresh water. During this period, there appears to have been a con- stantly increasing provision for the diffusion of animal life. Its most ancient deposits contain organic remains related to those of the Secondary period, and the most recent contain many existing species of animals asso- ciated with forms now extinct. Mr. Lyell has subdivided the Tertiary into the Eocine, the Meocine, and the older and the newer Plio- cene, founded on the relative proportions of the extinct and recent species of shells which they contain. In these divisions are found also the unconsolidated rocks, such as the sands, clays, and marls, as well as lignites and conglomerates. Above these principal divisions we have the Quater- nary, embracing the modern group " to which belong all those formations now completed, or in progress, upon the face of the earth or in its waters, which contain the remains of man, or of his works, or the remains of 14 210 GEOLOGY. plants or animals of existing species, unmixed with any that are extinct." Some geologists include under the Quaternary division some of the upper strata of the Tertiary; but in a more restricted and accepted sense, it will be used here to comprehend only the Post Pliocene deposits, and will include the modern diluvian or northern drift, which here separates the Modern group from the Tertiary ; the ferruginous sands and clays, presumed to have had a contemporaneous origin; the recent lacustrine marls, the series closing with the alluvium of the surface. The foregoing description will be better understood by referring to the section of geological strata represented in Plate IX., in w^hich, however, many of the subordinate strata, according to the different systems, have been omitted as not essential to the illustration. Although all the foregoing principal divisions or for- mations are found to exist in all the countries that have been geologically explored, it is not to be inferred that all the strata of which they are composed pervade the whole globe. Many of them, on the contrary, are absent in different countries, owing to the relative position of the earth's surface, and the distribution of land and water at the period of their deposition. They are repre- sented, therefore, in the order they assume in point of time, being governed by the mutations which the earth has undergone, and the paroxysms of upheaval and sub- sidence, more or less active and general, which, at remote and widely separated periods, have repeatedly occurred. But, although important strata, or even entire groups, may be missing or non-existent in some quarters, in none is their relative order inverted or transposed; but they maintain an undeviating succession consistent with the GEOLOGY. 211 period of their formation; and thus it is that all minerals are not to be found or expected alike in all situations, or where the strata to which they properly belong do not and cannot in the nature of things, exist. The thickness of all the strata taken collectively, as estimated on the section before referred to, Plate IX., amounts to several miles. Now, as the deepest shaft yet sunk into the earth in mining operations is said not greatly to exceed half a mile, it may be asked how it is that geologists have arrived at a knowledge of so much of the earth's crust as they claim to have acquired ? If the different strata had remained undisturbed in the position in which they were first deposited, we must have remained forever ignorant, not only of the character and thickness of these strata, but of their very exist- ence. But, in those great convulsions which the earth has undergone, in the upheaval of entire and lofty mountain ranges, the pre-existent and superincumbent strata have been tilted up, dislocated, and inclined with their edges to the surface, as is represented in the section Plate X., Figure 1. This section will illustrate the fact that, in travelling over a country that has been so convulsed, across the strata, or in a direction from A to B, the different strata will be passed over successively as they appear upon the surface. Now suppose that, along this distance, a series of natural sections, such as the channels of streams or ravines, should occur at different intervals, or that at the points C, D, E, wells or shafts should have been sunk, these several strata would be revealed, and the dip or angle of inclination, ascertained, and consequently the thickness of each or of the whole from B to F might be readily determined. 212 GEOLOGY. This is still more satisfactorily exhibited in the deeply- cut channels of rivers running in a direction transverse from that of the stra+a for many miles, which often occurs, by which the whole may be distinctly brought into view, in regular order, as represented in Plate X., Fig. 2. This is well exemplified in the Niagara River below the falls, as noticed by Mr. Lyell. Thus it is, by accumulating and collating such data, derived from various and distant quarters, aided also by the chemical composition of the rocks and their imbedded fossils, that our knowledge of the structure of the earth is acquired. The geological structure of this State embraces the Quaternary and Tertiary formations, and merely enters upon the higher strata of the Secondary, including, perhaps, the equivalents of the msestricht beds, and to a limited extent those of the Cretaceous group. The name of this group is derived from the chalk which, in Europe, constitutes its prominent feature. Here it is characterized by yellow, ferruginous, and green sands, and micaceous shales, associated with and replaced by limestones, approaching to a chalky aspect, but afford- ing neither real chalk nor flints. Its thickness has been estimated as varying from three hundred to six hundred feet. Its organic remains are nearly all marine, and are en- tirely distinct from those of the Tertiary above. The older rocks of th^ Secondary and those of the Primary formation are not found at all in the State, ex- cept in the transported fragmentary pebbles and boulders of the diluvium or northern drift. With these preliminary explanations, which could not be more briefly stated, and which, however familiar to many, may be essential to a general understanding of GEOLOGY. 213 the subject, I shall proceed to give a detailed statement of the rocks and minerals that have been observed, with reference to their character and position. LOESS, OR LOAM. A prominent and interesting feature, which distin- guishes the counties bordering upon the Mississippi below the Yazoo, is found in that considerable deposit superimposed on the diluvial gravel, and which enters into the more easterly range of counties only along the margins of the Homochitto, Big Black, and Yazoo Rivers. Its average width, on the east side of the Mississippi, does not exceed twelve miles, and it is not met with at all on the western side, at least below the high lands of Arkansas. In the escarpment of the Mississippi Bluffs, and in other natural sections, it is seen frequently of the thick- ness of fifty or sixty feet, thinning out as you recede from the river, until it is lost, and the red sands and pebbles on which it rests, appear upon the surface. European geologists describe it, under the name of Loess, or Lehm, "as an alluvial tertiary, sedimentary deposit, consisting of very fine, well-washed, yellow, calcareous loam, occurring over considerable tracts, and found reposing on every rock from the granite of Heidel- berg to the gravel on the plains of the Rhine." Here it has not the character of a local alluvium, and is probably due to the same causes that have spread the gravel and pebble deposits so widely over our surface. In March, 1846, being desirous of drawing the atten- tion of Mr. Lyell, then on a visit to this State, to this peculiar and interesting deposit, he accompanied me on ^14 GEOLOGY. an excursion to one of the large ravines in Adams County, wliere it is exposed to the depth at least of fifty feet. Speaking of the result of this examination, in his travels subsequently published, he remarks that "the resemblance between this loam and the fluviatile silt of the valley of the Rhine, generally called Loess, is most perfect." Its imbedded fossils are chiefly bleached helices or snail shells, together with mammalian remains, hereafter to be noticed in detail, under the head of the Palaeon- tology of the State. At every bluff on the Mississippi, from Fort Adams to the Yazoo, and in the hills in the rear, this loam is seen, and the roads leading into the interior cut into it deeply and expose it on every hand. On the declivities of the hills bordering the Yazoo, and its tributaries on the east, it is frequently seen and has been observed in the bluffs at Memphis, but much diminished in thickness of the deposit. Its highly calcareous properties, its abundance, distri- bution, and locality, entitle it to a further notice, which it will receive among our other Marls. SANDSTONE— DAVION ROCK. Among the few consolidated rocks which our Alluvio- Tertiary formations afford, susceptible of use as building materials, we have three or four varieties of limestones, and sandstones of as many aspects. The Davion Rock of Fort Adams is an argillo-silicious composition, of a dingy white color in the mass, contain- ing a small proportion of sand, cemented together and tinged by a brownish-red metallic oxide, which pervades GEOLOGY. 215 it in irregular and distorted veins, and which, forming the hardest portions of the mass, gives the weathered surface a very rough and nodular character. It is traced in a direction north of east, and is seen cropping out at the crossing of the Natchez and Wood- ville road, in Section 8, Township 2, Range 2 West. Beyond this, continuing in the same general direction, its character becomes gradually modified, being much more silicious and uniform in character, and freer from the oxide; the iron it contains consisting of an incon- siderable amount of pyrites, in small detached nodules. Occurring in considerable beds five or six miles north- east of Woodville, of a quality supposed to be suitable for building purposes, considerable tracts of the govern- ment lands on which it was situated were entered about twenty years since, and some quarries were opened, and the stone used to a small extent in Woodville and the vicinity. These quarries have never been regularly worked, and are now, from some cause, rarely resorted to. Crossing the Homochitto near Wilson's Ferry, the ledge is intersected by the Natchez and Liberty Road in Franklin County, on or near Section 47, Township 5, Range 1 E. The more compact and arenaceous portion of the stratum is here about three feet in thickness, with about the same thickness, above and below, of the more argillaceous and crumbling material, which, in wet weather, forms a very tenacious white pasty clay, ren- dering this a very formidable pass to the wagoners on the road, who have given to the ridge on which this ledge runs the name of the DeviVs Backbone. This rock seems not to be continuous or traceable more than ten or fifteen miles further in this direction, and is found of its best quality at Dixon's Quarry, Sec- tion 40, Township 6, Range 2 E., between Well's Creek 216 GEOLOGY. and Morgan's fork of the Homochitto. It was here that the stone used about the arches and for the lintels of the windows in the Catholic church in Natchez was ob- tained. GRAND GULF SANDSTONE. The next and only other point at which the sand- stone appears on the banks of the Mississippi, is at Grand Gulf in Claiborne County. Here it presents an entirely different aspect from that at Fort Adams. Specimens of this rock, superior in hardness to granite itself, have attracted the attention of mineralogists by its anomalous character, and resemblance to some of the primitive rocks, and the appearance which it sometimes presents of having been subjected to igneous action. It is variable in color and texture, many specimens having the appearance of aggregated grains of coarse, angular, black and bluish sand incorporated in a matrix of a white porcelain or enamel-like character, and ap- proaching to a fine brexia in its composition — a quality which has occasioned it to be spoken of frequently, in common parlance, SiS jpeirijied rock. The range of this rock is between the Big Black Eiver and the Bayou Pierre (on both sides of the latter in some localities), and extending eastwardly to the vicinity of Raymond and the Mississippi Springs, near which it occurs of a softer and more uniform character or texture, and from whence that employed in the basement and pavements of the State House at Jackson was obtained. It is still quarried for building purposes there, and at different points in its course. One house has been seen built wholly of it, obtained on the Bayou Pierre. GEOLOGY. 217 It has been found a convenient material for the foundations of houses and the construction of chimneys, and in early times it was frequently used in the neigh- borhood for mill-stones. The abutments of the new bridge at Grindstone Ford, on the Bayou Pierre, are built of it quarried on the spot, and at Grand Gulf it has been freely used in paving the streets or side-walks. This rock presents itself in mass in the escarpment of the bold promontory on the Mississippi, about a mile below the mouth of the Big Black River, and immedi- ately above the town of Grand Gulf, against which the current of the river sets in full force, and by which it is deflected by its effective resistance in such a manner as to create the extensive and formerly dangerous whirl- pool or eddy which gave name to the place. At many points within the scope I have mentioned, this rock crops out in the beds of the watercourses, and upon the sides of the ridges, exhibiting, as in that in the Mississippi bluff, such an identity of character as to in- duce me to characterize it wherever met with as the Grand Gulf rock. On the Tallahaly, a branch of the Bayou Pierre, near Colonel Dabney's, Township 4, Range 3 W., in Hinds County, it is abundant, and has been freely used for the foundations and chimneys of negro quarters in that neighborhood. At the Mississippi Springs, the attendant clays, or decomposed portions of the imperfectly formed rock, are very similar to those of the Backbone in Franklin County, before mentioned. The course of this ledge seems arrested at this point by the limestone intervening between it and Pearl River, and which seems to range from the lime quarry of Mr. 218 GEOLOGY. Marshall to that formerly worked by Mr. Long, about eight miles south of Jackson. The sandstone, it is presumable, takes a more southerly range, passes under Pearl Kiver into Eankin, where it probably forms the natural pavement which has attracted much notice as a supposed work of art. Slabs of this sandstone, very similar to those described in Rankin County, have been seen in considerable quan- tity, both detached, and resting in their native beds on the White Oak, a considerable tributary of the Bayou Pierre in Copiah County. These were about five inches in thickness, of a smooth even surface, separated into rather regular angular forms, the under side only being uneven and cellular, from rest- ing on the diluvial gravel on which it lies. Several extensive ranges of similar rock occur in Atala County, having a direction from N.E. to S.W. It is of more uniform texture, finer grit, and greatly harder and more durable, than that of any other deposit ob- served. Considerable quantities of massive sandstone is found near Rocky Ford in Pontotoc County, on- both sides of the Tallahatchie. Of the other sandstones noted, I have to mention that in the forks of the Chilly Creek in Section 35, Township 4, Range 1 E., in Tippah County. The rock designed for the Washington Monument, contributed by the State, was procured here, and sent to Natchez to be cut by the sculptor, Mr. E. Lyon, and rejected as too hard and cel- lular. It is a silicious coralline rock, of extreme hard- ness, partially agatized. From the description given me by Mr. Campbell, who was employed in getting it out, it was probably one of a group of houlders or erratic blocks, the whole not extending beyond a quarter sec- GEOLOGY. 219 tion. I learned, however, from Mr. Tucker, wlio lives in the neighborhood, that there is another similar group on another stream in the same vicinity. About a mile east of Ripley, in the same county, I was shown a small bed of calcareous sandstone containing a variety of shells, among them the turretella and cere- thium, the latter of a large size, the cavities of the shells being frequently filled with a drusy spar. It is rather cellular, occasioned by the decomposition of the fossils, and contains some minute shark's teeth. It is probably the rock spoken of by some as a species of the millstone grit. FERRTJGINOTIS SANDSTONE— IRON". The most generally distributed form of silicious rocks is the iron sandstone in its various conditions. From the thin plates or sheets resembling pot metal, to the coarser and more massive forms, it is met with in most parts of the State. In several of the counties where this rock is conve- nient and abundant, and in blocks of sufficient dimen- sions, it has been used for the base or foundation of the court-houses and other public buildings, and occasionally chimneys have been constructed of it. On some of the head branches of Coles Creek, in Adams County, it is seen in considerable quantities. In Pike County, it is found a short distance below Holmesville, forming a bluff bank on Bogue Chitto, piled up to the height of ten or twelve feet. In Leake County, the road leading to Columbus crosses a considerable ridge, on which it abounds, as it does also near De Kalb, in Kemper County. 220 GEOLOGY. It is seen in the eastern part of Lafayette County, on the road leading to Pontotoc. In Panola County, and in Tallahatchie County, it is of frequent occurrence. All the stone of this character, seen north of the Tal- lahatchie, exhibits more or less mica in its composition. The mica, not noticed south of this was also observed in the sands and clays in Marshall County. These are a few of the localities in which this Iron sandstone is most conspicuous. But I have nowhere met with it more massive and abundant than near Grenada in Yellobusha County. Some of the conical peaks of the hills are there covered or paved with it, in rounded mammillary and botroidal forms. Very frequently it occurs in the characters of a con- glomerate or pudding stone — a concrete formed of the rounded cherty pebbles of the drift, and either massive or in thin and widety spread sheets, the latter forming a species of hard pan, in which latter character it is found resting upon beds of Yellow Ochre, as at the base of the Natchez Bluffs, and again twelve miles below, at the White Cliffs on the Mississippi. At the latter point, this rock presents another cha- racter, and affords a rare exhibition of fulgorites on a magnificent scale; the tubes singly or grouped together in great masses, of large caliber and considerable length, resembling cannon or organ-pipes. These tubes, how- ever, are of many sizes, varying from an inch to a foot or more in diameter. A few miles north of Pdpley, in Tippah County, on a ridge where this ferruginous sandstone abounds, fulgo- rites, of a smaller size than those of the White Cliffs, are numerous, and appear to have been collected, with other GEOLOGY. 221 fragments of the rock, and piled up so as to form a mound supposed to be one of the monumental tumuli of the aborigineSj and similar in character to the Cairns of Scotland. The formation of these fulgorites has been attributed to lightning. Under favorable circumstances, these ferruginous con- glomerates are continually forming. An old horseshoe, or any scrap of iron cast by chance in coarse sand or gravel, particularly if intermixed with soil containing calcareous matter, soon forms a concrete, and illustrates the chemical affinity by which the particles coalesce. Iron, which enters largely into the composition of the matrix, at least, is one of the most generally diffused of all solid minerals. It forms a constituent part of many animal and vegetable substances, and is also deposited from chalybeate waters. And here, it may as well be mentioned in what other forms it is found to exist in the State. Besides the pisiform or argillaceous oxide occurring occasionally in certain soils in considerable amount, of no appreciable value, but rather a pernicious ingredient, injurious to most crops, the bog ore, which is attributed by mineralogists to vegetable depositions, exists in many situations, generally in the wet bottoms of watercourses, where the earth is of that whitish, tenacious description usually characterized as Crawfish land. It has been met with on the Amite, Pearl, and Leaf Rivers, and doubtless exists in many similar situations. That on Leaf River is said, by a gentleman practically ac- quainted with the subject, to compare favorably with similar ore worked in New Jersey. A mile or two west of the residence of Mr. Frederick Braugher, in Tippah County, a conglomerate or pudding- 222 GEOLOGY. stone occurs, composed wholly of pisiform iron. The nodules, formed of concentric layers, are of more than the ordinary size. Iron ore of different character, and of good quality, is said to be sufficiently abundant for profitable working, not far distant from De Kalb, on Section 34, Township 10, Kange 17 E., in Kemper County, on the Paticfaw. I have not yet had an opportunity of visiting the lo- cality, and my information in regard to it amounts to this : that, being considered by an experienced iron- master, as superior to that which he had worked in Tennessee, he purchased the land, and a company was chartered by the Legislature of this State for working the ore, some years since; but, from some cause not stated, the enterprise has not been carried into effect. A hydrated peroxide of iron termed limonite, is found in the talus of the Natchez Bluff. These limonites occur in round balls, or of more flat- tened ovoid forms, assuming sometimes varied and fan- tastic shapes. They rarely exceed five or six inches in diameter, and are generally much smaller. Whatever shape they may assume, or however irregular or con- torted, they are always hollow, the crust or shell in- closing either sands highly mineralized with sulphate of iron, or with ochrous earths generally of a red or yellow color, which impart a vivid tint to the interior surface of the shell. On one occasion, a crystal of gypsum, or selenite about two inches in diameter, was found in- closed in one of these. The exterior of the shell is generally of a rather dull brown, but the fracture ex- hibits a more lustrous and metallic aspect. These limonites are found in considerable numbers loose and detached, and are often in an entire condition GEOLOGY. 223 as well as in broken fragments, seen agglutinated to- gether, and forming with the associated pebbles, the composition of the conglomerate of the locality. LIMESTONE. Limestone is not known to make its appearance on the Mississippi but at one point. At Vicksburg, it presents itself in the channel of the small stream bordering the city on the north, and in the face of the bluff is traceable for half a mile or more above. The stratum appears to repose upon a yellow marl, and to be divided by it into three layers of some three feet each in thickness, the whole including the inter- vening marl, not exceeding ten feet. The lower member of the stratum, which is of a bluish tint, affords an excellent material of variable thickness, not exceeding a foot, perhaps, in blocks of any extent. The upper members consist of a yellowish, imper- fectly formed, and perishable rock of little value. This rock is seen occasionally from Vicksburg, exposed along the Walnut Hills to Haynes's Bluff, or Old Fort St. Peter's on the Yazoo Kiver, and probably extends higher. Towards the interior, it crosses Big Black Eiver, and crops out at Steward's quarry, on the Jackson and Vicksburg Railroad, on Section 28, Township 6, Range 2 W., in Hind's County, a few miles west of Clinton; also at Marshall's Quarry, on Section 17, Township 5, Range 1 W., near the Mississippi Springs. It occurs again at the former quarry of the late John 224 GEOLOGY. Long, near Pearl Eiver, eight or nine miles south of Jackson. A cut on the railroad between Jackson and Brandon, on the plantation of Mr. Chambers, in Rankin County, also exposes the lime-rock, not, however, as at Mar- shall's or Steward's quarries, or at Vicksburg, in a con- tinuous and connected stratum, but rather as a congeries of angular disjointed blocks, variable in size and form, and rarely of dimensions suitable for building purposes, but well adapted for burning into lime. (See Plate XL, Fig. 1.) Besides the extensive use made of this rock in paving the streets of Vicksburg, it has been quarried near St. Peter's and taken to Yazoo City. It is also used by the marble cutters in Vicksburg, for monumental tablets, as well as for lintels, door-sills and steps, being considered as equal to any other limestone of this formation in the United States, ordinarily used for these purposes. On the recommendation of the late Edwin Lyon, the sculptor at Natchez, founded on the examination of speci- mens submitted to him, a block intended for the National Monument has been obtained from Steward's quarry, for the Grand Lodge of Mississippi. At this quarry, also, the stone used by the contractors for the Lunatic Asylum, in the construction of that building, was obtained, being regarded as greatly supe- rior to the sandstone used in the State House. The rock at Marshall's is of equally good character, but the facilities of transportation not being equal to those at Steward's (situated immediately on the railroad), Mr. Marshall converts his into lime. In the further prosecution of the geological survey. GEOLOGY. 225 other beds of limestone, of equal value for building pur- poses, will doubtless be found in other quarters. Limestone of a different character, known commonly as the white, or rotten limestone, exists in immense de- posits, particularly in what is termed the prairie lands, in which it is met with frequently cropping out on the surface, but, from the deficiency of hardness, and an aptitude to decompose and fall to powder, by exposure to the atmosphere, is rather to be classed as an indurated marl, than a consolidated rock. Experiments in building have been made with some of the most compact and harder descriptions of this rock, which although readily cut into blocks in the moist state in the quarry by the ordinary cross-cut saw, was found to harden when properly dried, and some very imposing and extensive edifices were erected of it in St. Stephens, in Alabama, about the year 1818. It was found, how- ever, very liable to exfoliate and crumble from the effects of damp and frost. Whether this can be prevented, and if an exterior coating of hydraulic cement will remedy this defect, is perhaps, worthy of experiment. Less widely and more sparingly distributed, we find calcareous tufa, cla3^stones, or concretions, deposited by the calcareous, or hard water of some of our springs percolating through the marly soil. Of the latter character, in nodular or cylindrical forms, it is associated with all of our newer marls. Lime, in the form of a sulphate or selenite, has been revealed in the cut of the railroad near Clinton, in Hinds County, occurring in flattened crystals with pointed ends, sometimes several inches in diameter, and in vertical plates seaming the gypseous marl of the locality. Crystals of selenite have also been found ten or fifteen 15 226 GEOLOGY. feet below the surface, in digging cisterns, about half a mile northeast of the State House, in Jackson. At Ball Prairie, about six miles west, selenite is abun- dant on the surface. Agaric mineral, or mountain milk, occurs in the fissures and seams of all the lime-quarries before men- tioned, and when first exposed, is of the appearance and consistency of newly-mixed plaster of Paris in small portions, but soon acquires great hardness. CLAYS, OCHKEOUS EARTHS, AI^D SANDS. Considerable deposits of potter's clay are found in many situations. That in the bluff at Natchez, and at the White Cliffs, twelve miles below, where it is abundant, has been tested at a pottery in Natchez, and found to be of a superior quality. A pottery is in operation in Marshall County, and one was formely established at Brandon. There are doubt- less others in the State, there being no deficiency of material for their supply. A fine description of a very white plastic clay, of uni- form texture, and well adapted for modelling, is also found at the "White Cliffs, in Adams County, in Wilkin- son County, and elsewhere. A medallion, modelled by Mr. Lyon, the late sculptor, in Natchez, from a specimen furnished him, and which was obtained on the lands of Dr. Holt, in the suburbs of Woodville, is deposited in the State Cabinet at Jackson, with other specimens in the crude state, as well as seve- ral variegated and differently colored varieties obtained elsewhere. GEOLOGY. 227 Yellow ochre is also frequently found below the dilu- vial gravel, generally covered with a lamina of hard pan or thin crust of conglomerate, and sometimes con- taining iron in botroidal and dendritic forms. It occurs at the White Cliffs very pure and in large quantity, but is only exposed at extreme low water. During the embargo which preceded the war of 1812, two ships from Boston were loaded with it from that place. Used as a pigment, it combines readily with oil or water; and when burnt gives a lively red color. Oil the lands of Dr. White, Section 35, Township 3, Range 3 W, in Hinds County, my attention was called to a mineral earth occupying a spot of small extent on the surface, to which stock of all kinds resorted for the salts which it seems to contain, and which they lick or eat freely, and all with impunity except the hog, which is said to be destroyed by the use of it. Dr. White has observed that it has the effect of chang- ing the skin of the hog to a red color; that the carrion crow seems to reject the carcass, which resists putrefac- tion to a considerable degree, and dries up, and cures, as animal matter is said to do in some parts of Mexico. Other deposits of similar character have frequently been met with of limited extent. They are generally entirely destitute of vegetation, and in their natural state neither corn nor cotton will grow upon them. The application of cotton seed and a crop of pea vine renders them temporarily productive, and the growing crop, when so improved, has been observed to resist the drought in a remarkable degree. Many of our streams are characterized by the great deposit of fine white sand which they afford. Pearl, Leaf, and Chickasaw Rivers, in some parts of 228 GEOLOGY. their course, are of this character, as well as some of the minor streams in the western counties. The different branches of Cole's Creek, in the Counties of Jefferson and Adams, are remarkable in this respect ; and the crossing of them is rendered difficult and danger- ous after the occurrence of every freshet, in consequence of the extensive beds of quicksands in their channels. Sand for building purposes, is to some extent a mer- chantable commodity, and is supplied in New Orleans from Ellis Cliffs. These cliffs are some two miles or more in extent, and about two hundred feet high, presenting in some parts perpendicular sections of pure sand and clays. Boats continually ply from that point, and gangs of hands are continually engaged in loading fiats for the New Orleans market. One contract for sand from the White Cliffs, for the Custom-house in New Orleans, amounted to upwards of twenty-eight thousand dollars, and in this connection it may be mentioned that several boat-loads of pebble and conglomerate were obtained from the talus of the Natchez Bluffs for the foundation of the same building, and for that of the State House in Baton Rouge. Taking the State at large, the ferruginous sand depo- sits greatly predominate; they are seen on the Missis- sippi only at Fort Adams overlying the diluvial gravel. They spread widely over the County of Wilkinson, and are exposed in heavy deposits in every ravine or natural section, associated with the plastic clays, conglomerate, and gravel ; passing thence eastwardly through Amite, Pike, and Marion Counties. They can be traced almost uninterruptedly east of Pearl River from the sea-shore to the Tennessee line, intervening, as it were, between the prairie lands and Pa.bt 229 SECTION on BRANDON RAIL ROAD Plate Xli ^. Tig I. M B^ JT. Hg TIT P.RlVER Brandon SECTION from PEARL RIVER to BRANDON -] B.L CWAikCt oci. L NRottNTHAL'S CROMO LlTN. pHILUPf GEOLOGY. 229 the western alluvium. Sections on the railroad near Brandon are given in Plate XII., Figs. 2 and 3. It would be tedious and unnecessary to enumerate all the localities where these deposits have been encountered in force. The following are some of them : — On the shore of Lake Borgne a few miles west of Shieldsborough. In Hancock County, seventeen miles north of Habolochitto Bridge. In the northwest corner of Perry County, near Leaf River. In Marion County, west of Pearl River, four miles from Columbia. Near Col. Dabney's, Township 4, Range 3 W., Hinds County. Three miles east of Hooper's Ferry, on Pearl River, in Leake County, on the road to Tacinto Post-office. Near De Kalb, in Kemper County. About seven miles south of Macon, in Noxubee County. Near Grenada, Yellobusha County. Near Pontotoc, and a few miles west of Ripley, in Tippah County. In sinking wells at Oxford and other places, the sand encountered at some depth often presents delicate roseate and lilac tints. MARLS OR MINERAL FERTILIZERS. The term marl is often very vaguely applied by dif- ferent writers ; and the names variously given to the mineral substances sometimes used as renovators of the soil, do not always convey a clear idea of their distinctive character or properties. In Europe, a non-calcareous earth is used as clay- marl; and slate-marl, gypseous marl, bituminous or fetid marl, and variegated marl, &c., are frequently spoken of; the latter, a marbled earth containing sulphate of iron, and certainly very unfit to be used as a marl, however it may be called. 230 GEOLOGY. The green-sands of New Jersey, from being similarly applied, have come to be classed by many among the marls, although, when pure, possessing no calcareous properties. Shell marl seems too indefinite a term, as the marls of this character are various, and may belong either to the secondary or tertiary formations, or have a marine or fresh-water origin ; the marine shell-marls themselves differing essentially in their qualities. Properly speaking, marl consists of calcareous and argillaceous earth combined in various proportions ; and, as the former or latter prevails, so is it beneficially em- ployed on clays or sands. Mr. Ruffin, than whom no one is more familiar with the calcareous fertilizers of our country, and who from his close and extended observations both in Virginia and South Carolina, is the most competent authority on the subject, in view of the confusion which has existed, adopts, in his application of the term, " any compound or mixture of earths of which carbonate of lime in any form constitutes either the sole or chief value as manure, and is in such large proportion as to be of important value, and of which compound the mass is soft enough to be excavated and broken down with ordinary digging utensils." The application of marl as a stimulant of the soil, is of very ancient date, the use of it being mentioned by Pliny, and other ancient Latin writers, as highly benefi- cial in its effects; a.nd clays and marls have been long and extensively used for this purpose, in England and elsewhere. In the United States, marls have been freely applied in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia; and more recently, and to less extent, in South Carolina and other States. GEOLOGY. 231 In New Jersey,- the green-sand Marls, so called by Professor H. D. Rogers, have been in use for more than forty years. As the green-sand has been discovered to exist under "various geological relationships," besides those it pre- sents in New Jersey, as it does in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, and having recognized its ' presence in this State associated with the tertiary marls and the sulphate of lime, I am inclined to follow the example of Professor Eogers, in his report on the Geology of New Jersey, and to embrace those substances among our marls, giving the term a wider acceptation than that to which it is restricted by Mr. Ruffin, as not only locally more convenient, but as sanctioned by popular usage and understanding, as comprehending all those mineral substances or compounds, commonly applied to the soil with a view to its greater productiveness, and not re- quiring previous preparation, such as the burning to lime or grinding into plaster. I propose, therefore, for the present, and until further researches and developments may render a different ar- rangement expedient, to consider our Marls as consti- tuting the following varieties: — 1. Lake Marl. — That found in limited lakelike de- pressions; the beds of former lakes or ponds of an origin either preceding or subsequent to the diluvial period ; and which is characterized by the fresh-water shells, described under the head of Palseontology, in- cluding Planorbis, Cyclas, Paludinas, Lymnsea, &c. 2. Diluvial Marl, or the Loess ; a finely comminuted, pulverulent, silt-like loam, containing thirty per cent, or more of carbonate of lime, the shells, which are nu- merous, being exclusively terrestrial, embracing many species of helices or snails. 232 GEOLOGY. 3. Marine Marl — such, as that at Vicksburg — varying somewhat in character in different localities, but all in- cluding marine shells, with specific distinctions, but of allied genera. 4. Gypseous Marl — such as those near Clinton and Jackson, in Hinds County — containing crystallized gyp- sum or selenite, and resembling somewhat in appearance the chocolate-colored green-sand marls described in New Jersey. 5. The tertiary green-sand marl — as existing at Jack- son — containing an immense quantity of shells of the eocene period, differing from those at Vicksburg, and in- cluding species that are new and undescribed. 6. The Indurated Marl — the white or rotten limestone so called, found chiefly in the prairie region — of a pale blue color when first dug out in its moist state, below the surface, but which bleaches and crumbles to powder by exposure to atmospheric action. 7. The Cretaceous Marls of the Tombigbee and its tributaries, varying in character, and containing, in some of the beds, more or less green-sand, and charac- terized by fossils of the cretaceous group. It will be seen, in the chapter on analysis, that few of these marls have been chemically examined, and the reasons have before been stated. As yet, they have re- ceived little attention from our planters; and I can learn of very few experiments which have been made with them. As these will probably become of much value here- after, and exert an important influence upon the agri- cultural prosperity of the State, it will not be considered out of place to quote, from Professor Rogers's report on New Jersey, a description of some of the properties, and the value and effect of some of these marls in that GEOLOGY. 233 State, in order that those interested in the matter may be induced to introduce them into use here. Dr. Emmons, who was connected with the agricultural department of the New York survey, made analyses, several years since, of some of our marls sent him for that purpose, and in giving the results in his Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, published at Albany, he re- marks, "that from these examinations it would appear that the South is really rich in fertilizers, and that there is no necessity for her lands becoming poor and barren ; and of one of the specimens analyzed, he adds, that it will be found a valuable fertilizer, as it contains almost half the amount of potash which the green-sands of New Jersey do, that are so remarkable for giving fertility to the exhausted lands of that State." The improvement of the soil produced by the marls in New Jersey is said, by Professor Kogers, to be very permanent, changing the natural growth from Indian and other grasses to white clover. They have been very profusely applied in some parts of that State, one hundred loads or even more to the acre, being no unusual dressing. The chief value and usefulness of the green-sand is ascribed to the potash, which is always present and essential in some proportion to its composition. Its astonishing potency has been shown by the luxuriant harvests derived from fields wholly uncongenial to vege- tation, by the application of sea-beacJi sand, a substance still more arid than the soil itself, but which contained a very small proportion of the alkaline granules dis- seminated very sparingly through it. Twenty loads of marl per acre, may be regarded as a bountiful dressing, and marling at a cost of five dollars per acre has been considered equivalent in its effects to 234 GEOLOGY. the apjDlication of barnyard manure, at a cost of two hundred dollars. A marl is inentioned by Professor Kogers, as contain- ing less than sixty per cent, of green-sand, which had the disadvantage of a slight impregnation of sulphate of iron or copperas, and he states that the privilege of digging it at the pits sold readily at thirty-seven and a half cents per load. It was largely transported in wagons to a distance of twenty miles, and retailed at the rate of ten cents or more per bushel. In respect to calcareous marls, they generally require some time, after their application to land, to become effectual J they are best spread on the surface before winter, leaving them to be acted upon by the rain, frost, and air, before ploughing in. They are most advan- tageously applied to land when in grass, and are im- proved by repeated harrowing and rolling. They should be applied cautiously to clay lands. Sandy lands will bear a larger quantity. , Some consider that the best mode of using marls is to form a compost of it with alternate layers of stable- manure, or of marsh muck, peat, or other vegetable matter. In the application of marls, it is important to avoid those containing any astringent matter. Such are se- riously detrimental to the soil, and noxious to all vege- tation. This pernicious property may be distinguished by an acrid, inky taste, and by a white effloresence resembling frost which often overspreads the marl in dry weather when exposed for some time to the atmosphere ; this is generally sulphate of iron, derived from the decomposi- tion of pyrites in the associated clays. The intermixture of this deleterious inafredient in the GEOLOGY. 235 marl is very obvious in that of the eocene beds at Vicks- burgy as seen in the frosted surface of the detritus form- ing the talus of the bluffs above the city, denoting the presence of copperas or vitriol. These may, however, be neutralized by the intermix- ture, in the compost heap, of a small proportion, about one per cent., of newly burnt and caustic lime thoroughly disseminated through the mass. Those who desire to try the effects of marl upon their lands, and have had no experience in such matters, can- not do better than to consult Ruffin's Essay on Cal- careous Manures, and his Report on the Agriculture of South Carolina. His great experience, his extended research, and withal his long-continued and success- fully conducted experiments with the marls of Virginia, have caused him to be looked upon in the light of a public benefactor, and procured for him recently a very complimentary election as an honorary member of the United States Agricultural Society, in consideration, as it was flatteringly announced, " of the incalculable bene- fits conferred by him upon the whole farming interest of Virginia by his genius and industrj^" The indurated marl, generally known as the rotten limestone^ is described by Dr. Troost, the late eminent geologist of Tennessee, as " having an earthy appear- ance, interspersed with minute particles of mica and grains of green-sand sometimes so small as to be per- ceptible only by the aid of the meignifying glass. " It is soft, and, when exposed to atmospheric influ- ence, disintegrates, crumbles to dust, and forms a more or less plastic paste with water. " When properly mixed with soil, it is very beneficial to agriculture. Of this fact, the farmers of Pennsylvania are well convinced, and hundreds of loads are taken 236 GEOLOGY. from New Jersey where similar marl exists, to improve their farms. The same is the case with the farmers of Maryland, who send at great expense to the Eastern Shore for that substance." We possess inexhaustible stores of this marl in our State, but, the land being remarkable for its sterility where it most abounds and crops out upon the surface for want of the proper admixture of soil, it is not properly appreciated, or rather, it is regarded as a nuisance. Some of the railroads, now in progress in the eastern part of the State, will traverse the whole extent of this marl region, laying it open, and exposing it in every cutting where it is not already spread out upon the sur- face invitingly to view. When we reflect upon the great value of this material, applied in connection with the marsh muck, the pine straw, or the peat of the sandy flats of our southern border, is the expectation too extravagant that, at no remote period, we shall see the cars freighted with thou- sands of tons of this marl, wheeling it to the gulf shores to convert their arid wastes into garden spots of fertility and productiveness? COAL, OR LIGNITE. The great coal deposit lies between the two systems of rocks known as the Old and the New Ked sandstones, and the great mass of bituminous coal, susceptible of being profitably worked, is found below the latter. An inferior kind of non-bituminous coal, worked on the continent of Europe only to supply the local de- mand, is found in a newer group of rocks called the oolite. GEOLOGY. 237 Lignite, or wood coal, partially carbonized, belongs to the tertiary strata ; it is considered by some as an im- perfect coal, not yet mineralized ; whilst others doubt whether it ever becomes true coal. There are several kinds, variously known as Bovey Coal, Erdkohle, Moor Coal, &c. ; these generally burn with a flame, but neither swell nor cake like the true coal. The foregoing is the language of different writers on geology. With this knowledge, and a recurrence to the expla- natory remarks which introduced this division of the present report, and a reference to the geological section . (Plate IX.), an inference maybe drawn as to the proba- bility of discovering this mineral in the State, and as to its character and quality if found. In the reconnoisance that has so far been made. Lig- nite has been found in many situations, and satisfac- torily ascertained to exist in others ; but as yet with no results as to character or position contradicting or impairing the evidences of geological research or of past experience. I am aware that different expectations have been entertained, and it would assuredly be very agreeable to me to have it in my power to announce a different conclusion. The most considerable deposit of lignite, by far, which has come under my observation, is that at Vicksburg. This I had a favorable opportunity of examining on the 10th of October, 1852, owing to an unusually low stage of water in the Mississippi, it being rarely exposed to view. On that occasion, I measured five hundred yards on its surface, along the margin of the river, and obtained 238 GEOLOGY. specimens of it for the cabinets at Jackson and Oxford, where they may be seen. When quite moist or newly taken from the water, it is quite sooty in its character, soiling the hands equally as much, and its whole appearance seemed to answer the description of the Erdkohle of Werner. Dried in the shade, it loses the smutty property in a considera- ble degree, and becomes comparatively compact ; exposed in a moist state to the sun, it flakes off and falls to powder. The bed forms the base to the talus of the river bluffs, and is of course covered to within a short distance of the water's edge, or to that portion of it recently swept by the current of the river, with the detritus which crumbles from the sides of the bluff, consisting in the inferior portion of the mass, of a dark brown shaly clay, saturated with sulphate of iron, resulting from the decomposition of pyrites, the clay being so highly charged with the mineral as to exhibit in dry weather a white efflorescence on the surface, resembling frost. Sharks' teeth, large oyster shells, madrepores, and the eocene shells of the formation washed from the upper strata, are intermixed and imposed upon the shale. The thickness of the bed I had no means of ascer- taining, no excavation having been made; the outer edge terminates abruptly, and the perpendicular face is washed by the river, which flows along the margin to a great depth. I observe that the proprietor of this bed, who resides in Virginia, is making arrangements for sinking a shaft, and testing its quality. All the other beds of lignite which I have observed, or the existence of which I have ascertained, are of a more recent formation, and lie above the Eocene. • GEOLOGY. 239 That near the Big Black, Section 47, Township 13, Range 2 E., in Claiborne County, visited in June, 1852, reveals itself on the bluff bank of a small branch, about five feet above its bed, and some fifty feet below the general surface, filling a space of about two feet between two strata of the Grand Gulf sandstone. The horizontal range of its outcropping could not be traced more than thirty feet ; the deposit is quite compact, and has the appearance of decayed vegetable matter greatly com- pressed by the rock in which it is imbedded, and the superincumbent soil. Traces or impressions of water plants, or flags of in- ferior growth resembling blades of grass, are detected in it. The deposit on the lands of General Miles, near Clmla Lake, Section 7, Township 14, Range 1 E., in Holmes County, has been frequently spoken of by those who have seen it, and in favorable terms. I have not yet examined or procured specimens from it. In the same county, and not distant from this, is an- other bed on Funnigusha Creek, to the east of the cross- ing of the old road near Coconover's old stand. In Hinds County, Mr. Fairchilds informs me, that in sinking a well on Section 11, Township 4, Range 3 W"., he encountered a bed of considerable thickness, thirty- five feet below the surface. Similar deposits have been noticed by myself or others in the following localities : In Rankin County, near Partin's Ferry, on Pearl River. On Section 30, Township 11, Range 12 E., near Phila- delphia, Neshoba County. On Snow Creek, Section 7, Township 4, Range 1 E., seven miles south of Salem, in Tippah County; and at McElroy's mill on Turkey Creek, in Yellobusha County. Traces of lignite are also seen on the Homochitto, a 240 GEOLOGY. few miles south of Meadville; in a small branch about a mile northeast from the State House at Jackson; and in a cut on the railroad, near Brandon, Eankin County. (See Plate XII. Fig. 2.) IRON PYRITES, GOLD, COPPER, AND LEAD. How frequently the discovery of gold and other valu- able metals has been authoritatively announced in the State may be remembered, perhaps, by those who have practised upon the credulity of the community in the form of a newspaper hoax, calculated to create a sensa- tion for a time, and most conveniently fill a vacant cor- ner in a paper which dearth of news, or want of other matter may have left unoccupied. Last year, an imposing statement, which went the rounds in the public prints, sent some hundreds to the pine hills in Marion County, to search for an imaginary placer. Just now, another discovery is sprung — the scene, a little removed to the neighboring County of Jackson ; and the most unmistahdble signs of the existence of gold are given, even to the width of the vein and dip of the stratum. Vein rock, properly so called, is not to be found, in all probability, within two hundred miles of the locality, and the formation of the district consists of loose and unconsolidated sand-clay and gravel. However abundantly diluvial gold sands m.a.y possihli/ exist, the veins and the dip, at least, are purely imaginary. The introductory explanations which have before been given, and again referred to, in the case of coal, apply equally here. GEOLOGY. 241 Gold, silver, and copper belong properly to the pri- mary formation ; and the carboniferous limestone, that on which the coal measures repose, lying low down among the secondary strata, is the chief depository of lead. Gold, unlike silver, copper, or tin, is rarely met with in veins, but is disseminated in small quantities in the rocks in which it occurs, chiefly quartz. There is, therefore, but one deposit in the State, the diluvium or northern drift, in which any of these metals could be expected in the most limited and diffused parti- cles. Gold has been found in minute grains (exceedingly minute) in the quartose and agatized pebbles of that de- posit. Pyrites, that deceptive mineral which is generally found to be at the bottom of these reputed and delusive discoveries, is, on the contrary, generally diffused. It is found in rocks of all ages, and abundantly in those of the recent formations. It occurs in subglobular nodules in the cretaceous rocks, in the white limestone or indurated marl, the sandstone, and associated with the lignite of the tertiary. Its colors are chiefly bronze, brass yellow, and steel gray, and its structure is either capillary, cellular, hepa- tic, and radiated, of which latter character are the no- dules spoken of. Its composition is iron, 47.85, sulphur, 52.15; but as an iron ore, owing to the combination with the sulphur, it is worthless. That occurring in the primitive rocks contains a per- centage of gold sufficient to justify its separation, but in that of the recent formations gold is not to be expected. By different processes, sulphur, alum, and copperas are extracted from it; the two latter profitably, when 16 242 * GEOLOGY. found in large and convenient deposits; all the copperas of commerce, and much of the alum, being derived from this mineral. Exposed to the action of the atmosphere, it decomposes and falls to a black powder. The brilliant fracture of the nodular varieties, and their brassy or golden color, are well calculated to deceive the inexperienced, and it has, in consequence, received the popular sobriquet of ^^ fool's gold." When in charge of the Land Office, west of Pearl River, many years since, many tracts of the public lands were sold on the faith of this mineral; and frequently, when specimens brought to the office for exhibition were unwrapped, no little surprise was experienced by the deluded parties, to find the precious mineral reduced to a black powder, and the paper in which it was inclosed cor- roded and dropping into fragments from its caustic cha- racter. In June, 1852, it was stated, in a paper published in Louisiana, on the authority of a letter received there, " that a Mr. , living on Black Creek, in Marion County, had found a gold mine where he could get it hy the cartload, but concealed a knowledge of its locality. He was closely watched by numbers of people, but no clue had been obtained to guide them to the bed of trea- sure. It was further stated, that a company had left with the intention of camping out and searching for the gold." Happening to be at Columbia near the supposed local- ity two months after, I met with some of the persons interested in the discovery. The situation was still con- cealed, and supposing, as usual, the mineral found to be pyrites, stated my impression, and desired to examine a specimen, but none could be procured. GEOLOGY. Md All, I was informed, had been sent to the Mint at New Orleans, where I was assured it had been assayed and pronounced pure copper. • I learned, in conversation with different persons, who knew something of the matter, that the particles found v/ere of various sizes, from that of a small shot to that of the size and form of the "e^id of a mans thumbs It was said to have been picked out of the gravel on the side of a ridge, not in the bed of a creek. It had, it was said, the appearance of the droppings of melted metal, could be cut with the knife, was malleable, and emitted no sulphurous fumes in the furnace ; in short, had none of the distinguishing characters of pyrites. After the assay, the belief in gold was abandoned, and the copper hypothesis adopted. Some tradition of the neighborhood represented the discovery not to be a new one, and alluded to an old bell-maker of the vicinity, who, some twenty or thirty years before, had been in the practice of using it for the brazing of his bells. May these particles not have been the droppings from the brazier's furnace, of copper obtained in a more com- mercial way? A belief has been current in the country for more than forty years, that lead mines do exist in the State, and small fragments or cubes of galena have in that time been frequently picked up in various quarters. I have long been aware that such fragments have been found, associated with the Indian relics dispersed over the country and disin tombed from the burial-places of the aborigines, and have entertained the opinion, in com- mon with many others, that these were worn and re- garded to some extent in the light of amulets or orna- ments, and were buried among the cherished trinkets 244 GEOLOGY. and other articles of personal property, with the dead body, as has been the practice of savage nations. There is sufficient proof existing in the character of some of these relics, that the Indians once occupying this region, both the Mound-builders, and those of more modern tribes which succeeded them, had an intercourse with the primitive regions of Arkansas and Missouri, where the crystalline rocks and galena abound, and that some of these have been fashioned into articles of orna- ment for personal decoration. It has not been my fortune to encounter the galena in other circumstances than the foregoing, but evidence that I cannot discredit, as to its existence in many sit- uations in larger quantities than can be reasonably accounted for in this way, leads me to attribute its presence to diluvial action. If the first mode of transpor- tation is inadequate to account for it, none other than this seems to remain. A consideration of the force and energy of this agency, in connection with the northern drift or diluvium so called, hereafter treated of, and the materials unques- tionably borne hither by its power, will probably satisfy the most incredulous that it was adequate to transport all the lead that can be found in the State. This conjecture is strengthened by the fact that in those localities where it is said most to abound — that is, in Lawrence, Noxubbe, and Tippah counties — it is represented as occurring in intimate association with the cherty pebbles, the well-known detritus of the drift period. Among the localities in which the galena has been found may be instanced the White Cliffs, and St. Catherine, in Adams County; on the Bayou Pierre, in Claiborne County; near Lauderdale Springs; near Phila- GEOLOGY. 245 delphia, Neshoba County; in Lawrence County, twelve miles east of Monticello, on the head of Dry Creek; in Kemper County, Section 34, Township 10, Range 17 E., twelve miles from De Kalb; and in Tippah County, a few miles northwest from Ripley. DILUYIIJM, OR NORTHERN DRIFT. All diluvial action, of which we have evidence at different geological eras, was formerly referred to one violent and transitory period, and that attributed to the Noachian deluge ; and hence the term diluvium, which was first applied by Dr. Buckland to all the superficial beds of gravel, clay, and sand on the surface of the earth ; in the distribution and rapid accumulation of which, and the distinctive and foreign character of the materials deposited, we have proof of a violent irruption of water. Although this hypothesis has been long abandoned, and the theories once entertained in reference to the phenomena of drift greatly modified, the term is still retained, but usually coupled and connected with others, conforming more in their signification to the present views entertained on the subject. These deposits are referred to now as the Erratic block group, the Boulder formation, and the Northern drift, and are attributed to the most recent of the series of Cataclysms which have left their impress upon the globe. The enormous size of many of the erratic blocks and boulders, the astonishing distances the pebble and smaller detritus have been transported, the mode of their dis- tribution, and the eminences on the earth's surface which they have surmounted, indicate a force, or power em- 246 GEOLOGY* ployed in producing these effects, surpassing in energy any physical process now in action. Some, however, yet maintain a belief in a more tran- quil and gradual accumulation, by causes now operating with existing intensities. As there are doubtless many who have not investi- gated this subject very thoroughly, or have made them- selves familiar with the various theories that have been advanced, it may be as well to state that the transporta- tion of the materials composing the diluvial beds is now generally attributed to the combined action of ice and water. It has been said that investigations into the character of the drift have been too much neglected, and that the accumulation of facts connected with it, where circum- stances favor the examination, is highly desirable. Constituting an important and very interesting fea- ture in the geology of the State, the character, composi- tion, and distribution of the deposit will be here noticed. The reader can adopt his own hypothesis, as to its origin and the agent of transportation. These deposits include the clay, sand, and gravel, con- taining existing species of testacea, and the remains of extinct mammalia. The loam, or loess, before spoken of, and again re- ferred to as a diluvial marl, is of course embraced, as affording no proofs of long submergence, but on the con- trary many of rapid accumulation. This is evident in the character and dispersion of its fossils through the stratum, and in its homogeneous character ; for it is dif- ficult to suppose it to have preserved that aspect if formed by the inconceivably slow process of deposition as river silt ; a process, according to the calculation of eminent geologists, taking the ascertained rate of deposition of GEOLOGY. 247 the Mississippi River at the present day as the basis of the calculation, requiring tens of thousands of years to accomplish ; during the whole of which extended cycle, therefore, some dozen existing species of helices, which we find distributed from the lowest to the uppermost portions of the deposit, would seem to have constituted the almost exclusive fauna of the earth subject to have been drifted into it. It seems more reasonable to imagine it to have been swept from the surface of pre-existing land, teeming at the time, with these terrestrial testacea, by the drift with which it is found associated. Having no rocks in place here susceptible of retaining the scratching or grooving made by the moving block in passing over them, as in the more Northern States, and by which the direction of the drift has been determined, we have here to conjecture the course from the position of the ijossihle original localities of the transported detri- tus, and the direction of the mountain ranges from which they are supposed to be derived. In reference to the character of the small pebbles and boulders of the deposit, specimens of which were sent to Dr. Locke several years since, he remarked that they were very interesting, as tending to prove the wide dis- persion of the drift, many of them being identified with the rocks found in place by Dr. Owen and himself in the survey of Iowa and Wisconsin. It is probable, however, that we need not look so far for the primitive beds of these rocks if we suppose them to have pursued the usual course of diluvial currents, that is, a southeasterly direction. We may, perhaps, find their origin in those insulated mountain ranges, the Ozark Mountains and the Washita Hills in Arkansas and Missouri, distant two and three hundred miles only 248 GEOLOGY. in a direct line from the western border of our State, near our principal diluvial beds. This hypothesis is in accordance with facts at variance with the supposition of a more northern origin. Some of these are that the northern and northeastern counties of the State seem, in a great part, if not wholly, destitute of drift of the character of that of which I am treating. The channel of the Ohio River seems entirely without it, as is that of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Missouri to the vicinity of Memphis ; the character of all the gravel I have observed in the Ohio and in the Mississippi between the points mentioned, being of a calcareous or imperfectly formed argillaceous description ; whilst in the vicinity of Vicksburg and Natchez, and not extending below the White Cliffs, twelve miles only be- low the latter place, are found the heaviest deposits of the cherty and primitive formed diluvial gravel, and of the largest description in the whole course I have indicated. To the west, the lower Red River and Washita are des- titute of these deposits, near ShrevesjDort, on Red River ; and on the upper Washita, they are said to abound. Assuming Port Gibson as about midway, measuring across the stream, we shall find a nearly continuous belt, averaging some sixty miles in width, extending through the State in a southeasterly direction, widening or con- tracting occasionally in its course, and perhaps with some skips or interruptions, such as are to be expected in deposits of this nature. I am persuaded that the width of the stripe or belt may be traced through the State at the crossings of the eastern streams. Pearl, Leaf, and Chickasawhay Rivers. It is, however, in the character of the pebbles and boulders of the formation, if they may so be called, that the unmistakable evidences of its foreign origin are seen. GEOLOGY. 249 These consist, in great part, of that description of rock known as chert or hornstone, an impure flint, often con- taining, or bearing the impressions of, fossil shells or corals, but most usually of crinordeal forms, the separate joints or fragments of encrinital stems, the latter occur- ring frequently, separate from the matrix, in the character of pebbles, being wholly converted into the same cherty rock, or into a yellowish jasper, and in some instances, into Carnelian or Chalcedony. Associated with these are found the quartz rocks in various modifications, as ferruginous, milky, and limpid quartz ; jaspers, yellow, red, and banded, as well as the black variety known as Lydian Stone or touch- stone, together with several varieties or modifications of agates, chalcedony, and carnelian. Porphyry has been occasionally seen, but is rare. Among these are also found petrifactions of coral, shell, and wood in rare and varied conditions of mineral- ization, not merely silicified in the simple state, as ordi- narily seen, but often agatized, opalized, and converted into carnelian, jasper, and jet. As every particular regarding the character and com- position of the drift seems to be a desideratum, it may not perhaps be amiss to be more minute in these details. The chert and jasper pebbles, without possessing any very marked or determinate forms, are neither distinctly angular nor much rounded, although palpably water- worn ; the black variety, or Lydian Stone, is an exception, however, being generally somewhat flattened with rather smooth faces, but otherwise irregular in outline. The larger and coarser quartzose and jaspery agates, and^ in rather less degree, the carnelians, are variously contorted, the agates frequently of rough exterior, and many of both cellular. 250 GEOLOGY. The quartz pebbles, on the contrary, whether of the limpid, milky, or ferruginous varieties, uniformly occur in symmetrical convex disks, sometimes nearly circular, but most generally of an ovate form. The carnelians vary in color from the brown or sards to the white or chalcedony, but are generally of an amber or pale red, and rarely afford a facet over an inch square, although occurring sometimes three or four times as large. The sards are generally smooth, flat, and present a much larger surface, possessing a somewhat conchoidal fracture, and the edges are generally of unequal thick- ness. The finer varieties of agates are of a closer texture, and freer from flaws than the carnelians, being of the composition of chalcedony, striped with variously-colored veins, or concentric rings, and sometimes clouded, and are known as sard agates, or sardonyx, in contradistinc- tion to the larger and coarser kinds first mentioned, in which the crystalline quartz and jasper are generally combined in variable proportions. The sard agates are fully equal to the German or ori- ental agate in beauty and texture. All these varieties are susceptible, in the hands of the lapidary, of being formed into handsome gems. Many of them have been cut and polished, and are much ad- mired. As these pebbles have all been subjected to an equal degree of attrition, the ultimate variety of form is doubt- less owing to their distinctive crystalline structure. In illustration of the degree of force necessarily em- ployed in the transportation of the materials comprising the drift, it is proper perhaps to speak more definitely of their dimensions. GEOLOGY. 251 Blocks of chert, of cubical or angular forms, which have either not been rolled, or have, since their deposi- tion, been broken into these forms by their natural lines of fracture, are occasionally found measuring two cubic feet or more ; and a block of pure milk quartz weighing about ten pounds has been obtained. The largest boulder seen, was found six or seven miles north of Vicksburg, near the base of the range of bluffs known as the Walnut Hills. It is of a symmetrical, ovate form, very similar in shape to the ferruginous quartz pebbles before spoken of, and approaching them somewhat in mineral composition, and of somewhat greater convexity of form. It measures about three feet in length by more than two in its greatest transverse diameter; the weight being conjectured to be at least five hundred pounds. Another angular block of perhaps equal dimensions has been seen in another locality. The general limits of distribution of this drift have before been stated. The heaviest deposits that have come under my observation, both as to the extent of the beds and dimensions of the boulders, are those on Big Sand in Claiborne County, some twenty miles northeast- wardly from Port Gibson. This is exposed for several miles along the widely cut bed of the creek, and in several others in the vicinity, extending to and along the Bayou Pierre. Others, not much less considerable, are found on St. Catherine's Creek, near Washington, and on some of the small branches of Cole's Creek, in Adams and Jefferson Counties. An extensive gravel bar, extending over a surface of more than three hundred acres, is seen at Diamond Island, in the Mississippi, fifteen miles below Vicksburg. 252 GEOLOGY. Another^ of nearly half the extent, is seen at Natchez Island, six miles below the city. On a bar at the base of the Natchez Bluff, and on another in the Mississippi Eiver, about five miles below Kodney, considerable deposits are found, the latter only exposed at low water. On these river bars, the finest and largest of the sard agates and carnelians have been obtained. Many other extensive beds have been noticed more in the interior, but have not been much explored, and it is not necessary to specify others. Petrified wood has been spoken of as constituting some of the ingredients of the drift. I would not be under- stood, however, as referring it all to that origin. On the contrary, petrified wood is of very general occurrence over a large portion of the State, and will be further noticed under the head of Palaeontology, hereafter to be treated of. I incline to the belief, however, that the silicified palms or endogenous woods, which have so far been found only within a limited compass, not exceeding an area perhaps of ten miles in extent, are derived, like the boulders with which they are associated, from a foreign source. These endogens have all, more or less, a rounded water-worn character, and being confined, so far as yet observed, to a single locality, may have formed part of the freight of an extended ice-floe, which, grounding in that quarter, discharged its contents upon the surface. A variation in the character of the predominating rock or fossils composing the beds of drift in different locali- ties has been observed, suggesting a conclusion that separate fields of ice, starting from various points, charged with the detritus of dissimilar formations, or GEOLOGY. 253 not wholly alike in their mineral characters, may, in the termination of their course, have thus distributed them. These palm woods differ both in their specific charac- ter and. in their forms of silicification. More than twenty species have been obtained, and constitute one of the most novel and interesting features in our palaeontology. Some of these are beautifully agatized, some converted into jet, and others into a fine, close-grained, fawn-colored jasper. Eounded, boulder-like masses of a foot in dimensions, and others of less diameter and eighteen inches in length, have been obtained. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to add that the drift is differently disposed, not merely in beds or depressions, but heaped up in elevated knolls or moraine-like ridges and positions, attributed by Sir Charles Lyell and other eminent geologists, to the lateral pressure of moving ice. These deposits always occur between the vegetable soil and the rocky strata of all ages, that constitute the geological basis of each section of country. To the north of St. Peter's, Nicolet found it overlying the primary rocks to the south, and on both sides of the Mississippi it covers siluvian rocks. On the upper Mis- souri it rests upon a cretaceous formation, and upon the tertiary. SPRINGS AND WELLS. The section of the State embracing the pine region is bountifully supplied with springs of pure freestone water; and in the southernmost counties water is also obtained in wells of such moderate depth that they are, for greater convenience, habitually used. 254 GEOLOGY. Twenty-five feet may be stated as the average depth at which permanent streams are attained in Amite, Pike, and Marion ; and on the flat lands nearer the sea- board, wells rarely exceed fifteen or twenty feet, the water being drawn by the pole and sweep. In the alluvial lands of the river counties, springs are much less common, though not entirely deficient, and well water is freely obtained at about sixty to eighty feet. In both, however, the M^ater, although cold and limpid, is highly impregnated with lime, and is termed hard water, as unsuitable for washing, and not much less so for culinary purposes. Being also regarded to some extent as unwholesome for drinking, cistern water has come into very general use, especially in towns and villages, as more salubrious. The wells at the University of Oxford were sixty to seventy feet deep, and afforded a plentiful supply of good water; but having failed in the spring of 1852 (attributed to the shock of an earthquake felt very per- ceptibly at that place on the 23d of January, 1852), another well was sunk in the June following, to the depth of 145 feet before water was obtained, the whole distance through coarse silicious sand, of various colors, with thin strata of white clay ; but no fossils were ob- tained. — [Dr, Millington.) Along the whole extent of the Yazoo and Talla- hatchee valleys, and the whole front below, on the Mis- sissippi, copious springs or subterranean streams issue from the base of the bluffs ; the water, however, flowing from beds of ochreous earths, and pyritous clays, is largely charged with sulphate of iron, and its habitual use is highly pernicious. The undermining effects of these streams, some of them GEOLOGY. 255 of considerable volume, issuing not much above the low- water level of the Mississippi, and washing out the beds of sand, through which they flow, have produced con- siderable basin-like subsidences, and occasioned a peculiar indented configuration of the bluff margin, such as a striking example is afforded of in the ^unch-howls just above Natchez. Where the tertiary strata are exposed, or approach near the surface, as in portions of Hinds, Madison, and other middle counties, springs, at least such as are constant, are almost entirely absent ; but well-water is frequently obtained from twenty to thirty-five feet below the surface. If obtained at the greater depth of fifty to eighty feet, it is generally fetid and unfit for use, being derived from the black offensive muck of the tertiary strata. The shallow wells in use. are rarely permanent, seldom lasting more than a few years, when others are dug in situations previously experimented on with the auger. The water is evidently derived from the surface, per- colating through the upper strata to the pipe-clay and sand, which gives it, frequently, a somewhat turbid or milky appearance. An instance occurred, in the south- ern part of Hinds, where a fair quality of water was abundantly obtained at fifteen feet, within a few yards of the spot where a well had been recently sunk eighty feet to the black mud, and consequently abandoned. This black, fetid muck of the prairies, seems exten- sively dispersed, and has been encountered at various localities, from the vicinity of Oxford to that of Bran- don, at a depth of from fifty to eighty feet — a difference not greater, perhaps, than that of the inequalities of the 256 GEOLOGY. surface. The same may be said of the eastern part of Neshoba. The prairie district is lamentably deficient in good water. Where Artesian wells are impracticable, water is brought to an attainahle distance by boring. In Okolona, a boring has been made to the depth of 470 feet, which supplies a well sunk to the depth of ninety feet, the water rising to within seventy-five feet of the surface. In Noxubbe County, these borings are very numerous. They range from one hundred and fifteen to six hundred feet in depth, the water rising variously to from fifteen to eighty feet of the surface, to meet which, the wells are sunk to the requisite depth, from which the water has then to be elevated in the ordinary way, by the windlass. In one instance, water was brought to within three feet of the top, from a distance of three hundred and five feet; the boring was then continued to four hundred and forty-eight feet, but the water rose no higher. Cisterns are frequently excavated in the white-lime rock of the prairie, requiring no walling or cement, and supplied either by these borings or with rain-water. Tanks or ponds, for the supply of water for stock, have also been made in the rock, but, it is said, have not proved very reliable- Franklin Springs, situated at the head of Wells's Creek, of which it is the principal source, on Lot 5, Section 37, Township 7, Range 1 E., is the most noted natural object in the county of that name. This was the earliest resort, as a watering-place, in the State. Thirty-five years since, these springs enjoyed some reputation ; but as little improvement was made for the accommodation of visitors, and as they were not known GEOLOGY. 257 to possess any medicinal properties, they were supplanted by Columbia Springs, in Marion County, and for a long period had gone out of use. For two or three years past, they have again been attracting some attention, and buildings of a limited extent have been erected. The peculiarity of these springs consists in the volume of water forced upwards from a considerable depth, by an evidently great pressure. The pool or basin formed by the principal spring, is used as a bath. It may not be inaptly likened to a natural Artesian well, with a tube or perforation about four feet in diameter, which has not been fathomed. A person leaping into this with some force, may sink a short distance below the surface, but will be forcibly ejected. In a quiescent state, one cannot sink below the armpits. Poles twenty feet in length have been inserted in it, with no other apparent resistance than that pre- sented by the ascending column of water. The water is pure and limpid, but, owing to a quan- tity of decayed and finely comminuted vegetable matter, and sand held in suspension over the aperture, the vision can penetrate but a short distance into its depths. The temperature of the bath, with the thermometer plunged some distance below the surface, was 64° Fahrenheit. In the open air, before immersion, it stood at 72 degrees. As connected somewhat in character with these springs, and situated some eight miles below, near the stream of which they are the source, but on elevated pine lands, may be mentioned two wells (in the same county) about a mile or so distant from each other, in which, on penetrating a thin stratum of hard pan, the water in each instance rushed up with such violence, 17 258 . GEOLOGY. for a depth of forty feet, that the digger was extricated with difficulty. The water continued to stand at that elevation, and, although surrounded at no great distance by springs of pure freestone water, was so strongly impregnated with lime and iron as to be unfit for use. MINERAL WATERS. Mineral water is found in many parts of the State, and is generally sulphurous or chalybeate. Several springs have enjoyed for a time, a reputation which made them the resorts of fashion and pleasure, or attracted the invalid by the virtues attributed to them. The first of these, in point of notoriety and fashiona- ble resort, was Stoveall's Spring, near Columbia, Marion County, Section 24, Township 4, Range 19 W. The next in order were the Brandywine Springs, on the waters of the Bayou Pierre, about twenty miles east of Port Gibson, in Claiborne County. These, which were in high favor some twenty years since, as well as the Columbia Spring, were of sulphur water, and have long since ceased to be frequented, and the buildings, once familiar with gay and joyous throngs, have fallen to decay, and have nearly all been removed. The Mississippi Springs, formerly known as Bank- ston's, near Clinton, in Hinds County, next attracted attention. Extensive buildings, but of rather a tem- porary and perishable character, were erected, and the place enjoyed for several years a liberal patronage, until it was in a great degree supplanted by its more popular and widely known rival. Cooper's Well, distant only about two miles, on Section — , Township 5, Range 2 W. The water of this well has acquired a high GEOLOGY. 259 character for its curative effects in a certain class of diseases, and its reputation is attracting numbers afflicted with such disorders, even from distant States. The water is unhke any other hitherto discovered here, the chief ingredient being sulphate of lime. This well, situated in a cove, at the foot of a very high gravelly ridge, is 107 feet deep. A stratum of sandstone (found also on the surface) and one of con- glomerate or pudding-stone, were penetrated. The temperature of the water, ascertained by me in May, 1852, was 66° Fahrenheit, the mercury standing at 88° in the open air, before immersion. Dr. Smith, in his, analyses of the previous December, reports the temperature at 64° Fahrenheit ; that of the air being at the time 50 degrees; showing a difference of two degrees between winter and summer, owing, doubt- less, to the exposure to the different medium of the atmosphere of the surface, colder at one period and warmer at the other. Analyses of this water, and of such other mineral springs as could be procured, will be found under the proper head. Among others which have for some years past at- tracted many visitors, may be mentioned the Lauderdale Springs and the Artesian Springs of Madison County. Ocean Springs, , on the sea-shore near Baluxi, has the latest notoriety, being opened to visitors for the first time last summer, and seems likely to be much fre- quented as a summer resort. . There are many other mineral springs which have not yet come into general notice; some still unimproved, and known only to or frequented by persons in the immedi- ate neighborhood ; a mere mention of some of these will complete the list; among them are the reputed alum 260 GEOLOGY. springs of Madison, Marion, and Pike Counties; a white sulphur spring in Neshoba County; and the springs in Marshall and Lafayette, the properties of which I have not learned. ARTESIAN WELLS. Artesian wells, so called from the province of Artois, in France, where they are generally supposed to have been first constructed, are of such a description, that, by boring into the earth to the requisite depth, water is obtained on the surface or escapes from the orifice in a jet to a variable height above it, and this result is due to the principle that water will find its own level. Success, therefore, is not to be expected alike in all situations, and such borings are to be undertaken only in those formations, or under certain conditions of geolo- gical structure, in which the strata are so disposed in reference to their dip or inclination, and their character and consistency, as to render this practicable. Plate XI., Fig. 2, exhibits a section of such a stratifi- cation as answers these conditions. The whole series is seen so curved or inclined by some subterranean movement as to present a concave surface or basin-shaped structure: A represents a stratum of such consistency or character of rock as to retain the water falling on it, upon its surface ; B a stratum of sand and gravel, or of such other porous materials as will absorb the water which falls upon and is conducted into it by A, and which is prevented from rising above by the retentive strata of clay, or any impervious rock, represented by G. Borings from the surface, as at B Ej penetrating into the water-bearing stratum B, will Pa.0e 200 Plate XI ^ teSftlSiSilll' c F gisP'SSs^^^M^v " Zfi^ sa &s Vi6 I . J7IJ^e/i SECTIONo* PUBLIC WELL s^ COLUMBUS Kig (f . THEORy OF ARTESIAN WELLS 9«» pa ^« 2,60 • .l..C.WAtk,C« ttt L.N. ROSCHTNAL'S Cl»»»»0 LiTtI PiJl. » GEOLOGY. 261 afford an escape for the water through the superficial deposits D, to the surface, or to the level of its source, the water itself being the motive power, and the elevat- ing force being restrained or counteracted in the degree of the resistance the water encounters in passing through the strata, the weight of the column ejected, and the atmospheric pressure above the surface. It is obvious, therefore, that borings into A, in the direction of its outcropping, or into the basin itself, if it were filled with superficial deposits to a higher level than the source of the subterranean fountain, would not be attended with success. Other agencies may co-operate, it is true, in producing this efiect, as the carbonic acid gas, which, in its escape from its invaded sources, forces the water up with it. In the remarkable well at Kissingen, in Bavaria, a column of salt water, discharging one hundred cubic feet per minute, is thus ejected with such force as to elevate it fifty-eight feet above the surface from a depth of six- teen hundred and eighty feet. Similar efiects are produced by the same agency, but in a less stupendous degree, in the salt wells on the Ka- nawha, in Virginia; and in the sulphur well, bored in the bed of the Scioto River, near Columbus, Ohio ; the water is driven up with great force by its own gas, from a depth of two hundred and fifty feet. The Geysers, or intermittent hot springs of Iceland, afford another example of the elevation of water by natural means, the elevating agent in that case being the pent-up vapor generated by internal volcanic fires. The popular belief that Artesian wells are of very modern origin is unfounded, as, according to several ancient writers, they appear to have been known at an early age. 262 GEOLOGY. The well at Lillers, has been in use since the begin- ning of the twelfth centurj^, and has afforded, during a period of seven hundred years, a constant and undimi- nished supply of water. The wells at Elbeuf, Tours, and Rouen have, during a long period, been equally constant ; and the inference is that such fountains are inexhaustible. Until recently, the well at Grenelle, a suburb of Paris, was regarded as the most stupendous and successful experiment of the kind. Eight years were occupied in its construction. It is about eighteen hundred feet in depth, and affords about half a million of gallons of water in twenty-four hours. It is surpassed, however, by the salt well at Kissingen, before mentioned, which was commenced in 1832, and not completed until 1850. Its depth is 2,325 feet, and the cost of construction, including fixtures, exceeded thirty thousand dollars. In addition to those already mentioned, the most con- siderable undertakings of the kind in this country are the following: Belcher's Well, at St. Louis, Missouri, which, in April 1853, had attained the depth of 1,590 feet, the boring being still prosecuted day and night, by steam- power; and the well at Charleston, South Carolina, in which, in May 1853, more than a thousand feet of boring was accomplished, and the work was rapidly progress- ing. Ultimate success was anticipated. The geological structure of a considerable portion of Alabama and Mississippi also is favorable to these enter- prises. In the former State, there are said to be not less than five hundred of these wells, and their depth rarely ex- ceeds six hundred feet. In our own State, the number approaches, perhaps, GEOLOGY. 263 one hundred. In Lowndes County alone, there are more than thirty of these, chiefly on the east of the Tombig- bee River. Details as to the locality, depth, and volume of water discharged, &c., of a number of these, were obtained when on an excursion to that county. These are all of quite moderate depth, ranging from one hundred and fifteen to three hundred and seventy feet. The most remarkable of these is that formerly known as Bexley's, which, from the very inconsiderable depth of one hundred and ninety-six feet, throws up one hun- dred and sixty gallons per minute. The next, as regards the volume of water, is that of Fernande's, the depth being one hundred and ninety feet, and the discharge one hundred and fifteen gallons. The highest jet above the surface is fifteen feet, given by the wells of Jordan and Cannon. In the others enumerated, it ranges from three to five feet. The public well in Columbus is the deepest, being three hundred and seventy-one feet; it discharges thirty gallons per minute, four feet above the surface, the tem- perature of the water being 65° Fahr. From Dr. Spillman, of Columbus, to whom I am in- debted mainly for the foregoing details as to the wells in Lowndes County, and for other attentions, I derived the following particulars as to the stratification disclosed by the boring of the public well in Columbus; the Doctor being the only person, so far as I could learn, who had bestowed much intelligent observation on the subject in that quarter, or had taken note of such observations. The details were more minute, as furnished, than I have given them, but in the absence of similar observations in 264 GEOLOGY. reference to other wells, the omission of the minute divi- sions of the strata are unimportant. Artesian Well at Columbus. Stratum. Feet. A 50 Ferruginous clays and pebbles. B 160 Grreen-sand, composed of cblorite of iron, &c. C 83 Incoherent micaceous earth, of light ash color, with lig- nite and pyrites alternating. D 7 Hard brown-colored argillite. E 18 Fine ash-colored grit, with particles of mica. F 12 Yellow-colored hard argillaceous earth. G 28 Tough, brown, argillaceous earth, difficult to bore. H 13 Compact green-sand to water, temperature 65° Fahr. 371 feet. (See Plate XI., Fig. 1.) At Aberdeen, Monroe County, which is about six or seven miles west, and about twenty-four north of Colum- bus, the public Artesian well in the town is five hundred and twelve feet deep, and affords about ten gallons of water per minute. It is strongly chalybeate, imparting a deep copper tinge in a short time to the tin and earthen vessels in which it is kept. But few attempts have been made, I believe, at Arte- sian wells west of the dividing ridge between the waters of the Tombigbee and those of Pearl Kiver. About twenty-five years since, one was commenced in Natchez, in which, however, a moderate depth only was attained, the obstacle being, it is said, the quicksand en- countered — a difficulty which the undertaker had neither the experience nor the ingenuity to surmount. In 1848, the Eev. Mr. Lambuth, residing on Section 2, Township 7, Range 2 E., ten miles south of Canton, in Madison County, bored to the depth of two hundred and eighty feet, when, on penetrating through a sand- Pa^et6 5. Plate XIII v^ H J a B 1, C Waiifs e^S9 UWS VALVES Plate XV il J«1j JACKSON TERTIABY SHELLS CfomoLlth bjL «. (iosodthsl Phil, PLATE XYII. -SHELLS UNIVALVES, 1. Volutalithes dumosa. 2. ISTatica permunda, 3. Rostellaria extenta. 4. Caricella polita. 5. Mitra Millingtoni. 6. Scalaria nassuta. 1. Clavelith.es varicosa. 8. Teredo Mississippiensis. 9. Kostellaria {young). GEOLOGY. 289 Fossil Testacea of the Tertiary Green-sand MarVbed of Jachson, Miss. Determined and named by T. A, Conrad, Esq. BIVAIiVES. Astarte. Lamark. Astartfrparilis. Con, €a,rdita. Brug. Cardita planicosta. Lam. Cardita tetrica. Con. Cardiuui. Lin. Cardium Nicolleti. Con. Corltula. Brug. Corbula densata. Con. Corbula bicarinata. Con. €ra§§atella. Lam. Crassatella flexura. Co7i. GlOSSHS. Poll. Glossus filosus. Con. liCda. Schum. Leda multilineata. Con. Meretrix. Lam. Meretrix profunda. Con. Navicula. Blain. Navicula aspersa. Con. ©strea. Lin. Ostrea trigonalis. Con. ■ Pecten. Lin. Pecten nuperum. Con. MSJI^TIVAIiTE. Teredo. Lin. Teredo Mississippiensis. Con. IIJVIVAL.TES. Arclaitectomca. Bolton. Architectonica bellastriata. Con. Architectonica acuta. Con. Capulus. Mont. Capulus Americanus. Con. 19 Cypraea. Lin. Cyprsea fenestratis. Con. Cyprsea penguis. Con. Conus. Lin. Conus tortilus. Con. Caricella. Con. Caricella polita. Con. Caricella subaugulata. Con. Clavalitlies. Sivain. ClaTelithes humerosus. Go7i. Clavelithes varicosus. Con. Clavelithes Mississippiensis. Con. Gastridium. Sow. Gastridium vetustum. Con. Natica. Adan. Natica permunda. Con. Mitra. Hump. Mitra Millingtoni. Con. Mitra dumosa. Con. Morio. Morio Petersoni. Con. Pborus. 3Iont. Phorus reclusus. Con. Rosiellaria. Lam. Rostellaria vellata. Con. Rostellaria extenta. Con. Scalaria. Lam. Scalaria nassuta. Con. Strepsidiira. Swain. Stre]3sidura dumosa. Con. TrocE&ita. Schum. Trochita alta. Con. Usiabrella. Lam. Umbrella planulata. Con. Tolutalitlies. Su'ain. Volutalithes dumosa. Con. Volutalithes symmetrica. Con. 290 GEOLOGY. ANALYSIS. It is well known that some soils are, by nature, un- suited to the production of particular plants, even where climate and other conditions would favor their cultiva- tion, and that from other soils, originally prolific, the productive elements are continually abstracted in the course of tillage until, in the end, they become exhausted and sterile. It is the province of Agricultural Che- mistry, therefore, to determine the elements of plants derived from the earth in which they grow, and the presence or deficiency of those elements in the soils in which they are cultivated, in such manner as to make this knowledge available to the husbandman, and to in- struct him also in the chemical composition of the ma- nures, animal or mineral^; proper to be applied to supply the exhaustion, or to fit the otherwise unfruitful soil for his purpose. As to the practical value of analysis of soils as usually conducted, or the ability, in the present state of chemical knowledge, of determining those minute constituents in a soil — such as alkali or potash and, phosphoric acid — generally regarded as the greatest cause of fertility, eminent chemists are at issue, and, in our own country, many distinguished for high scientific attainments are found to agree with Boussingault, that we are much less interested in the chemical composition of the soil than in its mechanical mixture. But, whatever may be the differences of opinion as to the value of analysis of soils, and whether the benefits would justify the expense attending the minute and mul- tiplied chemical examinations required to impart a useful GEOLOGY. 291 knowledge of their properties, there can be none as to those of the marls or mineral fertilizers employed, as no one would be willing to apply an ingredient to his land which a simple test might prove to be not only unsuita- ble, but absolutely pernicious. In view of the general use into which they must come eventually, when their existence and value shall be better known, adequate analyses of all the varieties of marls which abound in the State are highly desirable. As yet, few have been made, and we are in a great degree left to conjecture their probable value and im- portance from the general aspect which they present, and from the character of the attendant fossils, as well as from the effects which similar substances Have pro- duced in other States where they have been extensively used. Such analyses as I have been able to procure of our marls, as well as those of the cotton plant and our mineral waters are here subjoined. Analysis of Lake Marl, Washington, Adams Coxmly. Insoluble silica ....... 17.44 Peroxide of iron 7.10 Carbonate of lime . . . • . . . 70.44 Potash . . . . . . . . . 3.64 Soda . . . . . • • • • .SB Magnesia , . , . « • • • .64 Soluble silica . . . . ... .a trace 99.62 "This will be found a valuable fertilizer; it contains almost half the amount of potash which the green-sands of New Jersey do." — January, 1847: Dr. Emmons. 292 GEOLOGY. Indurated Marl, or the Rotten Zdmestone of the Prairies, according to Dr. Troost. Carbonate of lime ....... 51.00 Earthy matter, insoluble in water, composed of green- sand and particles of white silvery mica . . 34.00 Carbonaceous matter ...... 2.00 Alumina, water, and loss . . . . . 13 00 100.00 " The particles of green-sand are very minute, and are only perceptible with the aid of the microscope." Composition of the Green-sand Marl of New Jersey. By Prof. H. D. Rogers. Silex . . . . ■ . . . . . 51.00 Protoxide of iron . . . . . . . 25.10 Alumina . . . . . . . . 7.50 Potash 9.30 Water 6.50 Lime ,......,. a trace 99.40 '^•'In a few instances, the deposits are a pure green- sand. The composition of the marl in a great number of instances is green-sand, clay, and quartzose sand j the green-sand varying from 35 to 95 per cent." Analyses of Green-sand oj ^ Tennessee. By Dr. Troost. Silica .... 48.00 45.30 51.70 Protoxide of iron 20.70 18.00 21.20 Alumina .... 7.00 6.20 6.50 Potash . . . 10.10 10.40 11.30 Carbonate of lime 5.70 10.80 2.00 Water . ... 8.00 8.50 7.30 Loss .... .50 .80 0.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 The foregoing analyses of the green-sand of Tennes- see will probably be found to assimilate more nearly to the lower green-sands of Mississippi. GEOLOGY. 293 Analysis of Cotton from the Santee in South Carolina. Made by Prof. Shepard. COTTON WOOL. Carbonate of potassa . . . . . . 44.19 Phosphate of lime, with traces of magnesia 25.44 Carbonate of lime 8.87 Carbonate of magnesia ..... 6.85 Silica 4.12 Alumina, probably accidental .... 1.40 Sulphate of potassa ...... 2.70 Chlorite of potassium Chloride of magnesia Sulphate of lime ' and loss . 6.43 Phosphate of potassa Oxalic lime in minute traces COTTON SEED. Phosphat^e of lime, with traces of magnesia Phosphate of potassa, with traces of soda Sulphate of potassa Silica . . . Carbonate of lime . Carbonate of magnesia Chloride of potassium Carbonate of potassa Sulphate of lime Sulphate of magnesia ^ and loss Alumina and oxides of iron Manganese in traces Analysis of the Fibre of Sea Island Cotton. Carbonate of potash Muriate of potash . Sulphate of potash Phosphate of lime Carbonate of lime Phosphate of magnesia Peroxide of iron Alumina a trace, and loss ByDr 100.00 61.64 31.51 2.55 1.74 .41 .26 .25 1.64 100.00 . Ure. 44.08 9.09 9.03 9.00 10.06 8.04 3.00 5.00 100.00 294 GEOLOGT • Analysis of Cotton Stalk. By Dr. J. Lawrence Smith. Lime . 303.00 Potash 243.00 Phosphoric acid . 91.00 Magnesia 58.00 Oxide of iron 4.00 Sulphuric acid . 13.00 Chlorine 8.00 Carbonic acid 270.00 Sand . 5.00 995.00 Analysis of the Ash of a Cotton Stalk, of the Mexican Variety, grown on the Mississippi near Bruinshurg. Made, at the Yale Analytical Laboratory, by Orange Judd. Potash 29.58 Lime Magnesia Chlorine Phosphoric acid Sulphuric acid Silica 24.34 3.73 .65 34.92 3.54 3.24 100.00 Analysis of the Water of Coope7''s Well, Hinds County, 3Iississij>pi. By David Stewart, M. D. REACTION ACIDS. Specific gravity, 1004.3. Solid contents of one gallon, 150.2 grains. COMPOSED OE IODINE, AS — Hydriodate of potash. " of soda. " of lime. " of magnesia. Hydrochlorate of iron. Hydrochlorate of lime. " of magnesia. Sulphate of soda. " of potash. " of magnesia. GASEOUS CONTENTS. Sulphuretted hydrogen. Carbonic acid. Nitrogen. GEOLOGY. 295 Chemical Examination of Cooper's Well Water, Hinds County. By Dr. J. Lawrence Smith. Made December, 1851. Temperature, 64° Fahr., the air being at 50°. Taste, not unpleasant. Odor, little or none. Color, transparent, with small yellow flakes floating on it. Specific gravity, 1.00147. Gras contained in one wine gallon, in cubic inches : — Oxygen . . . ... . . 1.05 Nitrogen . ... . . . , 4.05 Carbonic acid .... . . . 4.00 Solid contents of one gallon, 105 grains, composed as follows: — Sulphate of soda . 11.705 Sulphate of magnesia Sulphate of lime . Sulphate of potash Sulphate of alumina Chloride of sodium Chloride of calcium Chloride of magnesium Peroxide of iron . Crenate of lime . Silica . 23.280 42.122 .608 6.120 8.360 4.322 3.480 3.352 .311 1.801 105.471 The deposit which collects in concentrating the water contains, in 100 grains — Water 38.00 Crenate of lime . . . . . . .2.00 Sulphate of lime 25.00 Peroxide of iron . 35.00 100.00 Analysis of the Water of Ocean Springs, near JBaluxi, in Jackson County, Miss. By J. Lawrence Smith, M. D. The water colorless, even when kept in bottles for a length of time, pro- vided the bottles be well corked; as soon as opened, the water begins to blacken, from a deposit of sulphur of iron; the odor of the water 296 GEOLOGY. is that of sulphuretted hydrogen, which the water contains in con- siderable quantity; the taste, that known to belong to this class of waters. Specific gravity, 1.00082. Gaseous contents in one gallon in grains : — Carbonic acid ....... 4.632 Sulphuretted hydrogen 481 Solid contents of one gallon in grains: — Chloride of sodium 47.770 Chloride of calcium . . . . . .3.882 Chloride of magnesia ...... 4.989 Protoxide of iron ...... 4.712 Iodine, a strong trace. Chloride of potassium, a trace. Organic matter, a trace. Alumina, a trace. The iron doubtless in combination with both the sulphuretted and car- bonic acid gases, the excess of the carbonic acid holding both these combinations in solution. Y. METEOROLOGY. As introductory to the subjoined meteorological tables, it may be remarked that here, as in other and older States, few are found who have made such observations, or have persevered in them for a long period. The tables of the late Dr. Henry Tooley, of Natchez, are perhaps the fullest, most continuous, and uninter- rupted, and extend through a greater period of time, than those of any other similar observations known to have been made in the State. Those given in this report were compiled, chiefly from the notes of Dr. Tooley, by Mr. G. L. C. Davis, for the Southern Mural Almanac, published by Mr. Affleck, in 1852, who is entitled to credit for thus preserving them. I am indebted to Dr. Coleman, of Jefferson County, and to Alexander H, Pegues, Esq., of Lafayette, for their observations made for several years past on the fall of rain, and to Mr. Oakley, of Jackson, for the use of his Meteorological Register, kept for the Smithsonian Institution; all of these will be found in the following pages, and will form interesting matter for reference. Other materials have been collected in relation to meteo- rology generally; but these, not being as full and com- plete as is desired, or as they can hereafter be made, will be reserved for a future report. 298 METEOROLOGY. I will only add, in answer to inquiries from abroad, that I have no authenticated instance of the fall of me- teoric iron or stone in the State. The past year (1853) has been a remarkable one for its atmospheric variations. An unusually late spring, of excessive drought, succeeded by profuse rains in the summer, occasioned an injury to the crops, for which the long-continued mild and favorable season for cotton picking could not make amends. In Adams County, so mild and genial was the latter part of the year, that the cotton continued to grow and blossom until the night of the 8th of December, when the first killing frost occurred. METEOROLOGY. 299 ■< 'ot o oco=otDooeot-it^-rt< lo lo t^ C5 o T-H -^ 00 t-; CO c-q COTjicOCOTlicd-^TlHiO CO d ^2 ■utua cqcooooot-iocqocoiocqcqiXJoooqoaJcooscooocD oi t-lt-l t-l^,-(.-l OlrHt-it-li-l t-it-( ,-lt-lt-l •j£-ia COCD05COOOOiOOa5'*CDCOOOOCOt-IQOCOCDCOCqC5CO-^0 CO 1^ li ^ PL. S •M"dt01-*O0i-*C500T-IC0t^l0OiOCDCO-*CO<:r>CD>-OCOCO ■WVQ §DCOt-llOC5CJ500Mt-iCDCDOTtHlOCOCOCOCDt-ICOt^<:DCslCD M^ lOCC>CDO-*0^lOO>0-*>OlO>OvniOlOCOrtOl.O >o PS P ->! ci H P< g ■^Tt!/T ico-*a505f^t— It— luocROi— iiOGOcDt-HooioiOt— it^coooaso -* + ^ |(M cq(M(MCO!Mt-HCOCO.-l(MCqO05CDt^l^l0C^i-lCDlOlO'^00Ort< r-i 1 o^cdcoiocd'*io>o-*i»ox)co>ou5<:di:diOi:dco o •UOOM 1 COi-IO3TtlCq 1 o •M"VQ cOt— (CDCDt— ICOt^lOCOCOOSOOit^lOOCOOlOmt— (t-(0-* t^ p S w •aiT/T 1 r^t~'*l05l:--'*t^0500(M^^(MCOOO^OOCDOOC<1030(MOO CO ^ ^ l-Ir^l^cDt^t— 00 •aTRrr 1 COkOt— iCO^COt^-^iOt— lOOi— IOOCOCOCo occooooooocooocooooooooooococococooooooocooococoooco Pi < cl-~-*OOOOOD050t^iO 00 ^1 gg •W 'if ■*t:^i0t-icqOi-i':Dt-i05lr^CDt-iiOC0C005C0t^l:^C!^C0C kC I o •M'TG 1 '*i:DCqcD0000O5t-ieOTt.COCOTtHO5COO5O5CDCOC lOCOt^COOTOt-ICqCOTfllOCOIt^COasOt-IC^ICOTtllOCDt^QOOJO cqcqc^lc— 1 ,— 1,_| ,_|,_|,_, •Sia CO IM -l'Mt-J(>],-ICOi-('-ICOCN]r-l(M C^C-t^t-*CCCDCDCDCOt^t^CDCOCOCOCOCDt--»CDCOCDCDCO CDlO lOCDt^OOOiOi-HiMCO-^IUScOt^COOTOi-lCqcC-^lOCCt^COOO CCDe— l^i-HCOOS-dHOCO CD OOCOt^l^t^l^t^COOOOOt^OOt^l^COl^OOOOCOOOl^COOOOO i-~ •uoo^ o lOOO-^OOOOCDOSLOOOCqCO o l^ t^ 00 t^ t^ t^ t^ t^ l^ l^ t^ t^ !>. 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