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A VIEW 
 
 THE SOIL AND CLIMATE 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
A VIEW 
 
 THE SOIL AND CLIMATE 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 
 
 WITH SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS 
 
 UPON FLORIDA ; ON THE FRENCH COLONIES ON THE MISSISSIPPI 
 AND OHIO, AND IN CANADA; AND ON THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES 
 OF AMERICA. 
 
 BY C. F. VOLNEY, 
 
 MEMBER OF THE CONSERVATIVE SENATE, ijfc. ijfc. 
 
 TRANSLATED, WITH OCCASIONAL REMARKS, 
 
 BY ctB. BROWN. 
 
 jFirii MAPS AjYD plates. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY J. COXRAD 8c CO PHILADELPHIA; M & J. CONRAD h CO. 
 BALTIMORE; RAPIN, CONRAD, & CO. WASHINGTON CITY; SOMERVELL 
 & CONRAD, PETERSBURG; AND BONSAL, CONRAD, & CO. NORFOLK. 
 
 PRINTED BY T. l^ G. PALMER, 116, HIGH STREET. 
 
 1804. 
 

 v\'>*^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE following work is the fruit of a 
 residence of three years in the United States, 
 which took place in circumstances widely differ- 
 ent from those of my residence, twenty years 
 ago, in Turkey. In the year 1783, I embarked 
 at Marseilles, with all the gaiety of heart, all the 
 cheerful and aspiring hopes natural to youth. 
 I exchanged, without regret, a land of plenty 
 and peace for a region of anarchy and desola- 
 tion, actuated merely by a thirst of useful know- 
 ledge, and a desire to employ the restless and 
 inquisitive period of youth, in making provision 
 for the consolation and embellishment of ajre. 
 In the year 1795, I embarked at Havre for 
 America, with all the dreary feelings that flow 
 from the observation and experience of perse- 
 cution and injustice. Saddened by the past, 
 
VI 
 
 anxious for the future, I set out for a land of 
 freedom, to discover whether hberty, which v/as 
 banished from Europe, had really found a place 
 of refuge in any other part of the world. 
 
 In this frame of mind, I visited almost every 
 part of the United States, studying the climate, 
 tiie laws, the people, and their manners, chiefly 
 in the relations of social and domestic life; and 
 such was the contrast which the scene before 
 me bore to that which I had left, that I resolved 
 to make it my future residence. France, and 
 indeed Europe in general, presented to my view 
 nothing but a gloomy and tempestuous pros- 
 pect ; a series of endless and obstinate wars, 
 between expiring prejudices and new-born know- 
 ledge, between antiquated privileges and popu- 
 lar claims. Here I beheld nothing but a splendid 
 prospect of future peace and happiness, flowing 
 from the wide extent of improveable territory; 
 from the facility of procuring property in land ; 
 from the necessity and the profits of labour; 
 from the liberty of action and industry ; and from 
 the equity of the government, a virtue which it 
 owes to its very weakness. Here, therefore, I 
 resolved to remain, when, in the spring of 1798, 
 there broke out so violent an animosity against 
 
Vll 
 
 France, and a war seemed so inevitable, that I 
 was obliged to withdraw from the scene. 
 
 I might here complain of the violent and pub- 
 lic attacks made upon my character, with the 
 connivance, or at the instigation of a certain emi- 
 nent personage, during the last days of my resi- 
 dence in America ; but the election of 1801 has 
 reversed the scene that took place in 1797, and 
 is to me an ample atonement for all that I have 
 suffered. I cannot, however, forbear dwelling 
 on the folly of the suspicions with which I was 
 loaded. I was stigmatized as the emissary of a 
 government, whose axe was continually falling 
 on the necks of those whose conduct and opi- 
 nions resembled mine. They fancied that I was 
 engaged in a conspiracy (me, a single solitary 
 Frenchman) to throw Louisiana into the hands 
 of the directory, which, at that time, had scarcely 
 an existence, in defiance of the testimony of a 
 thousand witnesses, the most respectable in Ken- 
 tucky, as well as in Pennsylvania and Virginia, 
 who knew my sentiments to be entirely hostile 
 to such a transfer of territory. They knew that 
 I regarded the scheme as visionary and delusive, 
 and dreaded it as tending to embroil us with the 
 United States, and to strengthen their bias to- 
 
viu 
 
 wards England. It was well known to be my 
 opinion, that its settlement would be expensive 
 and precarious, its defence difficult, on account 
 oF our languishing marine, and the instability of 
 our government ; and that it could not fail^ 
 sooner or later, of blending itself with the nation 
 contiguous to it, and which alone possesses the 
 adequate means of governing, peopling, and de- 
 fending it. These notions, so contrary to those 
 of most of our ministers and statesmen, exposed 
 me to their hatred, and almost to their persecu- 
 tion. Nevertheless I continued to maintain 
 them wiien there was no small danger in doing 
 so ; for which I may now take some credit to 
 myself, since these principles have since been 
 sanctioned and adopted by the highest autho- 
 rity. 
 
 My readers will doubtless be surprised when 
 they are informed that the ill-will of the first 
 magistrate, at a time when the great Washing- 
 tun gave me many public proofs of his esteem 
 and confidence, arose entirely from the vatiity 
 of authorships made sore by my objections to his 
 book on the constitutions of America. As a 
 man of reading and a stranger, often questioned 
 on the subject in a land of perfect liberty, I had 
 
IX 
 
 occasion to speak my sentiments before the au- 
 thor had been elevated to the highest office in 
 the government. Unkickily I concurred with 
 one of the best EngUsh critics, v\rho condemned 
 the book as a crude and inaccurate compilation, 
 and insinuated that it w^as written with some 
 secret purpose, which the course of future 
 events only could unfold. I ventured to sus- 
 pect that this purpose was the gaining, by this 
 national flattery, the popular favour and suf- 
 frages : when the prophecy was fulfilled, the 
 prophet was not forgotten. 
 
 On my return to France, I conceived the de- 
 sign of a work as advantageous to my country- 
 men, as it would be useful to myself; which was 
 that of comparing my own observations and 
 reflections with those already scattered through 
 various publications, in order to detect and re- 
 move some errors adopted in moments of enthu- 
 siasm. After laying a suitable foundation in an 
 examination of the climate and soil, I proposed, 
 agreeably to the most natural and instructive 
 method, to consider the numbers of the people, 
 their diffusion over the surface of their territory, 
 their distribution into classes and professions, 
 their manners as influenced by their actual situ- 
 
 b 
 
ation, and by the habits and prejudices derived 
 from their ancestors. By simply tracing their 
 history, laws, and language, I proposed to detect 
 the error of those who represent, as a sort of 
 new-born race, as an infant nation^ a mere med- 
 ley of adventurers from all parts of Europe, but 
 more especially from the three British kingdoms. 
 The composition of these worn out and motley 
 elements, into one political body, would have led 
 me to explain briefly the formation of each colo- 
 ny, to pourtray their founders, to analize those 
 early principles, which have run through all 
 their institutions, and which exemplify the com- 
 mon observation, that early habits and impres- 
 sions modify the whole existence of collective 
 bodies, as well as of individuals. We should 
 thus have discovered the sources of that diver- 
 sity, which grows daily more conspicuous in the 
 character and conduct of the different parts of 
 the union. 
 
 In a brief review of the circumstances attend- 
 ing the claim of independence, many new remarks 
 would have been suggested as to its real nature 
 and consequences. Many striking resemblances 
 would have presented themselves between the 
 American and French revolutions, which have 
 
XI 
 
 hitherto escaped superficial observers. In the 
 motives and conduct of parties, and the means 
 they used, we discover a manifest resemblance. 
 There will appear the same fluctuation of views 
 and interests, the same ultimate decline of pub- 
 lic spirit. Even in the character of the three 
 successive national assemblies, both nations pre- 
 sent the same picture ; the first of these having 
 outstripped, and the last having fallen short of 
 the knowledge and improvements of a whole ge- 
 neration. ■ We shall one day learn that the great 
 national commotions called revolutions^ are not 
 so much the creatures of prudence and design, 
 as mechanical effects produced by the impulse 
 and collision of the passions. \ 
 
 In discussing the events, so little known, of 
 the period that elapsed from the revolution to 
 the establishment of the federal government, I 
 should have shown in what manner the national 
 character was influenced by that season of dis- 
 order ; the changes in public opinion, wrought 
 by an inundation of returning royalists, and of 
 mercantile adventurers from Europe ; the depra- 
 vity of manners and corruption of principles, 
 flowing from the creation of paper-money; the 
 weakness of the laws ; and from the transient 
 
xu 
 
 wealth and permanent luxury which the wars in 
 Europe poured into a neutral country. I should 
 have explained the influence of European wars 
 on the prosperity of these states ; the benefits 
 they have visibly acquired, in spite of their feeble 
 and disjointed government, from the last war ; 
 the obvious advancement of their power and am- 
 bition towards the West Indian isles and the 
 neighbouring continent ; and their probable 
 aggrandizement in future, notwithstanding their 
 internal factions and divisions. I should have 
 explained that disjunction of interests and views, 
 and contrariety of habits, which already separate 
 the eastern from the southern, the Atlantic from 
 the Mississippi states; the preponderance of the 
 mercantile interest in the one, and the agricultu- 
 ral in the other; the weakness of the soutb^ from 
 the prevalence of slavery ; and the strength of 
 the east^ the fruit of private freedom and indus- 
 try. I should have dwelt upon the grand source 
 of their divisions, in their jarring political 
 systems, which have split the nation into fede- 
 ralists and republicans; the former maintaining 
 the superiority of monarchical, or rather of des- 
 potic principles of government, over all others; 
 the necessity, in all governments, of an absolute 
 
XIU 
 
 and irresistible power, created by the headstrong 
 passions and incurable ignorance of the multi- 
 tude, and sanctioned by the example or experi- 
 ence of all nations ; a power raised upon a poll- 1 
 tico-religious foundation, like that claimed by the 
 Stuarts of England : the latter asserting that 
 absolute power is the primary source of national 
 vice and misery ; that those who exercise it are 
 exempt from none of the errors and passions of 
 their fellow- mortals, but, on the contrary, that it 
 manifestly tends to produce, diffuse, and perpe- 
 tuate these errors and these passions, both in 
 the master and the slave. Unlimited authority 
 always runs into tyranny and frenzy, and is the 
 parent of that popular corruption for which it is 
 the boasted antidote. If men are by nature de- J 
 generate and vicious, these evils can only be 
 corrected by reason and justice, and create a 
 stronger necessity for a wise and equitable go- 
 vernment, and this is attainable only by ardent 
 and general discussion and enquiry, by the 
 utmost freedom of consultation and opinion 
 among all who partake the same common nature. 
 In short, the doctrines of this party are contained 
 in the declaration of rights, on which the consti- 
 tution of the Umted States is built. 
 
XIV 
 
 I should have enquired into the consequences 
 to be dreaded from these dissentions : whether 
 the dismemberment of this vast body into a few 
 powerful parts would be as dangerous to the 
 general peace and safely as is commonly imagin- 
 ed ; whether liberty and energy be not impaired 
 by a combination so very compact and entire ; 
 whether a youthful nation may not be corrupted 
 by such profound security, such unvarying pros- 
 perity ; whether that yoiitbj which they are so 
 prone to attribute to their nation, be not more 
 strongly indicated by their lively and ambitious 
 hopes, than by their actual weakness ; and whe- 
 ther it does not chiefly appear in that insolence 
 and inexperience with which they greedily de- 
 vour the goods of fortune, and hearken to the 
 blandishments of flattery, 
 
 I should then have considered the conduct of 
 this people and their government, from 1783 to 
 1798, in a moral view, and should have proved, 
 by the plainest facts, that this conduct has not 
 been suhable to the magnitude of their numbers 
 and territory, to the importance of their situa- 
 tion and their duties ; that they have shown less 
 frugality and order in their expences, less integ- 
 rity in their transactions with strangers, less 
 
XV 
 
 public decency, less moderation and forbearance 
 in their factions, less discipline in their semina- 
 ries of education, than most of the old nations of 
 Europe. That what they are able to show of 
 meritorious and useful, what portion they have 
 of public or private security and liberty, they 
 principally owe to popular and individual habits, 
 to a casual equality of conditions, to the neces- 
 sity of diligence, and the high price given for 
 labour. That the character and principles of 
 their leaders have deplorably degenerated; that^ 
 in 1798, very little more was wanting to one of 
 the parties, but a suitable occasion and favour- 
 able means, in order to subvert the whole struc- 
 ture built up by their revolution. That they 
 are indebted, for their public and private pros- 
 perity, more to their remote and disconnected 
 situation, to their distance from powerful neigh- 
 bours and the theatre of war, to a lucky and for- 
 tuitous concurrence of events, than to the whole- 
 some vigour of their laws, or the wisdom and 
 discretion of their governors. 
 
 These will doubtless be thought very daring 
 assertions, after all the eulogies lavished on this 
 people by their own writers, and by those of 
 Europe, and after the motion made in congress, 
 
XVI 
 
 to decree that their nation is the wisest and most 
 enlightened upo?i earth*; but as censure does not 
 always flow from envy or malice, as undeserved 
 blame is less hurtful than unmerited praise, and 
 since I cannot now be suspected of resentful or 
 sinister motives, I might have ventured to utter 
 truths, which, though harsh, would not have 
 been denied by impartial readers ; particularly 
 as, in thus performing the office of a monitor, I 
 should have given my warmest applause to that 
 by which the United States is most gloriously 
 distinguished, the liberty of opinions and of the 
 press. 
 
 In viewing this country, as a refuge for French- 
 men, I should have delivered the dictates of ray 
 own experience and that of many of my country- 
 men, as to the resources and amusements which 
 our merchants and our wealthy idlers would 
 meet with in the cities, and what enjoyments the 
 country would afford them. It might appear 
 absurd, but I should not hesitate, to dissuade 
 my countrymen from following my own example. 
 The truth is, that, in this country, as many faci- 
 lities and benefits attend the settlement of the 
 
 * Where is the record of this motion to be ibund ? — Tuans. 
 
XVll 
 
 English, Scots, Germans, and even Hollanders, 
 from the resemblance that prevails between their 
 manners and habits and those of America, as 
 there are disadvantages and obstacles, flowing 
 from a contrariety in these respects, attending 
 natives of France. I have observed, with much 
 regret, none of that friendly and brotherly good- 
 will, in this people, towards us, with which some 
 writers have flattered us. On the contrary, they 
 appear to me to be strongly tinctured with the 
 old English prejudice and animosity against us; 
 a spirit exasperated by the ancient wars of Cana- 
 da; imperfectly suspended by their alliance with 
 us, during their rebellion; and revived, of late 
 years, with uncommon force, by the declamations 
 of their orators, by the addresses of their towns 
 and corporations to president Adams, on occa- 
 sion of the pillage suff"ered by their com.merce 
 from our privateers, and even by public exer- 
 cises and oratorical invectives in their colleges. 
 There is nothing in the social forms and habits 
 of the two nations that can make them coalesce. 
 They tax us with levity, loquacity, and folly ; 
 while we reproach them with coldness, reserve, 
 and haughty taciturnity ; with despising those 
 engaging and sedulous civilities, which v/e so 
 
 c 
 
XV 111 
 
 highly value, and the want of which are con- 
 strued by us into proofs of impoliteness in the 
 individual, or of barbarism in the whole society. 
 Yet the latter charges must have some founda- 
 tion, since they are often made by German and 
 English travellers, as well as by ourselves. I, 
 who had been already, by my residence among 
 the Turks, in a great measure delivered from 
 slavery to forms, was more disposed to scrutinize 
 the cause, than to repine at the effect, and to me 
 this national incivility appears to flow, less from 
 a proud or unsocial temper, than from the mu- 
 tual independence of each other, and the general 
 equality, as to fortune and condition, in which in- 
 dividuals in America are, for the most part, 
 placed. 
 
 Such was my plan : some branches of which 
 I have been able to accomplish, but my recent 
 engagements, both of a public and private na- 
 ture, will not permit me to complete the whole. 
 I have therefore resolved to publish at present 
 only that part of my work which may be de- 
 tached, without injury or mutilation, from the 
 entire performance. 
 
 In sending this work abroad, I am far from 
 indulging those sanguine hopes, which many 
 
XIX 
 
 readers may ascribe to me. The splendid suc- 
 cess of my Travels in Egypt^ so far from inspir- 
 ing me witii confidence, in the issue of similar 
 undertakings, contributes rather to a contrary 
 effect ; my present theme being much less diver- 
 sified and entertaining ; more grave, abstruse, 
 and scientific ; and there always being an abun- 
 dance of readers who feel and act like the Athe- 
 nian, whose voice was for punishment, merely 
 because he was tired of hearing Aristides called 
 the just. 
 
 I have sometimes even thought it most pru- 
 dent to write no more ; but I likewise reflected, 
 ! that to have once done well, affords no excuse 
 I for doing nothing the rest of our lives; that I 
 owe all the consolations I possessed in adversity 
 to books and study j and all the benefits of my 
 present situation to literature and the good opi- 
 nion of the liberal and ingenious. I offer them, 
 therefore, this last tribute of my gratitude, this 
 final testimony of my zeal for the advancement 
 of knowledge. 
 
 I have prepared myself, in what I have written 
 and published, to meet a great deal of obloquy 
 from the Americans themselves, whom their own 
 cause will inspire with zeal, and who make it 
 
XX 
 
 their favourite business to combat European 
 writers. They act as if they were the advocates 
 and avengers of their predecessors, the Indians. 
 Their zeal Ukewise is inflamed, by all those anti- 
 gallican prejudices, which are industrious in de- 
 crying every thing that comes from a nation of 
 atheists and jacobins : but time, which changes 
 every thing, will do justice to detraction as well 
 as flattery; and since I never pretended to be 
 infallible, I shall content myself with having 
 directed some attention, and cast some new light, 
 upon many subjects that have been hitherta 
 wholly overlooked. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACP:. 
 
 THE author of the following work first acquir- 
 ed distinction, in the reading world, by publishing 
 Travels in Syria and Egypt. In many respects this 
 work far exceeded, in accuracy and comprehensive- 
 ness, every former work on the same subject. It 
 was, however, secretly pervaded by a bias against the 
 natives of these countries, by a disposition to view 
 them in the worst light, and by a general persuasion 
 that these countries ought to be possessed by France. 
 With this view he was led to dwell more upon the 
 misery of the people, whom a revolution might bene- 
 fit, and more particularly on the folly and depravity 
 of their government, which would render them an 
 easy prey to invasion, than former travellers, who 
 had none of these prepossessions, had done. With 
 all the science and method, therefore, which that work 
 displays, are combined a great deal of error and mis- 
 
XXll 
 
 take, and they that wish to be acquainted with these 
 celebrated provinces, ought indeed by no means to 
 overlook, but still less ought they wholly to confine 
 their attention to Volney's account of them. 
 
 After a lapse of ten or fifteen years, Volney con- 
 ceived the design of visiting another hemisphere. 
 The rising states of America offered him not only 
 an object worthy of his curiosity, but a place of se- 
 cure asylum in a time of danger and distress. Ame- 
 rica was, to him, pretty much in the same situation 
 as Syria and Egypt had been. Former French tra- 
 vellers had brought back the most flattering pictures 
 of the people, their climate, and their government, 
 and the splendid success (as he himself styles it) of 
 his former work inspired him with new zeal to apply 
 the test of his wonderful sagacity to their fond delu- 
 sions, and reduce their exaggerated dreams and glow- 
 ing fancies to the standard of truth and good sense. 
 
 Fortunately for Volney, circumstances have pre- 
 vented him from publishing his observations on the 
 government and manners of the people. These are 
 topics, on which his prejudices as a Frenchman, and 
 as a vain and captious mortal, would have abundant 
 opportunity to show themselves, and in which he 
 would have been in perpetual danger of shocking the 
 prejudices of the people he described. lie has merely 
 
XXIU 
 
 confined himself to a review of the physical condition, 
 as to surface and climate, of the United States, and 
 to some remarks on the character and situation of 
 the aboriginal tribes. 
 
 Considered as a picture of the physical condition 
 of the country, as far as respects its surface and cli- 
 mate, it would by no means be its due praise to say 
 that it is the best and most complete that has hitherto 
 appeared, because there has hitherto been no general 
 description of the country in these points of view : 
 particular provinces have been described with a phi- 
 losophical accuracy, which is highly honourable to 
 the genius of our country, but the whole, and espe- 
 cially that portion of it which lies upon the Missis- 
 sippi and the lakes, had not been before subjected to 
 the same analysis. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no part of this work which will 
 be thought to be more inaccurately and superficially 
 executed, than that which relates to yellow fever and 
 the other diseases of America. By stepping into a 
 circle foreign to his own, and in which his education 
 and experience, notwithstanding his own opinion to 
 the contrary, by no means qualified him to walk, he 
 has exposed himself to much critical censure from 
 professional men. On this subject, indeed, he would, 
 for obvious reasons, have found it impossible to 
 
XXIV 
 
 please all : but, as it is, it is much to be suspected 
 that he has failed to please any. 
 
 The merit of a work ought to be estimated, not 
 only by comparison with what has been already done, 
 but by considering the means and situation of the au- 
 thor ; and surely uncommon praise is due to Volney, 
 for having produced a work so accurate and scientifi- 
 cal, almost wholly from the funds of his own obser- 
 vation, with so little assistance from former publica- 
 tions, in relation to a country of such vast extent, 
 and so much in the state of wilderness, and during 
 so short a residence. Instead of reproaching him 
 for the mistakes committed, we should grant him li- 
 beral applause for the truths he has attained. 
 
 But, while we pardon his errors, and deem them 
 amply atoned for by his merits, it is a duty which we 
 owe to the enlightened world, to our country, and 
 even to the vi^riter himself, to point out his mistakes. 
 The present translator has not only done this, as far 
 as his limited knowledge would permit, but he has 
 obtained, from one or two learned and ingenious 
 friends, some additional remarks upon the text. On 
 this head he is particularly indebted to Dr. B. S. 
 Barton, who has made the natural history of this part 
 of America, and the manners and dialects of the abo- 
 rigines, the objects of great and successful study. 
 
XXV 
 
 This gentleman's remarks are given in the form of 
 additional notes. 
 
 He has taken the liberty of somewhat extending 
 the quotations of his author from the work of Bernard 
 Romans upon Florida, because this writer may be 
 deemed almost unknown to the present age, because 
 his remarks are extremely judicious, and because the 
 country he speaks of is rapidly growing into an ob- 
 ject of extraordinary interest and curiosity to the peo- 
 ple of the United Stales. 
 
 As to the manner in which this translation has 
 been conducted, the writer has endeavoured to give 
 the meaning of his author, in the clearest, most faith- 
 ful, and most distinct manner. For this purpose he 
 has not thought it necessary to transfer the remarka- 
 ble verbosities of his original into his own perform- 
 ance. In two instances only he has more materially 
 deviated from the text of his original. In detailing 
 the history of Swedish and Norwegian winds, he has 
 omitted the parade and incumbrance of a private let- 
 ter, with which M, Volney thought proper to con- 
 nect his observations on that subject, and in all ther- 
 mometrical statements, he has turned the calculations 
 of Reaumur into the corresponding ones of Fahren- 
 heit, the latter being the only current and intelligible 
 
 5-vstem in Great Britain and America. 
 
 d 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chap. I. Extent and divisions of the United States 1 
 
 II. Face of the country - - g 
 
 1. General form _ _ 11 
 
 1. The Atlantic country _ J5 
 
 2. The western country - _ \j 
 
 3. The mountainous districi - 25 
 
 2. Interior structure - - 35 
 
 1. Granitic region _ £5^ 
 
 2. Sajid stone regio7i - _ ^-^ 
 
 3. Calcareous region . 4g 
 
 4. Region of sea sand - _ 55 
 
 5. Alluvial region _ eg 
 
 3. Lakes that have disafipeared _ 51 
 
 III. JViagara and other falls _ gQ 
 
 IV. Earthquakes and volcanoes - _ gj* 
 V. Of the climate - _ .^^ 
 
 VI. Of the winds . ,0., 
 
 1. Winds between north and east - 1J4 
 1. North-east wind _ me 
 
 2. South-east and south winds 
 1. South wind 
 
 3. South-west wind 
 
 4. Ofthegidfih stream 
 
 142 
 
 145 
 
 Mr 
 
 in 
 
 yil. Q/"r/i<? tiorth-vjest wind - " j ^^ 
 
XXVlll 
 
 Chap. VIII. United States comjiarecl with Eurofie, as to ivinds, 
 
 raifi, i3'c. - - 188 
 
 1. Quantity of rain in the United States 192 
 
 2. Evufioralion and dryness of the air 194 
 
 3. Electricity of the atmosphere - 198 
 
 IX. Lunar and solar influence on the winds and change 
 
 of iveathcr - - 201 
 
 X. Prevailing diseases in the United States 223 
 
 1. Catarrhs arid consumptions - ibid. 
 
 2. Tooth-ache and loss of teeth - 226 
 
 3. Intermittent fevers - - 229 
 
 4. The yellow fever - - 23r 
 
 SUPPLEMEjYT. 
 
 No. I. On the winds of Korway and Sweden - 26.J 
 
 II. On Florida and the work of Bernard Romans - 269 
 
 III. On Belknap's History ofJYew JIa?npshire, and Williams's 
 History of Vermont - - 317 
 
 1. Belkna/i's History _ _ - ibid. 
 
 2. Williams's History - - 320 
 
 IV. On Gallipolis, or the Scioto colony - - 322 
 V. On the French colonies on the Wabash^ isi'c. - 331 
 
 VI. On the Indians of Korth America - 352 
 
 VII. Vocabulary of the Miami language - - 429 
 
 Additional notes - - - 4U 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 Page 236, line 4, for ^as read acid. 
 
A VIEW 
 
 SOIL AND CLIMATE 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Extent and Geograjihical Divisions of the United States, 
 
 VV E may, in loose terms, describe the United 
 States as the region which occupies that part of North 
 America, which is bounded on the east by the Atlan- 
 tic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea and 
 Mexican Gulph, on the west by the great river of 
 Louisiana, and on the north by the river of Canada, 
 and the five great lakes which supply its stream. At 
 a time, when the advantages of natural barriers and 
 definite boundaries are so justly prized, we cannot 
 doubt that the above outline, so strong and distinct, 
 
will, sooner or later, be filled up*. At present, how- 
 ever, this outline is encroached upon, southward, by 
 the peninsula of East, and the maritime district of 
 West Florida, and on the north-east by the English 
 provinces of Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New 
 Brunswick, which take off a large portion of the 
 country contained between the river and the sea. 
 
 Its extent, from north to south, is equal to sixteen 
 degrees, it lying between the 31st and 47th degrees 
 of north latitude. It stretches, east and west, up- 
 wards of twenty-five degrees of longitude. The im- 
 mense square which these dimensions exhibit is con- 
 siderably curtailed, by the direction of the sea coast, 
 which moves diagonally from north-east to south- 
 west, and by the five lakes, which dip seven or eight 
 degrees within these limits to the north. The real 
 surface is thus diminished by more than a third. 
 
 Hutchins is the first geographer who, after the 
 peace of 1783, attempted to calculate the area of this 
 territory. He makes it amount to about a million of 
 English square miles. Agreeably to this statement, 
 its extent is nearly fourfold that of France, before the 
 
 * The recent addition of Louisiana has carried the western 
 limit far beyond the Mississippi, and embroiled it in a world of 
 unexplored deserts and thickets. This circumstance has aided 
 the imagination in its excursions into futur'.ty ; and instead of 
 anticipating the extension of this empire merely to the sea on the 
 south, and to the great river on the north, we miiy be sure that, 
 in no long time, it will stretch east and west from sea to sea, and 
 from the north pole to the Isthmus of Panama. — Tbans. 
 
revolution, or that of the great peninsula comprising 
 Spain and Portugal, and nearly seven times greater 
 than that of Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 The Americans delight in comparisons of this na- 
 ture ; and their vanity, suggesting golden dreams of 
 the future, is very apt to measure the importance of 
 foreign nations by this scale : but if we recollect that 
 this space contains scarcely ^=0^ millions of inhabitants, 
 of which number eight hundred thousand^ or one sixth, 
 are black slaves, and that even this number is, for 
 the most part, very widely and thinly scattered, we 
 shall discover, in this extent of territory, nothing but 
 a prolific source of present weakness and future dis- 
 union. Besides, Hutchins, who was unacquainted 
 with the sources of the Mississippi, and knew little 
 of the regions north of the Ohio, appears to have 
 computed too largely, and his estimate, though suffi- 
 ciently correct for my purpose, does not deserve that 
 implicit credit with which it has since been generally 
 received*. 
 
 If we compare the United States with the countries 
 of the eastern hemisphere, under parallel latitudes, 
 we shall find that the southern districts of the former, 
 Georgia and the Carolinas, correspond with the king- 
 dom of Morocco, and the whole northern coast of 
 Africa : and it is somewhat remarkable, that the Mis- 
 
 * I have seen, in Mr. Jefferson's hands, a letter from Hutchins, 
 dated February 11th, 1784, which acknowledges considerable 
 errors in his calculations respecting the North-west territory. 
 
sissippi and the Nile enter the sea under nearly the 
 same parallel of latitude, one at 29 and the other at 
 3 1 degrees ; the one flowing from the north, and the 
 other from the south, and bearing a striking resem- 
 blance to each other, in the riches and abundance pro- 
 duced by their periodical inundations. The same 
 lines traverse Syria, the central provinces of Persia, 
 Thibet, and the heart of China ; and nearly the same 
 parallel strikes Savannah, Tripoli, Alexandria, Gaza^ 
 Bosra, Ispahan, Labor, and Nankin. The northern 
 states, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, corres- 
 pond with southern France, middle Italy, European 
 Turkey, the Euxine and Caspian Seas, and the plains 
 of Tartary. The same line very nearly touches Bos- 
 ton, Barcelona, Ajaccio, Rome, Constantinople, and 
 Derbend. Such extensive limits indicate a great 
 variety of climate, and, in truth, the United States 
 displays all the extremes of the countries just enume- 
 rated. We observe a gradation corresponding with 
 the la'.itude, and proportioned particularly to the ele- 
 vation of the surface. In this view, the four follow- 
 ing distinguishing characters may be clearly traced : 
 
 In the first place, the coldest climate extends over 
 the eastern states, or New England. Its limits will 
 be found in the southern coasts of Rhode Island and 
 Connecticut, and in an inland chain of mountains, 
 which divides the waters of the Delaware and Sus- 
 quehannah from the streams flowing eastward. 
 
 The second division ma}^ be termed the temperate 
 climate. It comprehends those called the middle 
 
states, and extends through Pennsylvania and Mary- 
 land to the banks of the Potowmack, or, more accu- 
 rately, to those of the Patapsco. 
 
 The third, or the hot climate, will comprise the 
 southern states, or the plains of Virginia, the two 
 Carolinas, and Georgia, as far as Florida. 
 
 The fourth is the climate of the ivestern country, of 
 Tenessee, Kentucky, the Mississippi and North- wes- 
 tefn territories*. These are situated behind the great 
 chain of the Allegheny, and westward of the states 
 before-mentioned, and are hotter, as I shall hereafter 
 show, by three degrees of latitude, than the countries 
 eastward of that mountain. 
 
 * The North-western territory has beefi lately erected into the 
 state of Ohio. — Trans. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Face of the Country* 
 
 TO a traveller from Europe, and especially 16 
 one accustomed, as I had been, to the naked plains 
 of Egypt, Asia, and the coasts of the Mediterranean, 
 the most striking feature of America is the rugged 
 and dreary prospect of an almost universal forest. 
 This forest is first discerned on the coast, but 
 continues thickening and enlarging from thence to 
 the heart of the country. During a long journey, 
 which I made in 1796, from the mouth of Delaware, 
 through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Ken- 
 tucky, to the Wabash, and thence northward, across 
 the North-west territory, to Detroit, through Lake 
 Erie to Niagara and Albany ; and, in the following 
 year, from Boston to Richmond, in Virginia, I scarcely 
 passed, for three miles together, through a track of 
 unwooded or cleared land. 
 
 I alw ays found the roads, or rather the paths, bor- 
 dered and obscured by copse or forest, whose silence, 
 uniformity, and stillness was wearisome. The 
 ground beneath it was sterile and rough, or encumber- 
 
ed with the fallen and decaying trunks of ancient trees. 
 Clouds of gnats, mosquitoes, and flies hovered be- 
 neath the shade, and continually infested my peace. 
 Such is the real state of these Elysian fields, of which, 
 in the bosom of European cities, romancers entertain 
 us with their charming dreams. On the sea coast 
 there are, however, many open spaces, which the pro- 
 gress of cultivation and the vast consumption of fuel 
 in the cities have occasioned. There are likewise 
 considerable openings in the western regions especi- 
 ally between the Wabash and the Mississippi, on the 
 banks of Lake Erie, and those of St. Laurence, in 
 Tenessee and Kentucky, where the nature of the 
 soil, or, more frequently, the annual or ancient con- 
 flagrations of the Indians, have opened vast deserts, 
 called savannahs by the Spaniards, and prairies by the 
 Canadians. These bear no resemblance to the arid 
 plains of Arabia and Syria, but remind us rather of 
 the steps or grassy wastes of Tartary and Russia. 
 The prairies may be described as steps^ covered with 
 ligneous plants, growing very thick, and to the 
 height of three or four feet. They display, in spring 
 and autumn, a lively carpet of verdure and flowers, 
 and such a scene is very rarely to be met with in the 
 dry or stony plains of Arabia. In the rest of the 
 country, especially among the inland mountains, trees 
 are found in such numbers, and their prevalence is so 
 little checked and circumscribed, that the United 
 States, compared with such a country as France, may 
 justly be denominated one vast forest. 
 
If we subject this immense wilderness to a single 
 comprehensive view, we shall be led to divide it into 
 three regions or districts, each of which is distin- 
 guished from the rest by the nature of the timber it 
 produces. The kind of tree, as the American ob- 
 serves, indicates the nature of the soil it grows upon. 
 The first of these districts I shall call the southern 
 forest. It embraces the maritime parts of Virginia, 
 the two Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, and may be 
 generally described as extending from the bay of 
 Chesapeake to the river St. Mary, over a gravelly and 
 sandy soil, spreading from a hundred to a hundred 
 and fifty miles wide. All this space is thickly planted 
 with the pine, fir, larch, cedar, cypress, and other re- 
 sinous trees. It presents a scene of perpetual verdure, 
 which, however, is only a cover for sterility, except 
 in those spots which the course of rivers and alluvial 
 depositions have fertilized, and which cultivation has 
 made abundantly productive. 
 
 The iniddle forest comprehends the hilly parts of 
 Carolina and Virginia, all Pennsylvania, the southern 
 part of New York, all Kentucky, and the country 
 north of the Ohio, as far as the Wabash. This 
 whole extent is covered with the oak, ash, maple, 
 hiccory, sycamore, acacia, mulberry, plum, birch, 
 sassafras, and poplar. In the western part are found 
 the cherry, horse chesnut, the sumac, &c. and all the 
 kinds that indicate a rich soil, the only basis of the 
 prosperity of this portion of the states. The resinous 
 trees are mingled, in the plains and vallies, with those 
 
just mentioned, and form entire woods upon the 
 mountains. They are met with in the chain called, 
 in Virginia, the south-ivest , but, contrary to usual ap- 
 pearances, they here cover a red, deep, and fat soil. 
 
 The third district, or the northern forest, is like- 
 wise composed of the fir, pine, larch, cedar, and cy- 
 press. It spreads itself over the western parts of 
 New York, and the inland countries of New England; 
 exclusive, howeve?*, of the inter-'oales and banks of 
 rivers. It advances northward into Canada, and is 
 lost at last among the deserts of the polar circle, where 
 the trees dwindle down into thinly scattered junipers 
 and other hardy plants, of stinted growth and scanty 
 product. 
 
 Such is the general aspect of the territory of these 
 states. The picture is composed of an almost univer- 
 sal forest, varied and broken by five vast lakes, or inland 
 seas, in the north; by immense natural meadows, or 
 prairies,, in the west; and in the centre by a chain of 
 mountains, whose ridges are parallel to the sea coast, 
 at the distance of from fifty to a hundred and fifty 
 miles, and which turn, to the east and west, rivers of a 
 longer course, wider channel, and more ample stream, 
 than we are accustomed to meet with in Europe*. 
 These rivers are broken into cataracts, from twenty to 
 
 * M. Volney probably limits this comparison, in his own mind, 
 to France or Britain, for the German, Polish, and Russian rivers 
 fall not short of ours, in any of these circumstances. The Ame- 
 rican reader may listen with less dissatisfaction to our author's 
 idea of an universal forest, when he is reminded that our present 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 one hundred and forty feet in height, and enter the sea 
 in mouths that expand into gulphs. In the southern 
 regions, the bogs or swamps extend above three hun- 
 dred miles. In the north, the snows lie on the ground 
 four or five months in the year. One one side, in a 
 course of nine hundred miles, are scattered ten or 
 twelve towns, built entirely of brick, or of painted 
 wood, and containing from ten to sixty thousand 
 souls. Without the cities afe scattered farm- 
 houses, built of unhewn logs, surrounded with a few 
 small fields of wheat, tobacco, or maize, that are still 
 encumbered with the half burnt stocks of trees, and 
 are divided by branches laid across each other, by 
 way offence*. These rude dwellings and fields are 
 
 population consumes and exports the product of less than onejifn- 
 cth of the whole surface, z.\\^ fifty acres of woodland would hardly 
 be lessened to the eye, by cutting down one acre only. This di- 
 minution would be still less apparent, if the acre of wood thus 
 removed were not one entire acre, but made up of trees scattered 
 irregularly through the whole mass; but this has been pretty 
 much the case in the settlement of North America. By an eye 
 that could view the whole territory at a single glance, nothing 
 would be seen h\\\.?i. boundless contiguity of shade. Very different, 
 however, would be tlie face of things partially seen — Trans. 
 
 * Those who are not enabled, by their own observation and 
 experience, to qualify this general representation, will be led by 
 it into great errors. In traversing New Englard, Jersey, and the 
 eastern parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the scene is widely 
 different from that above described. The picture is fully realized 
 in those quarters only which are newly settled, and where at- 
 tempts have just been commenced for reclaiming tl\e wilderness. 
 — Trans. 
 
11 
 
 t 
 
 embosomed in the depth of the forest, and diminish 
 in number and extent, as you advance inland, till 
 they appear, from neighbouring heights, like little 
 squares of brown or yellow, on an immeasurable 
 ground of deep green. The atmosphere is, by turns, 
 very dry or very moist, very hot or very cold, very 
 turbulent or very still ; so capricious, that the same 
 day will freeze with the colds of Norway, scorch with 
 the ardours of Africa, and present to you, in swift 
 succession, all the four seasons of the year. This is 
 a concise but faithful picture of the United States. 
 
 THE GENERAL FORM. 
 
 To afford an accurate knowledge of the struc- 
 ture of this vast countr}-^, it will be necessary to des- 
 cribe more particularly the great chain of mountains 
 which forms its principal feature. This chain begins 
 in Lower Canada, on the southern shore of St. Lau- 
 rence, near its mouth, where its points are called by 
 sailors the hills de Notre Dame^ and de la Magdeleine. 
 Tending south-west, it recedes by degrees from this 
 river, and dividing the streams which flow north-west 
 into that river from those which run south-east, 
 through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Maine, 
 into the sea, it forms the frontier of the United States 
 till it enters New Hampshire. It then stretches 
 southward through Vermont, and assumes the appel- 
 lation of the Green Mountain, dividing the streams 
 
12 
 f 
 which feed Connecticut river from those which fall 
 
 into Lakes George and Champlain ; and, after shoot- 
 ing out a great number of branches, Avhich surround 
 the sources of the Hudson, it crosses that river at 
 West Point, forming, w ith its abrupt points, what are 
 called the Highlands. Here the chain may be said to 
 suffer a double interruption, either because the waters 
 have broken it, or because its substance, which had 
 hitherto been granite, becomes grit stone. The head 
 of this elongation ascends the western bank of the river 
 to the Katskill, and constitutes those summits which 
 form the sources of the Dela\;'are. Hence proceeds 
 a number of ridges, which, after blending with the 
 chain before- mentioned, traverse, in a south-western 
 direction. New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 
 Virginia, continually receding from the sea as they 
 proceed southward. It is very remarkable, that these 
 ridges strike the course of the Atlantic rivers at 
 right angles, the streams rushing through them at 
 gaps or breaks, m hich have been evidently made by 
 the force of their waters. These ridges, hitherto 
 parallel to each other, re-unite, on the frontier of 
 Virginia and North Carolina, into a grand chain called 
 the Eoiv of the Allegheny ^ because this chain, taking 
 here a bend to the east, intercepts and absorbs all the 
 collateral and secondary ridges. Somewhat farther 
 south, all the Avestern ridges coalesce with this prin- 
 cipal one, and form the series of summits from which 
 tlic Great Kenhawah and the Holdston on the west, 
 and the Pedee, Santee, and all the Carolinian rivers 
 
13 
 
 on the east, take their rise. From this knot is de- 
 tached, towards the west, a branch, which, by its first 
 bifurcation north-west, supplies the numerous branches 
 of Kentucky, and by a second, due west, it ranges, 
 under the name of the Cumberland Mountain, through 
 Tenessee, where it interposes between the Cumber- 
 land and Tenessee rivers, as far as their intersection 
 with the Ohio: while the grand chain of the Alleg- 
 heny, almost solitary, continues its course south-west, 
 and forms the boundary of Georgia and the two Ca- 
 rolinas, where it passes under the various names of 
 White Oak, Great Iron, Bald Mountain, and Blue 
 Mountain. Touching the angle of Georgia, it changes 
 its name and its direction, and, under the denomina- 
 tions of Apalachi and Cherokee, it tends due west to 
 the Mississippi, pouring from its northern side the 
 streams belonging ta the Tenessee, and from the op- 
 posite steeps those that traverse Florida to the Gulph 
 of Mexico. 
 
 The length of this chain occasioned the northern 
 Indians to bestow on it the name of the Endless 
 Mountain. The French and Spaniards, who first 
 approached it on the side of Florida, called it the Apa- 
 lachi, which was the name of a savage tribe, and 
 is also given to a large river in this quarter. The 
 English and American geographers, who became fir^t 
 acquainted with it on the north, have invariably called 
 it the Allegheny. This is an Indian term, which, 
 according to Evans, sip-nifies endless; and thoup;h less 
 sonorous and agreeable than Apalachi, has obtained 
 
14 
 
 universal currency. For the sake of perspicuity, how- 
 ever, I have called, by the latter name, that branch 
 which strikes the north-west angle of Georgia, and 
 which, less steep and lofty than the rest, spreads it- 
 self in innumerable hills over all the country bounded 
 by the Mississippi. It terminates, on this river, 
 in abrupt points, or cliffs^ and extend from Natchez 
 to the mouth of the Ohio. They never intersect the 
 Mississippi, whose opposite shore is a marsh, whose 
 medial breadth is about sixty miles, and which occu- 
 pies the right bank for a distance of four hundred 
 and twenty miles, from the mouth of the Ohio to the 
 sea. Here the great continental forest ends, and the 
 steps or savannahs begin, which stretch westward to 
 the foot of the hills north of Mexico, and of the stony 
 mountains, the last of which I call, in this work, the 
 Chippaway chain, from an Indian tribe which occu- 
 pies these regions. 
 
 From this survey, it appears that this territory 
 is distributed, by nature, into three grand divisions, 
 parallel to each other, and corresponding, in their 
 longest extent, with the direction of the sea coast, 
 which ranges from north-east to south -Mcst. 
 
 The first of these is the eastern country, placed 
 between the sea and the mountains. 
 
 The second is the western country, situated be- 
 tween the mountains and the Mississippi. 
 
 The third district is the mountainous region itself, 
 which is spread out between the two former ones. 
 As each of the^e have striking peculiarities of soil and 
 
15 
 
 climate, it will be proper to bestow separate attention 
 upon each. 
 
 THE ATLANTIC COUNTRY. 
 
 The Atlantic country, so named from the ocean 
 w hich washes its eastern boundary, and to which all its 
 rivers are conducted, extends from Canada to Florida, 
 over a breadth which varies from sixty to two hundred 
 miles. It is the original seat of the nation, and the 
 residence of the largest portion of its population. Its 
 political divisions are arranged in the following order, 
 beginning at the southern extremity : 
 
 Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virgi- 
 nia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
 New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachu- 
 setts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. 
 
 Through all this extent, the surface is elevated 
 slightly above the sea ; more uniform and ficit in the 
 countries south of Maryland, and even as far north 
 as New Jersey, but various, unequal, and occasion- 
 ally hilly, in the northern parts, particularly Connec- 
 ticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Long Island 
 may be considered as the line of division between 
 these two kinds of surface, for the coast northward 
 of this isle, as ftir as the river St. Croix, and even to 
 the mouth of the St. Laurence, is high, rocky, and 
 covered with plants, which partake of the nature of 
 those of the interior country; \\h ■ c;v:.ediug 
 
16 
 
 southward from this island, we meet with nothing but 
 a flat of pure sand, almost level with the ocean. This 
 sand has evidently been left by the sea, and is traced 
 to a considerable distance inland. It forms the basis 
 of a forest of pines and firs, and other resinous trees. 
 As we approach the mountains, we meet with a 
 mixture of clay and gravel, which the waters have 
 washed from the neighbouring heights, and thus is 
 formed a yellowish, poor, light soil, which prevails 
 throughout the middle sehage of the southern states. 
 These lineaments are so clearly traced, that we can- 
 not hesitate in considering Maryland, Pennsylvania, 
 and New Jersey as gradually formed by the deposi- 
 tions of the Potowmack, Susquehannah, Delaware, 
 and Hudson. Farther north, especially in Rhode 
 Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, we meet 
 with a continual succession of hills and dales, and the 
 country is broken up into steeps and hollows. This 
 region appears, indeed, to be a continuation of the 
 before-mentioned mountainous border, if the confu- 
 sion of its ridges, and their granitic structure, did not 
 clearly distinguish them from the Allegheny, whose 
 basis is composed of grit stone, and which moves in a 
 more westerly direction, and at a greater distance 
 from the sea. 
 
17 
 
 THE WESTERN COUNTRY, OR VALLEY OF THE 
 MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 The second region, situate westward of the Alleg- 
 heny, may be termed the valley of the Mississippi, 
 because all the streams which traverse it are ultimately 
 lost in that river, and, of consequence, must flow upon 
 a plane, every where, and upon the whole, inclining 
 towards its channel. This valley, or rather slope of 
 a valley, is bounded eastward by the Allegheny, 
 northward by the Lakes Michigan, Erie, and Onta- 
 rio, and southward by the Floridas. The lands of 
 western Georgia, however, pouring their streams into 
 the Gulph of Mexico, form a distinct district ; but 
 the comparatively small extent of this district, and the 
 uniformity of climate, soil, natural productions, and 
 probable destiny, will justify us in classing with 
 the Mississippi valley all the country west of the 
 Apalachi. This river may be named as the interior 
 limit of the maritime region, towards the south-v/est. 
 
 The valley of the Mississippi comprehends wes- 
 tern Georgia, Tenessee, Kentucky, the Mississippi 
 and North-Ohio territories, and some western districts 
 of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. The peo- 
 ple of the maritime provinces are accustomed to dis- 
 tinguish this space by the names of the back country^ 
 the hack "woocls^ the ivildeniess, and, more fancifully, 
 the vjestern waters. The phrase back country is used 
 by them relatively to their own situation with regard 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 to Europe, the great object and centre of all their 
 , thoughts, interests, and speculations. I had scarcely- 
 passed the Allegheny, when I heard this phrase ap- 
 plied, by the dwellers on the Great Kenhawah and 
 Ohio, to the maritime country. This is a striking 
 proof that these people have already derived, from 
 their geographical situation, new and peculiar views 
 and interests; that all their thoughts tend, like the 
 great thoroughfares, their rivers, to the Gulph of 
 Mexico, and thence to the West Indies, which is the 
 great point of mercantile attraction in America*. 
 
 This valley, on a closer examination, will be found 
 to distribute itself, according to the nature of the soil, 
 and the course of mountains and rivers, into three 
 grand districts. The first of these is situated south 
 of the Apalachi Hills, that forms the Tenessee valley : 
 from this ridge spring the rivers that flow tlirough it 
 to the Gulph of Mexico and the lower Mississippi. 
 This region is distinguished by a flat, sandy, and sterile 
 coast ; by marshes which advance far into the coun- 
 try, and which are particularly rich and fertile on the 
 baiiks of rivers, where maize and rice flourish greatly. 
 A stone, of two or three pounds weight, is here 
 scarcely to be found, for thirty or forty miles from 
 the coast. As you recede from the coast, the surface 
 
 * M. Volney draws large inferences from a trivial circumstance. 
 The disjunction and opposite direction of the interests of the two 
 great divibions of the empire, together with its causes, are obvious 
 enough, but have little connection with the terms above-mentioned, 
 which arc purely geographical. — Trans. 
 
19 
 
 begins to ascend, and to become uneven and irregu- 
 lar; the soil becomes stony, and its fertility greatly 
 declines, as is evident from the nature of the forest 
 trees. It abounds with the ilex, pine, fir, black and 
 Vi^hite oak, magnolia, red and white cedar, cypress, 
 and innumerable shrubs, natives of the warm climates. 
 Bartram, an American traveller and botanist, draws 
 a very glowing picture of this country, of which he 
 has made a terrestrial paradise : but, without regard- 
 ing his exaggerated and poetical descriptions, it will 
 be sufficient to compare it generally with Portugal 
 and the coast of Barbary, in which comparison it has 
 certainly much the advantage. 
 
 The second district is bounded, south, by the Te* 
 nessee river, north by the Ohio, east by the Alleg- 
 heny, and westward by the Mississippi. It comprises 
 the states of Kentucky and Tenessee, which were 
 formed in 1796. This country is covered with 
 woods, and rugged with innumerable hills. The 
 Cumberland ridge, about thirty miles in breadth, 
 runs through it from east to west, dividing the river 
 of that name from the Tenessee. In its vallies and 
 plains, the soil is of an excellent quality, being a rich, 
 black, vegetable earth, from three to five feet in depth, 
 and of inexhaustible fertility. Its trees are far more 
 lofty and gigantic than those in the maritime district. 
 The red, black, and white oak, hiccories of several 
 species, the tulip-bearing poplar, the vine, climbing 
 to a height of twenty or thirty feet, the ash, sugar 
 maple, accacia, sycamore (western plane J ^ horse ches- 
 
20 
 
 nut, gum, pine, cedar, sumac, plum, parsimon, and 
 cherry trees, some of which are five feet in diameter. 
 The light and friable soil occasions an appearance 
 in the brooks and rivers, which I had previously met 
 with in Syria, and even in France, but never to so 
 great an extent. We continually observe, through- 
 out Kentucky and Tenessee, pits or funnels, from 
 fifty to five hundred paces w ide, and from fifteen to 
 fifty in depth, having at the bottom one or more holes 
 or chasms, in which are swallowed up not only the 
 rainy torrents from the neighbouring heights, but 
 even considerable brooks and rivers. They suddenly 
 disappear among the bushes, from the eyes of the mar- 
 velling traveller, and pursue their course unseen, 
 throue'h subterranean channels. The rivers, in their 
 visible course, generally groove and hollow out their 
 channels, till they find a bottom of calcareous rock, 
 which forms a kind of horizontal flooring. Hence it 
 is that most of the streams of Kentucky and Tenes- 
 see flow in a kind of trench, formed by two sharp and 
 steep banks, of the height of fifty feet, like those of 
 the Ohio, or four hundred feet like those of the Ken- 
 tucky river at Dixon's point : hence, likewise, it hap- 
 pens, that the country abounds with dark and deep 
 hollo^vs and glens, w here it is not traversed by lateral 
 branches of the Allegheny, distinguished by their 
 rapid slopes, and the narrowness of their summits* : 
 
 * It is on these summits, hoAvever narrow, that ihe Indians, 
 and after them the Americans, have traced their paths or roads. 
 
21 
 
 and hence, likewise, it happens, that the soil can 
 never be improved by irrigation. The people already 
 begin to complain of an aridity, which keeps pace 
 with the clearing of the country, and completely dis- 
 sipates the fond allusions of travellers and land spe- 
 culators. 
 
 It is commonly believed, in Kentucky, that the 
 springs have become more abundant, since the woods 
 around them have been removed. I have examined 
 the truth of this representation on the spot, and endea- 
 voured to ascertain the true cause of this appearance. 
 It seems to me to be owing to the ancient accumula- 
 tion of leaves upon the surface of the earth, raising 
 gradually a deep and compact bed, such as we now 
 meet under the shade of forests which still subsist, by 
 which the rain and dews have been retained long 
 enough to evaporate, without sinking iijto the earth. 
 Since this bed has been destroyed, and the ground 
 opened by culture, the water easily sinks below the 
 surface, and forms more durable and more abundant 
 reservoirs. It is nevertheless true, that the moisture 
 of the atmosphere, and the copiousness of springs in 
 general, are diminished, especially u^:;on the higher 
 grounds, by the destruction of the woods, by which 
 the condensation of the vapours is lessened or pre- 
 
 One of the most striking specimens of this kind of road is to be 
 found on the Gauley ridge, among the Kenhawah Mountains.' 
 This ridge is not fifteen feet broad in the course of a mile, while 
 there is a perpendicular descent on either side of six or seven hun- 
 dred feet. 
 
22 
 
 vented. Kentucky itself, as well as the other states, 
 continually affords proof of this, in a multitude of 
 brooks, which have not been drained within five 
 years, but which are in w ant of water every summer. 
 Many of them have wholly disappeared, and several 
 mills, in New Jersey, have been abandoned on this 
 account*. 
 
 Another remarkable appearance in America re- 
 quires explanation. We never enter the forest with- 
 out meeting with fallen trees, the roots of which ex- 
 hibit a mass of fibres, in shape somewhat resembling 
 a mushroom. These fibres appear not to have pierced 
 to a greater depth than eighteen inches, in trees 
 seventy feet in length. That these roots descend no 
 deeper, has probably happened that they might profit 
 by the moisture at the surface, and the rich mould 
 formed by decayed leaves, a substance more conge- 
 nial to their growth than the sub- stratum, which re- 
 mains dry, and is consequently less penetrable. And 
 now that this mode of vegetation has been nurtured 
 and gradually fixed by the lapse of ages, as long a 
 series of ages will be requisite to change or new mo- 
 dify it. 
 
 The third district is bounded southward bv the 
 Ohio, by the great lakes on the north, and on the east 
 and west by the Allegheny Mountain and the Missis- 
 
 * We may also add, that IbrmcTly llic waters were slagnatcd 
 by the trunks of fallen trees, and by weeds : the itmoval of tliesf 
 has, of course, aRbrded a passage to the slieum. 
 
23 
 
 sippi respectively. This region, called the North- 
 western territory, in consequence of its slender popu- 
 lation has not yet been erected into a state*. The 
 surface is either plain, or composed of gentle inequa- 
 lities and undulations. It would be difficult to meet 
 with a hill five hundred feet high; and the western 
 parts of it, between the Wabash and the Mississippi, 
 are little else than immense flats or natural meadows. 
 Regular as this surface is, it still inclines in such a 
 manner as to give opposite directions to the course 
 of great and numerous rivers ; some of which flow, 
 by the Mississippi, into the Gulph of Mexico, others 
 into the north Atlantic, by the St. Laurence, and 
 others, lower down, into the same great reservoir, by 
 the Mohawk, Hudson, and Susquehannah. Hence 
 it appears, that the Allegheny, from which the latter 
 streams originate, forms a kind of rampart to this vast 
 undulating surface, which is nearly on a level with its 
 summit. The surface, in general, is so slightly in- 
 clined, that the rivers descend slowly and circuitously, 
 and frequently stagnate into swamps, and when swelled 
 by winter rains, the sources are connected so as to 
 be navigable in canoes. Such is the case between 
 the Wabash, which enters the Ohio, the Miami, 
 which falls into Lake Erie, the Huron, which mingles 
 with the lake of the same name, and the Great rher, 
 which enters Lake Michigan, and many others. 
 
 * At the time of our author's writing. — Tra>:s. 
 
24 
 
 These rivers, difFcrent in this respect from those of 
 Kentucky, flow over an earthen bed ; and this arises 
 not only from the general equality of surface, and 
 consequent tardiness of the current, hut from the ar- 
 gillaceous or clayey nature of the soil, which their 
 waters cannot disjoint or penetrate. This circum- 
 stance will hereafter be favourable to commerce and 
 agriculture, and popular opinion has already mani- 
 fested a preference for this district over Kentucky. 
 It will, doubtless, prove hereafter the Flanders of 
 America, and bear away the prize equally for pasture 
 and tillage. In 1796, 1 saw, on the banks of the Great 
 Scioto, a field that had just been cleared, M'hich pro- 
 duced maize fourteen feet in height, and of propor- 
 tionable thickness. At this period^, if we except a 
 few scattered dwellings, all beyond the Muskingum 
 was a wild wilderness of trees, swamps, and fevers. I 
 traversed one hundred and twenty miles of this forest, 
 from Louisville, near the rapids of Ohio, to Vin- 
 cennes, on the Wabash, without lighting on a hut, 
 and, M^hat surprised me still more, without hearing 
 the voice of a bird, though in the month of July. 
 This forest ends just before you reach the Wabash, 
 and from thence to the Mississippi, a distance of 
 eighty miles, all is prairie or meadow. Here com- 
 mences the American Tartary, bearing, in all respects, 
 a strong resemblance to the Asiatic. Though warm 
 and sultry in the southern quarter, the air becomes 
 chill, and the soil unkindly, as you go northward. Be- 
 
25 
 
 yond the 48th degree of north latitude, the waters are 
 frpzen six months in the year, the ground is over- 
 shadowed by deep woods, or drowned in swamps, 
 and intersected by rivers, which, in a course of three 
 thousand miles, have not fifty miles of interruption 
 or portages. In all these features, we recognize a 
 likeness to the ancient Tartary, which would be en- 
 tire and complete, could we see its natives metamor- 
 phosed into horsemen. This transformation has, 
 within the last twenty- five or thirty years, taken place, 
 in some degree, among the Nehesawey or Noudowes- 
 sey Indians, who are mounted upon Spanish horses, 
 stolen in the plains north of Mexico. In half a cen- 
 tury, these New Tartars will probably become for- 
 midable neighbours to the people of the United States, 
 and the settlers beyond the Mississippi will encounter 
 difficulties totally unknown to their ancestors. 
 
 THE MOUNTAINOUS DISTRICT. 
 
 The t^iird grand division is formed by the moun- 
 tains, which stretch from the mouth of the St. Lau- 
 rence to the frontier of Georgia, disparting the eastern 
 and western waters, and forming a lofty terrace or 
 rampart between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, the 
 maritime and the fluvial districts. The length of this 
 belt or band may be computed at twelve hundred 
 miles, and its breadth, which varies much, at from 
 ninety to one hundred and fifty miles. 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 This region, though comparatively narrow, modi- 
 fies, in a considerable degree, the temperature of the 
 adjacent districts, from both of which it widely diifers, 
 in climate, soil, and products. Towards the south, 
 the air is purer and dryer, more elastic and salubrious; 
 towards the north, and beginning near the Potow- 
 mack, cold and moisture begin to prevail, the animals 
 are larger and more active, and the forest abounds 
 with trees, not so large as those of the western woods, 
 but superior to those of the east, and surpassing both 
 in elasticity. 
 
 This chain of mountains differs from those of Eu- 
 rope in the greater length and regularity of their 
 ridges, but are much inferior in elevation to the Alps 
 and Pyrenees. The measurements, which I was en- 
 abled to make, in various situations, and with great 
 accuracy, will illustrate this point. Otter Peak, in 
 Virginia, the loftiest point in this country, does not 
 exceed 4000 English feet. In the same district, Jo- 
 nathan Williams, proceeding from the spot where the 
 tide ends above Richmond, and mcasurin": the road 
 to the first chain or Blue Ridge, found the height at 
 Rock-fish Gap to be 1150 feet. A summit near this 
 has been ascertained to rise near 1900 feet. Farther 
 onward, near Staunton, in Virginia, he ascended a 
 ridge of the Allegheny, 1898 feet in height. A se- 
 cond chain, called the Calf Pasture, was 2247 feet in 
 height. A third ridge, that which separates the 
 waters, six miles south-west of Red Spring, measured 
 ■2706 feet. 
 
27 
 
 In Maryland, the following heights have been de- 
 termined, in 1789, by George Gilpin and James 
 Smith : 
 
 On the river Potowmack, from the rapids at George- 
 town, "where the tide ends, to the mouth of Savage 
 river, in a course of two hundred and eighty English 
 miles, the level is 1160 feet. In this estimate, the 
 rapids are stated at 37 feet, and the Matilda cataract 
 at 76 feet, including the rapids which extend three 
 miles above. 
 
 From the mouth of Savage river to a place called 
 Moses Williams, on the summit of the Allegheny, in 
 a length of eight miles and three quarters, the level 
 is 2097 feet. The whole height, therefore, from the 
 level of the tide in Potowmack, is 3257 feet. The 
 Allegheny, which I myself have traversed at this 
 place, and where the elevation appears to be the 
 greatest, does not rise more than 2430 feet above the 
 ocean. The Blue Ridge, at Harper's ferry, at the 
 mouth of the Shenandoah river, appears to be nearly 
 of the same height as at Rock-fish Gap, so that the 
 medial elevation may be computed at 1165 feet, 
 which is less than half the height of the Allegheny in 
 Virginia. The height of this mountain in Pennsyl- 
 vania, above the plain below, is, according to Dr. 
 Rush, about 1300 feet. Travellers, indeed, remark, 
 that they reach the summit by gradual and almost 
 imperceptible ascents. In New York state tlie high- 
 est point of the Katskill was found, by Mr. Peter de 
 la Begarre, to be 3549 feet above ibe surface of the 
 
28 
 
 Hudson, in which the tide extends to within a few 
 miles of Albany. 
 
 In Vermont, the highest part of the chain is Kil- 
 lington Peak, and ^vhich was determined, by Samuel 
 Williams, to be 3454 feet in height. 
 
 The White Mountains, in New Hampshire, visible 
 at sea at the distance of thirty leagues, were estimated 
 by Dr. Belknap to be 10,000 feet in height, but, by 
 Mr. Williams' calculation, their elevation does not 
 exceed 7800 feet. 
 
 The chain of the Allegheny can therefore be merely 
 considered as a mound or rampart, whose height, at 
 a medium, is 2000 or 2500 feet ; and differing, in 
 this respect, widely from the other great ridges of the 
 globe. The Alps have been estimated at 10,000 
 feet, the Pyrenees at 7500, the Andes at 15,000, 
 and Libanus at 9500. Hence it may be easily per- 
 ceived, how much influence this mountain must pos- 
 sess over the atmosphere of the United States, and of 
 the whole continent of North America ; an influence 
 which I shall hereafter more fully explain. 
 
 All European travellers have been struck, in sur- 
 veying the American mountains, with the regularity 
 of their course, the continuity of their ridges, and, in 
 the line formed by their summits, \\ ith a much slighter 
 undulation than the mountains of our hemisphere 
 exhibit. This peculiarity is particularly observable 
 in Virginia and Maryland, in the Blue Ridge. This 
 ridge, A\hich I traversed from the frontier of Penn- 
 sylvania to James River, every where presents to our 
 
29 
 
 view a terrace, 1000 or 1200 feet in height above the 
 plain at its feet, v^^ith a very steep side, and a sum- 
 mit that can scarcely be said to undulate at all, and 
 vv^ith occasional gaps or breaks. The mountain rises 
 from a basis from five to six miles broad. In going 
 north, this summit lowers, as well as that of the 
 parallel ridges ; and as some confusion of names has 
 arisen in Pennsylvania from its bifurcations, I shall 
 endeavour to determine them with accuracy. 
 
 We clearly distinguish, in Virginia, three principal 
 ridges : which are — 
 
 1. The Blue Ridge, situated eastward, which takes 
 its name from its bluish appearance, when viewed at 
 a distance, from the plains. Evans and some others 
 call it, without any good reason, the South Mountain. 
 The names of mountains, indeed, in the United 
 States, have been generally conferred by the colo- 
 nists at random, and as mere caprice directed. The 
 Blue Ridge is detached from the great bow or knot 
 of the Allegheny. It is the immediate elongation of 
 this chain, in coming from the south. It crosses 
 James River above the junction of its two higher 
 ridges, the Potowmack above the Shenandoah, the 
 Susquehannah abo^^e Harrisburg ; and the latter river 
 is observed to be thus far navigable, flowing over a 
 calcareous bottom, but it is here made impassable by 
 tlie sand stone rocks of the Allegheny. In Penn- 
 sylvania, this ridge becomes less continuous and less 
 lofty, and is known by the various names of the 
 Trent, Flying, and Oley hills, but it is the same 
 
30 
 
 chain which crosses the Schuylkill at Reading, and 
 the Delaware above its bifurcation near Easton, and 
 from thence it proceeds till lost in the groupe of the 
 Katskill, near the banks of the Hudson. 
 
 The second chain, called North Mountain, with as 
 little reason as the former is denominated the South, 
 detaches itself also from the great bony) of the Alleg- 
 heney, and holding a course westward, but parallel 
 to the former, traverses the higher branches of James 
 River, ten or twelve miles above their junction ; the 
 Potowmack, twenty- four miles above the Shenan- 
 doah ; but when it touches the western branches of 
 the Great Connegochicgue ^ it divides itself into several 
 branches, and its subsequent course is not easily 
 traced. Some geographers discover this ridge in 
 the Tuscorora Mountains, which, after having traver- 
 sed the Juniata, is lost among the swampy and rocky 
 deserts, north-west of Susquehannah. Others trace 
 the North Mountain in the Kittathm'i^ which moves 
 parallel to the Blue Ridge, and proceeds to the Dela- 
 ware, w^hich it crosses above its south-west branch, and 
 to Nazareth, after which it forms the eastern bank of 
 that river, till it terminates, like the Blue Ridge, in 
 the groupe of the Katskill, and the hills which divide 
 the fountains of the Delaware from the course of the 
 Hudson. 
 
 In Pennsylvania, the Blue Ridge is usually con- 
 founded with the North Mountain, because their fea- 
 tures are pretty much the same. Each district 
 applied the term blue to the highest summits, and 
 
31 
 
 bestow peculiar and various names on the lesser 
 branches, but the geographical connection of the 
 North Mountain by the Kittatinni, and of the Blue 
 Ridge by the Oley and Flying Hills, appears to me to 
 be well established by the similarity of their sub- 
 stance, and their concurring to form a calcareous 
 valley, which runs uninterruptedly between them, 
 from the Delaware and the neighbourhood of Easton 
 and Nazareth, to the sources of the Shenandoah, near 
 Staunton. 
 
 The third principal chain*, or tl"i?e Allegheny, 
 properly so called, is the westermost and loftiest 
 ridge, by which the waters are uniformly divided, 
 and which, not being broken into gaps, by any river, 
 
 * It is not without a careful examination of this point that I 
 have deviated from Arrowsmith's example, who, totally neglecting 
 the Oley Hill and Flying Hill, confounds, above Harrisburg, the 
 Blue Ridge with the Kittatinni. This compiler may have been 
 influenced by travellers, who, in their turn, were misled by the 
 opinion popular in the country, and by the name of Blue Ridge, 
 given by the people of some districts to the Kittatinni. Besides 
 the authority of Evans, Fry, and JeflFerson, which is certainly con- 
 clusive, I have also examined for myself. In traversing the Sus- 
 quehannah, in the road from York to Lancaster, I surveyed a 
 chain, a mile behind Columbia, which is plainly a continuation 
 of the Blue Ridge, which had run, at a greater or less distance, 
 on the west of my course. This chain, equally high on both sides 
 of the river, leaves only a narrow passage for its current, which 
 foams over a sloping and rugged bottom. This passage has evi- 
 dently been forced by the river, as that of the Potowmack at Har- 
 per's ferry. It continues its course north-west, over a bottom 
 which, behind Columbia, is calcareous. 
 
justly merits the appellation of the jE/z^^/^?^^ Mountain. 
 Beginning at the southern extremity, we see it com- 
 mence its long career at the corner of South Carolina 
 and Georgia, under the various names of White Oak, 
 Great Iron, Bald, and Blue Mountain. It there 
 turns to the west some branches of the Tenessee, 
 and to the east the rivers of Carolina, whose western 
 limit is formed by it* Having reached Virginia, it 
 forms the bend before -mentioned towards the north- 
 west, and enfolds the ridges already described. It 
 then renews its course north-north-west, pouring 
 on one side the Monongahela and Great Kenhawah 
 into the Ohio, on the other side the James River, the 
 Potowmack, the Susquehannah, and many others, 
 into the Atlantic Ocean. Towards the sources of 
 the western branch of the Susquehannah, it diverges 
 into several branches, the largest of which proceeds 
 eastAvard, and traverses all the waters of that river, 
 terminating in Katskill, near the sources of the De- 
 laware. The eastern branches enfold the sources of 
 the Susquehannah itself, or supply the Iroquois and 
 Genessec lakes and rivers : unless indeed we trace 
 their branches to a ridge more westerly, called the 
 Gauley, the Laurel, or the Chesnut Ridge, which also 
 terminates in this quarter. 
 
 Besides the three principal chains in Virginia, 
 which I have just described, there are many inter- 
 mediate ridges, equalling them in height, steepness, 
 and continuity. Such are the Calf-*pasture^ the Coiv- 
 pasturc, and Jackson^ all which I passed in going from 
 
33 
 
 Staunton to Green-briar, Among the latter are found 
 those hot springs, famous in Virginia for their sana- 
 tive qualities, and distinguished by the naifies of 
 Warm Springs whose temperature is mild ; Hot 
 Springs whose temperature is higher ; and Red 
 Spring. Warm Spring, which I have examined, is 
 of an ammoniacal sulphureous nature, whose heat is 20 
 degrees of Reamur. It rises at the bottom of a deep 
 valley, shaped like a funnel, and easily perceived to 
 be the crater of an extinguished volcano. 
 
 West of the Allegheny, towards the njale of the 
 Ohio, there are many remarkable hills. The first of 
 these, called Reynick, and the High Ballantines, 
 eight miles west of Green Briar, appears to me as 
 lofty, though not so broad as the Blue Ridge. Frcm 
 this height may be discovered, in the south-west ana 
 north-east, a crowd of other hills. Fifteen miles fur- 
 ther, by a winding road, I passed over eight or ten 
 ridges, which continued for thirty-eight miles, till I 
 reached the Gauley Ridge, which is the loftiest, the 
 steepest, and the narrowest, at the summit, of them 
 all. I regard this whole extent as a single elevated 
 platform. Besides the Gauley Ridge, we meet with 
 no heights but such as regulate the course, and some- 
 times constitute the bed of rivers, but I observed that 
 the channel of the Great Kenhaway often made a cir- 
 cuit through a country more rugged than any I ever 
 met with. Most of these ridges tend towards the 
 Ohio, and some of them may be suspected to cross 
 it. The Gauley Ridge originates among the foun- 
 
34 
 
 tains of the Great Kenhavvah. South-west of the 
 Bow of the Allegheny, and under the name of Laurel 
 Hill and Chesnut Ridge, it ranges northward as' far 
 as the sources of the Susquehannah. Southward, the 
 people of Kentucky and Tenessee have given to the 
 great branch which divides Kentucky from Virginia 
 the name of the Great Laurel, and that of Cumberland 
 to its continuation along the side of the Cumberland 
 river to its mouth. I have not been able to collect 
 sufficient information as to this region. The Ame- 
 rican government might easily obtain a complete 
 knowledge of the country, by obliging all their sur- 
 veyors to submit themselves to the examination and 
 superintendance of the college of William and Mary, 
 at Williamsburg, and to add a few topographical par- 
 ticulars to the present barren returns.. They might 
 thus, in a few years, obtain materials for a complete 
 exhibition of their rivers and mountains. 
 
 I shall now proceed to give some account of the 
 interior structure of those mountains ; of the nature 
 and arrangement of their strata. Though my infor- 
 mation will be very defective, yet I trust that, as far 
 as it goes, its novelty and accuracy will somewhat 
 gratify those readers, who assign to the science of 
 physical geogi'aphy that importance which it justly 
 " claims. 
 
35 
 
 INTERIOR STRUCTURE. 
 
 During my different journies in the United States, 
 I was careful to collect specimens of those mineral 
 substances which appeared to prevail most exten- 
 sively. Being frequently obliged to travel, for many 
 days together, on foot, I was able to procure only 
 small masses, but such, however, as sufficiently cor- 
 responded with my views. These specimens, ar- 
 ranged and compared, at Philadelphia, with others, 
 possessed or presented to me by other enquirers, has 
 enabled me, with the aid of some learned mineralo- 
 gists, to draw up, at Paris, a kind of physical geo- 
 graphy of the United States*. 
 
 With these materials, I have been able to distri- 
 bute, with sufficient certainty, the region comprised 
 between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean into 
 the five following districts : 
 
 I. THE GRANITE REGION. 
 
 The first region, which is that of granite, is bound- 
 ed by the Atlantic Ocean, from Long Island to the 
 mouth of the St. Laurence ; by a line ascending that 
 river to Lake Ontario, or rather to Kingston or Fron- 
 
 * These specimens are now in the collection of Citizen Metht 
 rie, editor of the Physical Journal, at Paris. 
 
36 
 
 tinac, to a spot called the Thousand Isles; proceeding 
 thence along the Mohawk, from its source to the 
 Hudson, and, by the course of that river, back to 
 Long Island, the point of setting out. Through all 
 this space, the superficial soil is bedded in a mass of 
 granite, which forms the great body of the mountains, 
 and with which strata of a different nature are very 
 sparingly mingled. This substance shows itself upon 
 the surface, in the neighbourhood of New York ; it 
 foims the nucleus of Long Island, on which the sands 
 have been accumulated by the sea. It ranges unin- 
 terruptedly along the coast of Connecticut, Rhode 
 Island, and Massachusetts, with the exception, how- 
 ever, of Cape Cod, which is a heap of sand, brought 
 thither by the gulf stream. The granite still conti- 
 nues to form the shore of New Hampshire and Maine, 
 where it is mingled, in a slight degree, with sand 
 stone jj.it, and with lime stone, the last of which 
 is, chiefly as a manure, an article of considerable 
 trade. It forms the rocks and promontories of Aca- 
 dia, or Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and the 
 nucleus (or kernel) of the mountains of Notre Dame 
 and Magdelaine, that rise near the mouth of the St. 
 Laurence. The banks of this river are generally 
 composed oi schist y but granite continually shows it- 
 self in detached rocks and masses. We find it also 
 in the neighbourhood of Quebec ; in the rocky mass 
 which forms the basis of the citadel ; in the high 
 mountains north-west of the city ; and under the 
 cataract called Montgomery Falls^ which is a small 
 
37 
 
 river flowing from the north, and falling into the St. 
 Laurence, over a shelf forty-five feet in height. The 
 immediate bed of this fall is calcareous, in horizontal 
 strata of a dark grey colour, and of that kind called 
 primitive or crystallized. The upper banks are of 
 a light brown granite, in strata almost vertical. In- 
 deed, wherever it is found near the St. Laurence, its 
 beds are more or less inclined, and never parallel to 
 the horizon. On the right bank of this river, oppo- 
 site Quebec, there abounds a granite, red, black, and 
 grey, the same of which the state-house at Boston is 
 built, and which is found in the environs of that town. 
 It is likewise similar to the rock brought from the 
 Russian lake Ladoga, which forms the pedestal of the 
 equestrian statue of Peter the first, at Petersburg. 
 The isle, on which Montreal is built, is calcareous, 
 but the adverse bank of the river, which 'unbosoms 
 it, is formed of blocks of granite, that havd tioabtless 
 rolled from the neighbouring heights. The same 
 substance forms the summit o^ Belle- Isle Mountain, 
 as well as the ridge of the White Mountains^ of New 
 Hampshire. The secondary hills of New England 
 are mostly of granite, except those around Middleton 
 and Worcester, which are of grit. I am likewise 
 assured that the western branches of the Green Moun- 
 tain^ and those of Lake Champlain, are, for the most 
 part, calcareous, though the rocks of Ticondcroga are 
 of grit, while the eastern branches, which spread over 
 Vermont, arQ, of granite. It appears, upon the whole, 
 tthat granite pervades the country near Lake George, 
 
38 
 
 forming the isthmus which separates the Hudson and 
 its tributary streams from that lake, and ascending to 
 the sources of these streams, and of the Black Rher, 
 From thence it is diffused as far as the St. Laurence, 
 the Thousand Isles, and Frontinac, where it is of a 
 reddish hue, crystallized in large masses, and abound- 
 ing with feld spath. Alexander Mackenzie, in his 
 Travels, lately published, will enable us to trace it 
 still farther north. This judicious observer, whom I 
 knew at Philadelphia, tells us, that a greyish dusky 
 granite is found throughout the country which extends 
 from Lake Winjiipcek to Hudson's Bay, and, accord- 
 ing to report, throughout all the region lying between 
 that bay and the Sea of Labrador ; and consequently 
 we are justified in saying, that all North America, 
 above Long Island, is a rock of granite. 
 
 Mr. Mackenzie likewise informs us, that calcare- 
 ous rock, in thin layers, disposed nearly horizontally, 
 and of a soft, yielding texture, are found upon the 
 eastern banks of Lake Dauphin, of Lakes Castor, 
 Ccder, Winnipeek, and Superior, as well as in the 
 beds of all the adjacer.t and contiguous rivers. He 
 adds, that in the narrowest part of Lake Winnipeek, a 
 breadth of only two or three miles, the western shore 
 is bordered with a calcareous rock of the same loose 
 texture, rising to a height of thirty feet, while the 
 adverse or eastern shore is lined with lofty rocks, of 
 the before- mentioned granite. 
 
 From this view, it follows, that the calcareous 
 region, which is spread out westward of the Alleg- 
 
39 
 
 heny, extends, north-west, as far as Lake Michigan 
 and the fountains of the Mississippi ; from thence to 
 the sources of the Saskatchewaine river, thus rejoin- 
 ing the grand chain of the Stony or Chippewan Moun- 
 tains, which are only a continuation of the Cordillera'^' 
 of the Andes. " We may remark," says Mackenzie, 
 " that it is in the hne of contact with those immense 
 chains of lime stone and granite which embosom the 
 vast lakes of North America." This curious and 
 important fact is truly worthy the attention of philo- 
 sophers!. 
 
 Returning southward from the river St. Laurence, 
 granite is every where found in the county of Steu- 
 ben, as far as the sources of the Mohawk, whose 
 course it accompanies, without crossing it, ex- 
 cept at the little falls above Skenectada. We lose 
 sight of it, however, at the grand cataract of the Co- 
 hoeze, where the river rolls over a bed of serpentine, 
 a stone which greatly prevails throughout the Soiith- 
 ivest Mountain J, and particularly near Monticello, in 
 Virginia. It re-appears above Albany, on the easterrs 
 shore of Hudson, which river flows between rugged 
 banks, covered with stunted oaks and meagre fii-s. 
 Twenty miles above Poughkeepsie, commence those 
 
 * Spine or back-bone. — Trans. 
 
 t The channel of the Mohawk separates the granitic from the 
 sand stone country. 
 
 I This ought rather to be called the Red Ridge, on account rA 
 an argillaceous earth of this colour, exactly similar to what -.ve Bud 
 at Aleppo, in Syria. 
 
40 
 
 transverse ridges, rocky and sterile, which forcibly 
 remind us of Corsica and the Vivarais. They ex- 
 tend for a length of twenty-five miles, and are every 
 where roughened by mishapen blocks of greyish gra- 
 nite, in strata of forty-five or fifty degrees of inclina- 
 tion, covered with moss and dwarfish evergreens. 
 These banks are similar in their appearance, as far 
 down as West Point, where the river passes through the 
 last of these transverse ridges- Here terminates the 
 region called the Highlands, and begins the low, level, 
 and maritime country, which continues to New York. 
 In this latter course, the left bank of the river is com- 
 posed of masses of granite, so disposed upon the sur- 
 face as to make it probable that they are sunk very 
 deep bdow it. 
 
 The enquiries of a mineralogical society, estab- 
 lished at New York, have ascertained that the district 
 round New York, the river Hudson, and Haarlem 
 river is bottomed upon granite, and that this substance 
 forms the principal hills which stretch into New Jer- 
 sey. The direction of the strata, especially below 
 Connecticut, is from north-east to south-west, which 
 is a line parallel to the coast. Their inclination is 
 nearly vertical, and the ridges of this substance are 
 supposed to extend into Vermont. Dr. Mitchill, in 
 the accounts he has given relative to these points, in 
 1797, observes, that from the sea to West Point, 
 which is a low and maritime country, the rock is 
 composed of quartz, feld spath, schorl, mica, and 
 granite, sometimes in nodules, and sometimes in 
 
41 
 
 leaves ; that the granitic regicJn ends abruptly on the 
 Hudson, at Pollepelle Island, opposite the great rock 
 at Fishkill, twenty miles below Poughkeepsie ; and 
 that, at the distance of forty rods farther, begins the 
 schistous region, which emerges to view on the banks 
 of the river, so as to suggest the belief of its serving 
 as a bed to the granite. It is conjectured that the 
 former substance extends to Albany, and forms the 
 basin of the Cohoe2:, which, however, cannot be ad- 
 mitted, unless we call by the name of schist that ser- 
 pentine, of which I brought away a specimen. In 
 this schist, Dr. Mitchill tells us, are imbedded all the 
 calcareous masses scattered over the country. He 
 mentions a block of this kind one mile from Claverac, 
 and four from the town of Hudson, which presents a 
 surface of eight hundred acres, full of marine shells, 
 wholly dissimilar from those of the neighbouring sea, 
 which is distant about a hundred and forty miles. 
 Dr. Mitchill likewise mentions other calcareous 
 masses near New York, where the high lands separate 
 the waters of the Sound from those of the Hudson. 
 He thinks that, at some remote period, the ocean 
 covered all these spaces, and his opinion is corrobo- 
 rated by the nature and condition of the Katskill 
 Mountains. 
 
 The Katskill he found to be composed of the same 
 sand stone or grit which constitutes the Blue Ridge, 
 of which he deems it to be a branch. We are thus 
 enabled to fix the boundary, on this side, between 
 the granite and the sand stone, which forms the second 
 
42 
 
 region. This sand stone reposes, at Katskill, upon 
 a bed of soft slate, which, when burnt, emits a strong 
 bituminous smell, and whose strata are sometimes 
 irregular, and sometimes inclined in an angle of from 
 fifty to eighty degrees. He considers this substance 
 as the primitive one, because granite and grit contain 
 no petrifactions, but, on the contrary, possess the 
 following distinguishing appearances : — 1. The rocks 
 are formed of gravel, of pebbles, of red and black 
 quartz, of red and grey jasper, all evidently rounded 
 and smoothed by friction with water. 2. Their strata 
 are all regular and horizontal. 3. The petrifactions 
 are shells, which, excepting the clam and the scollop, 
 are unknown in the neighbouring seas, are found upon 
 their summits, in a mass of clay and pebbles. These 
 appearances have led this philosopher to conclude that 
 there were three periods in the growth or formation 
 of this region. At the first period, the sands were 
 collected and deposited ; at the second, the ^vaters 
 overflowed and settled on it; at the third period, shell- 
 fish were generated. 
 
 It is also remarked, that the steep side of these 
 mountains looks toward the west, while the eastern 
 side is a slow and easy descent. In the granitic region, 
 which I have just described, there are some re- 
 markable deviations from this rule. A different 
 arrangement is found in the mountains between Sun- 
 bury and Harrisburg, on the Susquehannah, com- 
 posed chiefly of this kind of stone ; in a vein o^ granitic 
 taicj or isinglass, of which I shall speak hereafter ; 
 
43 
 
 and in numerous masses at the foot of the South- 
 west Mountain, in Virginia. 
 
 II. THE GRIT OR SAND STONE REGION. 
 
 The grit or sand stone of the Katskill forms the 
 characteristic feature of the second region, which 
 comprises the mountainous country of the Bhie Ridge, 
 the Allegheny, and Laurel Hill, the sources of the 
 Kenhawah, the knot or bow of the Allegheny, and, 
 generally, all the southern chains, as far as the angle 
 of Georgia and the Apalachi. I lost the track of it 
 westward, in the state of Tenessee and the Cumber- 
 land Mountain, and cannot mark its junction with the 
 calcareous region with any certainty. In the north 
 and north-west, its limits appear to be those of the 
 sources of the Susquehannah, of the Genessee lakes, 
 and generally the right bank of the Mohawk and 
 Hudson. Dr. B. S. Barton, of Philadelphia, who, in 
 returning from a journey to Niagara, in 1797, tra- 
 versed the higher parts of Pennsylvania, continually 
 met with grit from Tyoga to within nine miles of 
 Nazareth. Mr. Guillemard, in his journey from Phi- 
 ladelphia to Pittsburg, through Sunbury, never lost 
 sight of this substance till he passed the Allegheny, 
 a few calcareous vallies excepted*. 
 
 * The country of the upper Susquehannah is composed of 
 schist, schorl, and feld spath, and is cut up by a series of hills 
 of moderate height, which ascend by degrees to the Allegheny. 
 
44 
 
 In Virginia, from Charlotteville to Gauley river, I 
 myself observed grit in great abundance, in the ten 
 or twelve ridges which I passed in succession, inter- 
 mingled with the calcareous vallies of Staunton and 
 Green Briar. Sometimes this grit gives place to a 
 milk-white quartz, which abounds on the Blue Ridge 
 as you go from Fredericktown to Harper's ferry, and 
 sometimes to a grey quartz, ^A'hich is the nucleus of 
 the Blue Ridge, at the chasm formed by the passage 
 of the Potowmack through it. In this chasm some 
 of the rocks are granitic, but these are sparingly scat- 
 tered. 
 
 The sand stone mountains are less naked and bare 
 of vegetation than might beforehand be naturally ex- 
 pected. I found their highest tops, in Virginia, be- 
 tween Green Briar and Gauley rivers, covered with the 
 lofty trees and luxuriant herbage which decorate the fat 
 and prolific vallies of Kentucky. The high country 
 which extends beyond Fort Cumberland, from the 
 heads of Potowmack to those of Yoghogheny, known 
 by the name of the Green Glades, is a genuine Swiss 
 country, rich in pasture, whose luxuriance is sus- 
 tained, in summer, by the rains and mists, which at 
 that season are wanting on the plains. This circum- 
 stance is owing to an elevation of about twenty-four 
 hundred feet. These advantages, however, are not 
 
 Here grit predominates. There occasionally appear veins of ba- 
 salt, the products and proofs of ancient volcanoes. Every where 
 the vegetation is feeble and stunted. 
 
45 
 
 shared by the Gauley Ridge and Laurel Hill, which 
 are stony and dry. Evans, the geographer, estimates 
 the cultivable portion of their surface at one tenth of 
 the v^^hole, and his extensive surveys entitle his con- 
 jectures to some credit. These cultivable spaces are 
 only found in the vallies, enriched, as all vallies are, 
 by the soil and leaves washed or blown down from 
 the adjacent heights. 
 
 In the north-west quarter, about the Genessee 
 lakes, and the Lakes Erie and Ontario, the grit ter- 
 minates in a region of schistous slate and of blue 
 chalk, so considerable as to form the bed, or bottom 
 and sides of these lakes. These substances spread 
 themselves over the strata of coal, found in western 
 Pennsylvania. This chalk is replete with marine 
 shells. We find these schistous masses at Niagara, 
 and all along the Great River, as far down as Quebec. 
 We have already seen that, for the most part, it paves 
 the channel of the upper Hudson. These are the 
 boundaries of the great schistous region ; elsewhere 
 it is only occasionally visible. 
 
 Besides this vast realm of sand stone, some spots 
 of the same nature are scattered through the granitic 
 and calcareous regions. Such is the district of Wor- 
 cester, in Massachusetts, the largest detached region 
 of chalk I have met with, for I could not trace any 
 connection it possessed with the Allegheny. 
 
46 
 
 III. THE CALCAREOUS OR LI>^E STONE REGION. 
 
 The third or calcareous region comprises all the 
 western country, beyond the mountains, and extends 
 jthclf, as Mackenzie informs us, north-westward, 
 across the rivers and lakes, to the heads of Sakachee 
 river, and the Stony or Chipewan Hills. The por- 
 tion that has Allien under my own view, and which 
 lies between the Tenessee and the St. Laurence, and 
 between the mountains and the Mississippi, is an im- 
 mense rock or bed oil'ime stone ^ disposed horizontally 
 in lamina or layers, of one or more inches in thick- 
 ness, of a close and firm texture, and generally of a 
 grey colour. In the north, this stone is of the crys- 
 tallized or primitive kind. This stratum is overlayed 
 sometimes by clay, and sometimes by gi'avel. Above 
 all, at the surface, is a mass of black mould, which 
 is more abundant and of greater depth, sometimes 
 fifteen feet, in the vales and bottoms, and shallower 
 and more scanty in the slopes and heights, where it 
 sometimes dwindles to a depth of six or eight inches. 
 This circumstance, as well as the foliated form of the 
 stone, bears testimony to the ancient influence of the 
 waters of the ocean. 
 
 In the country round Pittsburg, on the Ohio, in 
 the district of Green Briar, on the Kenhawah, and 
 throughout Kentucky, an examination always leads 
 to the grand calcareous foundation. I have seen it 
 naked in the channels of all the brooks and rivers 
 
47 
 
 from the Kenhawah to the rapids of Ohio, near Louis- 
 ville. On the road from Cincinnati to Lake Erie, it 
 is found to be the flooring of the Miami and Clay 
 Rivers. Lake Erie is probably bottomed upon a 
 dark-coloured schist, but specimens are continually 
 found of calcareous substances. A lime stone rock 
 forms the cataract of Niagara, extends itself into the 
 Genessee country, and accompanies the river to Que- 
 bec. In this northern quarter, the calcareous sub- 
 stance is crystallized, as appears from the specimens 
 brought up by the settlers in sinking their wells. 
 
 The breaches made in this stratum or rock give 
 rise to the funnels or pits before-mentioned, which 
 swallow up th^ rains and rivulets. I met with curious 
 instances of this nature near Green Briar, in Virginia, 
 and at Sinking Spring, in Genessee, where a spring 
 appears at the bottom of a pit, and, after a course of 
 only six feet, sinks again into the earth. To these 
 subterranean waters may be attributed the currents bf 
 air found in some caverns, of which Mr. Jefferson has 
 given an example, in the mountain called the Calf 
 Pasture. 
 
 From Louisville to the White River, where it ends 
 abruptly, the naked lime stone rock may be seen 
 through the limpid course of all the streams. On 
 reviewing my specimens, some American travellers 
 have assured me, that the Holdston, a northern branch 
 of the Tenessee, flows over rocks of the same nature. 
 I regret exceedingly that I had no suitable means of 
 
48 
 
 ascertaining the nature of the country beyond, in 
 Georgia and Florida. 
 
 At Louisville, the first layer or stratum, on the 
 lofty bank of the river, is a black earth, three feet 
 thick. Under this is a mass of thin sand, from four- 
 teen to fifteen feet thick, without any marine exwaice; 
 but below this is another layer of sand, six or ten 
 inches thick, which contains these remains : from 
 thence to the bottom of the river is a stratum of large, 
 heavy gravel. The whole bank is twenty-five feet 
 high. 
 
 Four miles east of Louisville, as we go back into 
 the country, the superficial soil is about twenty inches 
 in depth. Farther onward, and foil, miles from 
 Frankfort, we meet with it no deeper than fifteen 
 inches. At these places, this layer of mould reposes 
 on a mass of clay, from twenty-four to thirty-six 
 inches deep, which is not found near the river. 
 Under this clay is the lime stone, which may. with 
 difficulty be pierced through, till we find a bed of 
 gravel and clay, where the waters, not drained off by 
 wells, are suspended. 
 
 At the spot above-mentioned, near Louisville, the 
 rock is three feet thick, and water is found ten feet 
 below the surface. At other places, the thickness of 
 the stratum is greater. The rocks which form the 
 rapids of the Ohio, below Louisville, belong to this 
 great calcareous bed. In these lower masses, at their 
 surface, are found a great number of petrifactions, 
 
49 
 
 not incnisted in the mass, but brought thither from 
 above. I never met with any petrifactions in the 
 body of this calcareous stratum, a circumstance that 
 more surprised me, because, near Frankfort, in tra- 
 versing the top of a high ridge, about a hundred feet 
 above Elkhorn creek, which crosses it, I found in 
 the woods a great number of large stones, composed 
 of entire marine petrifactions. At Cincinnati, on the 
 banks of the Ohio, the same kind of petrifactions 
 again appeared. Dr. Barton has also collected spe- 
 cimens of the same substance on the heights of Onon- 
 dago, in the state of New York, more than 575 miles 
 distant, with this slight difference, however, that his 
 specimens are of a blue slate, while mine are of a 
 rose-violet, colour. 
 
 On my return to Paris, I submitted these petrified 
 shells to the examination of one of our most skilful 
 naturalists, M. Lamark; and I cannot do better than 
 to insert, in this place, his account of them, in his 
 own words : 
 
 " I have carefully examined the fossil specimens 
 with which you have entrusted me, and which you 
 collected in North America. 
 
 " I cannot hesitate to refer them to the terrehra- 
 
 tula genus of fossils, in irregular masses. This is 
 
 a new genus, explained in my system of Animals 
 
 without Spi?ie. These almost all of them belong to 
 
 I that class which are grooved or fluted longitudinally 
 
 I from top to bottom, like those which Linnaeus has 
 
 J . G 
 
50 
 
 denominated anomia dorsata. In these specimens^ 
 we see nothing but the interior mass, the stony or 
 concrete substance with which their cavities have 
 been gradually filled up, during their long abode in 
 the bowels of the earth. We nevertheless still find 
 on many of them small whitish fragments of the pri- 
 mitive shell itself. 
 
 '' In the specimen from Cincinnati, we may dis- 
 tinctly trace three kinds of fossil shells: first, a species 
 of terrebratula with large grooves or flutings, and 
 which resembles the figure given in the New Ency- 
 clopaedia, pi. 241, fol. 3 ; secondly, a species not 
 grooved or fluted, but jagged or notched ; and thirdly, 
 a bivalve shell, with a few jaggs, which I cannot as- 
 sign to its proper genus, not being able to examine 
 the joint. 
 
 *' In the sample from Kentucky, taken from a 
 height of a hundred feet above the water, I have 
 noticed shells of different ages, all terrebratula of the 
 fluted species, which approach nearly to those exhi- 
 bited in the New Encyclopaedia, pi. 242, fol. 1. Its 
 flutings are more numerous and minute than in the 
 former specimen. One of them, of a somewhat tri- 
 angular shape, has a groove or channel, on the top of 
 the largest shell, nearly resembling that we meet with 
 in pi. 244, fol. ,7. The other terrebratula, in the 
 same sample, is large, and flattened like a card, but it 
 is a fragment too imperfect to allow us to ascertain 
 its nature. It contains a fragment of belemnite. 
 
51 
 
 " After carefully considering these specimens, it 
 is clear to me, that the districts of North America 
 which furnished them have formerly been covered by 
 the sea*, or at least they point out that portion of the 
 surface which has once been the bottom, and not the 
 banks of the sea ; for they all belong to the class of 
 pelagia (see my Hydrogeology, pp. 64, 70, 71), 
 which, like the gryphytes, ammonites, orthoceratistes, 
 belemnites, encrinites, &c. are found only at the 
 greatest depths of the sea, and never near the shore. 
 The greatest part of the shells are only known in a 
 fossil state. On the whole, your enquiries have ascer- 
 tained the mineralogical state of North America, as 
 far as can be conveniently done, and justify us in con- 
 cluding that, among its mineral substances, none of 
 the littorral shells are to be found." 
 
 Besides the western country, and the region I have 
 just described, there are only two calcareous districts, 
 of any considerable extent. One is the valley formed 
 by the ridges of the Blue Ridge and North Mountain, 
 from Delaware, above Easton, and Bethlehem, to the 
 sources of the Shenandoah, and even to the great 
 
 * In support of this opinion, we may mention the salines, salt 
 pools, oi' salt licksj as they are called in America, which are found 
 every where throughout the western country. The richest of 
 these is near Lake Oneida, where the fluid contains one eighteenth 
 of the whole weight in salt. The northern seas contain but one 
 thirty-second part, and those within the tropics one twelfth.— = 
 These salt lakes or pools are seldom to be met with on the At- 
 lantic coast. 
 
52 
 
 bow of the Allegheny ; for the county of Bottetourt, 
 which occupies the latter region, is called the lime 
 stone county, because it supplies with this material 
 all the country east of the Blue Ridge, where none is 
 to be found. Rockbridge likewise is chiefly calca- 
 reous, as well as the banks of the Shenandoah, as far 
 as the Potowmack. 
 
 A second part of this valley, that which extends 
 from the Potowmack to the Susquehannah, is watered 
 by Great Connegochiegue and Connidogwinnet, and 
 contains the fertile dis:ricts of Chambersburg, Ship- 
 pensburg, and Carlisle, The third part, stretching 
 from the Susquehannah to the Delaware, is watered 
 by the Swatara, crosses with some breaks the branches 
 of Schuylkill, and ends at Easton and Nazareth, 
 whose soil is not unfertile. Its north-east limit is 
 the Kittatinni Ridge, an elongation of the North 
 Mountain ; its south-east boundary is the ridge known 
 by the various names of South Mountain, Flying 
 Hills, and Oley Hills, but which is no more, as I 
 have already proved, than a direct continuation of 
 the Blue Ridge. The boundaries of this great cal- 
 careous valley, extending from the bow of the Alleg- 
 heny to Easton, in two lateral* ridges, evince the 
 truth of my former details on the course and conti- 
 nuity of these mountains. 
 
 The second calcareous district, contiguous to the 
 former, lies on the opposite or eastern side of the 
 Blue Ridge, from tli^ gap of the Potowmack to the 
 neighbourhood of Schuylkill, in Lancaster county. 
 
Its south and south-west limits are formed by the 
 Potowmack and the channel, which it does not cross, 
 of the Great Monocassi. It comprises the district of 
 Fredericktown, the course, for the greater part, of 
 the Patapsco, and the counties of York and Lan- 
 caster, which are justly deemed the granaries of Penn- 
 sylvania. It is lost between Morristown and Rox- 
 bury, on Schuylkill. The rest of its skirt, from the 
 Monocassi to Schuylkill, does not coincide with the 
 ridge of the high land, though it forms a line of sepa- 
 ration between many streams, and it does not assume 
 that regular vale-like form, by which all the other 
 calcareous districts are distinguished. 
 
 Between the calcareous substances of these two 
 districts and that of the western district, there are 
 two remarkable differences. The masses, in the east, 
 are generally of a deep blue colour, and abound with 
 veins of black quartz; whereas the western lime 
 stone, especially in Kentucky, is grey, and of a pure 
 and even grain, and foliated texture. 
 
 The western stratum is nearly horizontal, and 
 forms the country into a sort of immense flat table. 
 In the eastern district, especially at Rockbridge, 
 Staunton, Fredericktown, York, and Lancaster, 
 and as far as Nazareth, the strata is generally bro- 
 ken and irregular. When found regularly iiiclined, 
 the inclination is most commonly from 40 lo 50 de- 
 grees. A remarkable exception, however, to this 
 rule will be found in the valley between North Moun- 
 tain and the Blue Ridge, where the angle is always 
 
54 
 
 less than 45 degrees, while near Lancaster, York, and 
 Fredericktown, exclusive of the mountains, the angle 
 is most frequently above 45 degrees, and this holds 
 as to all the strata, be they granite or grit, which are 
 less inclined in .the mountains, and whose inclination 
 increases as they approach the sea. At the falls of 
 Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, the inclination of the 
 talc is 70 degrees ; at the Hudson river it is 90 de- 
 grees. 
 
 From these facts we are led to conclude, that the 
 Atlantic coast has been shaken and overturned by 
 earthquakes, to which we shall hereafter show it has 
 been subject, while all the country westward of the 
 Allegheny has been undisturbed. Thus, I am assured 
 by Dr. Barton, that words corresponding with earth- 
 quake and volcano are familiarly used by the aboriginal 
 natives of the east, whereas no such terms can be found 
 in the languages of the western tribes, volcanoes being 
 commonly connected with earthquakes ; and accord- 
 ingly we find basaltic masses in the vallies of the 
 Allegheny. Whether there exist any ancient craters 
 is worthy of particular enquiry. I cannot say whether 
 there be any fossil shells in the eastern lime stone ; 1 
 only know that they have been found in the primitive 
 lime stone, adjacent to Lake Ontario and Niagara. 
 
 We occasionally light upon calcareous veins and 
 branches, at a distance from the principal regions. 
 One of these, in the district of Maine, furnishes a 
 great deal of lime. Rocky Point, on Lake Cham- 
 plain, is likewise calcareous, and no doubt it is to be 
 
55 
 
 found in other parts of this lake. It occurs in the 
 neighbourhood of New York ; but the most remark- 
 able instance that occurs, in the southern states, is a 
 vein whose medial breadth is forty-five feet, but 
 which is sometimes no broader than ten feet, but 
 whose length is upwards of two hundred miles, which 
 is met with between the Potowmack and the Roanoke. 
 As this vein is generally at the surface, and supplies 
 the neighbouring inhabitants with lime, its course 
 can be traced with certainty. It does not deviate 
 more than four or five miles from the Red or South- 
 west Mountain, to which it is parallel. 
 
 IV. REGION OF SEA SAND. 
 
 The fourth region, formed of sea sand, comprises 
 all the maritime plains, from Sandy Hook, opposite 
 Long Island, to Florida. The interior boundary of 
 this sand is a ridge or bank of granitic talc, or isin- 
 glass, called, by the Swedish traveller Kalm, glimmer, 
 which runs parallel to the coast. This bank or ridge 
 shoots out from the extremity of the granitic ridges 
 on the right bank of the Hudson, and perhaps even of 
 that which faces Long Island. This latter ridge, I 
 have no doubt, is continued under water for a length 
 of five hundred, and with a breadth of from two to 
 five miles, as far as the Roanoke, in North Carolina. 
 In all this course, this border ridge, as Evans has 
 well observed, is marked by the cascades, which the 
 
56 
 
 livers Ibnu in flowing over it. These falls are the 
 limits of the tide waters. Thus this talcy ridge 
 strikes the Delaware at Trenton ; the Schuylkill six 
 miles above Philadelphia ; the Susquehannah above 
 the mouth of Octoraro ; Gunpowder creek above 
 Joppa ; the Patapsco above Elkridge ; the Potow- 
 mack above Georgetown ; the Rappahannock above 
 Fredericksburg ; the Pamunkey below its two bran- 
 ches, fifty miles above Hanover ; James River at 
 Richmond ; the Appamattox above Petersburg ; and 
 the Roanoke above Halifax. 
 
 Between this bank and the sea, the surface, in a 
 breadth of from thirty to a hundred miles, is composed 
 of sand, evidently deposited by the sea, which once 
 flowed at the foot of this bank. At the mouths and 
 on the borders of rivers, some clayey particles, washed 
 from the mountains, arc mixed with the sand, and 
 form a fertile soil. The geographer, Evans, disco- 
 vered a subterraneous stratum of yellowish clay, from 
 three to four miles in breadth, lying lengthwise be- 
 tween this ridge and the sea shore, and which, by 
 giving consistency to the neighbouring sands, make 
 them suitable for bricks, as we find near Philadelphia. 
 With these two exceptions, the sand resembles that 
 of the adjacent sea, and is a fine black sand, twenty 
 feet in depth. 
 
 Peter Kalm, a Swede, who travelled in America 
 in 1742, observes, that in Pennsylvania and New Jer- 
 sey the strata are as follows : 
 
 1st, Vegetable earth, ten or twelve inches. 
 
J-'iq.l. 
 Str.'it.t. 
 4in{lf.iE.i>fOlno.tULfUxi>viUf ,'7i Ohia 
 
 .tfVef 
 
 YrtV 
 
 IP Pi 
 
 IPi 
 
 -/*.• y^r-z/j- ^/;. 
 
 
 
57 
 
 2d, Sand mixed with clay, from six to seven feet 
 deep. 
 
 3d, Gravel and round pebbles, containing clam and 
 oyster shells, of the same kind as those in the neigh- 
 bouring sea. 
 
 4th, A bed of black mud, full of reeds and trunks 
 of trees, whose depth he has not given us. This bed, 
 which taints the water of the wells, is found, at Phi- 
 ladelphia, at a depth between fourteen and eighteen 
 feet; at Racoon, in New Jersey, between thirty and 
 forty feet : at Washington city, I have myself seen it 
 at the depth of eighteen feet, at the house of Mr. 
 Law, where a well has been spoiled by it. 
 
 5th, Below all these strata is a bed of clay, which 
 admits not the water to pass through it. I shall 
 be asked, perhaps, on what foundation this clay rests ; 
 but I have had no means of ascertaining this point ; 
 and we may as well stop here, without the trouble of 
 proceeding till we find, like the Hindoos, the tortoise 
 which bears up the world upon its back. 
 
 When we consider that the interior bed or nucleus 
 of Long Island is a granitic talc ; that the rocky points 
 and cliffs which occasionally show themselves along 
 the coast, as far as Chesapeake Bay, and even down 
 to Norfolk, as well as the rocks at Cape Hatteras, 
 are of the same substance, one is disposed to consider 
 it as the universal sub-stratum of the sandy region. 
 But the inclination of these strata, in the line of the 
 cascades, which is 70 degrees to the fall of Schuyl- 
 kill, and never less than 50 degrees east and west of 
 
Fi0. 3 
 
 r^q.i- 
 
 ^ Moul.1 
 
 ,„i otM it,. 
 
 J'M'les with S/,f//s 
 
 Mulfiilli'frff.is 
 iiiJ biaiks lyf iTfes 
 
 Firti) vrllew Cla 
 
 
 S/r'tltit- .,, , /)7»,',i 
 
 •.iii.fk- .s-r,fIhil'M 
 
 Jf,<ti^ont<x> Cnh-ai- 
 ,;>1U Sfr.ttino 
 
58 
 
 that point, tends still more to prove this substance to 
 be the basis of the inner region, which is overlaid 
 with the substances already described. We may fur- 
 ther remark, that this talc contains a large proportion 
 of mica in the countries south, and of schorl in those 
 northward of this coast. 
 
 V. REGION OF ALLUVIAL OR RIVER-FORMED SOIL. 
 
 The remaining region is the country which undu- 
 lates beyond this ridge of talc to the foot of the sand 
 stone or granitic mountains. This limit is traced 
 with most difficulty in western Georgia, where the 
 vein of talc does not show itself. This surface is dis- 
 tinguished by its risings, sometimes into long waves, 
 and sometimes into round and insulated eminences ; 
 by the variety of its earths and stones, sometimes 
 confused, and sometimes arranged with regularity, 
 and which appear and disappear many times succes- 
 sively, from the mountains to the maritime plain, 
 always bearing the appearance of having been brought 
 gradually down, by the rains and rivers, from the 
 heights ; and such, in truth, is the origin of all this 
 country. When we calculate the volume, the rapi- 
 dity, and the number of these streams ; of the Dela- 
 ware, Schuylkill, Susquehannah, Potowmack, Rap- 
 pahannock, York and James Rivers, Stc. ; when we 
 observe that, long before their mixture with the 
 ocean, they spread themselves to a breadth of from 
 
59 
 
 half a mile to three miles, over a bottom from twenty 
 to sixty feet deep ; that, in their annual floods, they 
 rise sometimes to a height of twenty feet above their 
 ordinary level, we shall easily perceive what immense 
 portions of earthy matter must be carried about, espe- 
 cially as, in former ages, the mountains must have 
 had a greater elevation, and, of course, given greater 
 swiftness and force to the torrents ; that the forest 
 trees, torn up and carried off" by thousands, added to 
 their destructive course ; that the ice, accumulated 
 by six months of winter, forms vast mounds, such 
 as took place, in 1784, in the Susquehannah, at 
 M'Call's ferry, near Columbia, when a barrier of this 
 kind, more than thirty feet high, was formed by the 
 breaking up, and laid the whole valley under water. 
 At these periods, when the ocean bathed the foot of 
 the mountains, of which there are every where mani- 
 fest traces, the higher mountains, as yet undiminished 
 by the loss of those particles, of which time and the 
 torrents have since despoiled them, augmented the 
 motion and force of the descending waters, by the 
 height and abruptness of their points. Their sum- 
 mits, being colder, were covered with deeper snows 
 for a longer time ; and when the heats of summer, 
 shorter no doubt, but not less intense, than at present, 
 dissolved these snows, the torrents thus formed in- 
 volved a greater quantity of earth, hollowed out deeper 
 channels, and bore away trees with their roots, and 
 large masses- of the soil connected with their fibres, 
 all which they deposited in the lowest shelves of the 
 
60 
 
 mountains. In following years, new wrecks accu- 
 mulate and clog the ancient channels : the torrents, 
 impeded thus by mounds of their own creating, have 
 their vcJume and their impetuosity augmented, till 
 they find their way through the weakest part, and 
 carry the softer matters onward by new channels, 
 while the more ponderous fragments remain behind. 
 By a process of this kind continuing incessantly for 
 ages, the beds of ancient torrents enlarge gradually 
 into vallies, and what were once sharp edges or hard 
 bottoms of the stream, become slopes and plains. 
 The waters descending from level to level, and leav- 
 ing at each resting place their grosser matters, gra-. 
 ' dually deposit the lighter and more soluble, thus cir- 
 cumscribing the ocean by continual accessions of 
 sand, mud, and pebbles, all of which are arrested and 
 bound together by the trunks and branches of trees* 
 The Mississippi offers a luminous example of all 
 these operations. It has been computed by M. Lian- 
 court, that between 1720 and 1800, a period of eighty 
 years, this river has advanced its banks fifteen miles 
 into the sea. Thus, under the eyes of three genera- 
 tions, it has raised a new country from the sea, which 
 daily encreases, and where beds of coal are slowly 
 forming and accumulating for the use of future ages. 
 So rapidly does this deposition take place, that, at 
 New Orleans, three hundred miles above the actual 
 mouth of the river, a canal lately dug by the Baron 
 de Carondelet, between Lake Pontchartrain and the 
 Mississippi, has brought to light a sub-stratum of 
 
61 
 
 black earth, mixed with remains of trees, which have 
 neither had time to be decomposed nor converted into 
 coal. The two banks of the river are entirely com- 
 posed of trunks of trees cemented together by mud, 
 for a length of upwards of three hundred leagues, to 
 the height of twelve or sixteen feet. Hence it is that 
 the vernal inundation, which swells the river thirty 
 feet above its ordinary level, and overflows the adja- 
 cent country, which is lower than the bank, is hin- 
 dered from entirely returning, and stagnates into 
 immense marshes. These swamps are a present bar 
 to culture and population, though hereafter they may 
 supply the means of inexhaustible fertility. 
 
 LAKES THAT HAVE DISAPPEARED. 
 
 In the structure of the mountains of this country, 
 there is another circumstance, more remarkable than 
 any yet mentioned, by which the force of the waters 
 is greatly increased, and their course diversified. 
 When we attentively examine the sti'ata, and even 
 the surveys of these regions, we observe that the prin- 
 cipal ridges of the Allegheny proceed in a line per- 
 pendicular to the course of the great risers, which 
 have been obliged to open themselves a way through 
 the solid mass of these ridges. This process is evi- 
 dent in the James, Potowmack, Susquehaimah, Dela- 
 M^are, &c. these streams having surmoiinted the oppo- 
 sition of tlicse ridges, before their entrance into the 
 
62 
 
 low country. The most remarkable instance of this 
 nature is the passage of the Potowmack, three miles 
 below the Shenandoah. Coming from Frederick- 
 tovvn, twenty miles distant, I proceeded from the 
 south-east towards the south-west, through a v/oody 
 and uneven country. After crossing the first ridge, 
 which, though of easy ascent, is quite distinct, I saw 
 before me, eleven or twelve miles to the west, the Blue 
 Ridge, resembling a lofty rampart covered with forests, 
 and rent, in one place, from top to bottom. Re-as- 
 cending, over a rough and waving surface, which lay 
 between me and the ridge, I found myself at length 
 at the foot of this rampart, which appeared to me 
 about eleven hundred feet in height*. 
 
 After emerging from among the trees, I beheld, in 
 the body of this great wall, an immense rift or gap, 
 about 4000 or 4500 feet in width. At the bottom of 
 t\ns gap flowed the river Potowmack, having on the 
 left side, or that on which I was, a sloping bank, equal 
 in breadth to itself, and on the right, touching the 
 foot of the gap. On both declivities, from top to 
 bottom, are scattered trees, rooted in the clefts and 
 hollows, and partly concealing the rent. On the 
 right, however, there is a considerable part of the 
 declivity too steep to admit of trees, and which, being 
 bare and exposed to the view, shows marks of the 
 
 * For want of time and of instruments, I was obliged to con- 
 jecture the height, from comparison of the summit with the 
 known height of the trees at the bottom. 
 
interior structure of the ancient wall. There appears 
 a grey quartz, broken and chafed by the fragments 
 rolled along by the torrent. Some considerable 
 blocks, which have withstood the flood, still continue 
 as its monuments, at a small distance. The bottom of 
 the chasm is bristled up with rocks, which are worn 
 away or removed by small degrees. The waters fret 
 and boil up around these obstacles, which, for two 
 miles, form dangerous falls or rapids. They were 
 covered, when I saw them, with the fragments of a 
 batteau, which had been wrecked a few days before, 
 by which sixty barrels of flour had been lost. The 
 temerity of the American navigators renders accidents 
 of this kind as frequent in their rivers as on the ocean. 
 As we advance in this defile, the gulph narrows till 
 nothing be left between the rock and the river but a 
 waggon way, which is covered by the floods of spring 
 and summer. The sides of the mountain abound 
 with springs, whose descending streams interrupt 
 this road in many places. As the hill consists chiefly 
 of pure rock, of grey quartz, and sand stone, and 
 even of granite, the canal which is projected appears 
 impracticable. Three miles upwards, the river joins 
 the Shenandoah, which proceeds from the left along 
 the inner base of the mountain. Its breadth, at this 
 place, I estimate at one third of that of the Potov\^mack, 
 which may be reckoned at 650 feet. Higher upwards, 
 we may cross the latter river at Harper's ferry, and 
 go up a steep bank to the inn belonging to it. From 
 this point of view, the gap appears like a deep canal, 
 
64 
 
 where the eye meets nothing but rocks and trees, and 
 cannot penetrate to the farther end of the chasm. Ill 
 approaching it from Frederick town, we see no- traces 
 of the grand prospect described by Mr. Jefferson. In 
 conversing with that gentleman, a few days after- 
 wards, he told me he had taken his description from 
 the report of a French engineer, who, during the re- 
 volutionary war, had scaled the hill. At that height, 
 I doubt not, the view was as spacious as the bound- 
 less horizon of a savage country could afford. 
 
 The more I consider the situation of the adjacent 
 country, the more am I confirmed in the belief that 
 the Blue Ridge was once entire, and by shutting the 
 door against the river, forced it to expand into consi- 
 derable lakes. The numerous cross ridges which 
 succeed each other from Fort Cumberland, could not 
 fail ^o establish this lake westward of North Moun- 
 tain. On the other side, the valley of the Shenan- 
 doah and the Connegochiegue would naturally form a 
 lake between Chambersbun;- and Staunton. As the 
 level of these heights, whence these two above-men- 
 tioned rivers take their course, is much below that 
 of the Blue Ridge and North Mountain, the lines of 
 their summits must have formed the boundaries of 
 this lake, Avhich must have diffused itself southward 
 as far as the great bow of the Allegheny. The two 
 upper branches of the James River, barred up in like 
 manner by the Blue Ridge, would augment this lake 
 with all their waters, while, northward, the general 
 level of the lake would find no obstacles to hinder its 
 
65 
 
 extension between the Blue Ridge and the Kittatinni, 
 not only as far as the Susquehannah, but even to the 
 Schuylkill and Delaware. All the lower country, be- 
 tween the Blue Ridge and the sea, would be watered by 
 the streams originating on the eastern side of the moun- 
 tains, and perhaps by the overflowings of this great 
 interior lake. In consequence of this state of things, 
 the rivers would in general be smaller, and the surface 
 more equal ; the ridge of granitic talc or isinglass 
 would arrest the waters, and turn them into bogs and 
 swamps ; the sea would flow up to this ridge, and 
 occasion other swamps like that called the Dismal, 
 near Norfolk ; and, if the reader recollects the bed of 
 black earth, mingled with rushes and trees, found 
 every where, at certain depths, he will readily admit 
 this hypothesis. Aided by earthquakes, which, as I 
 shall hereafter show, were once very frequent through- 
 out jjlie maritime country, the waters, continually 
 assailing and sapping the mountainous barrier, at 
 length made themselves a passage through it. These 
 passages, at first narrow and shallow, would speedily, 
 by the action of mighty streams, be widened and 
 deepened, till at length the breach would extend, ac 
 at present, from top to bottom, and the lake would 
 be entirely exhausted. This operation would be by 
 no means difficult, as the Blue Ridge, in general, is not 
 a mass entire or crystallized in large strata, but a 
 heap of separate blocks, of different sizes, with their 
 interstices filled with earth easily loosened and washed 
 away ; it is a mound whose solid parts are cemented 
 
 I 
 
66 
 
 together by a soft earth, and as the descents are rapid, 
 the rains gradually loosen its foundations, and the fall 
 of large masses of stone occasions a species of ava- 
 lanche, which occasionally last several hours. Hence 
 the volume or pressure of the lake would be assisted 
 greatly in its operation. Their first efforts may be 
 traced in the gaps^ v. hose sides, near the summit of 
 the ridge, exhibit those notches occasioned by the 
 first overflowings of the lake, and which were after- 
 wards deserted for wider and more commodious pas- 
 sages. It is easy to conceive that the rushing out of 
 these waters would change the whole face of the lower 
 Country. Then were brought down all those particles 
 which constitute the present surface. The banks of 
 talc would easily be broken down, and the inner 
 swamps drained, while their accumulations would be 
 added to those of the shores. The latter are found, 
 at this day, buried beneath the substance dej^ited 
 by the great rivers. 
 
 In the vale formed by the Blue Ridge and the 
 North Mountain, the changes correspond with the 
 circumstances of this overflow. Several gaps, made 
 at the same time or in succession, afforded passage 
 to the rivers James, Potowmack, Susquehannah, 
 Schuylkill, Delaware, and thus the great interior lake 
 was divided into many smaller ones, by those heights 
 or ridges which rose above the level of the bottom 
 of the primitive gaps. Each of these lakes made 
 itself, in time, an opening, Mhich being gradually 
 worn deeper and deeper, the whole basin ^^•as finally 
 
67 
 
 drained dry. This operation was subsequent to the 
 formation of the rivers James, Susquehannah, and 
 Delaware, because their basms, or the vallies which 
 supply them, are of a greater elevation. The Potow- 
 mack must have been of later birth, because its bed 
 is lower than the rest. It is worthy of the govern- 
 ment of the United States, or of some learned asso- 
 ciation of its citizens, to take measures for having all 
 these regions accurately surveyed, with a view to 
 illustrate these curious points in the physical history 
 of their country. From these surveys would result 
 the strongest proof of what I have said, and much 
 new light would be thrown upon the ancient revolu- 
 tions of our globe. 
 
 I cannot determine how far eastward the Delaware 
 then extended the reflux of its waters. It appears 
 that its basin was bounded by the ridge which at pre- 
 sent forms the left bank of the river, and which is an 
 elongation of the Blue Ridge and the North Moun- 
 tain. This basin w'as probably always distinct from 
 that of the Hudson, which it is certain had its own 
 peculiar valley or lake, whose boundary or bank was 
 at the Highlands, above West Point. 
 
 On a comprehensive view, it will clearly appear, 
 
 that the transverse ridge, called the Highlands, for- 
 
 ! merly shut up the waters of the Hudson, and thus 
 
 raised them to a considerable height. When it is 
 
 j seen that the tide ascends this river to within ten 
 
 I miles of Albany, so low a level for so great an 
 
68 
 
 extent, compared with the height of the circumjacent 
 ridges, may incline us to believe, that the lake dif- 
 fused itself as far as Fort Edward, and perhaps was 
 connected with the Lakes George and Champlain. 
 The fall of the Cohoez could not exist till after the 
 disruption of the southern bank at West Point. The 
 existence of this lake, by satisfactorily explaining the 
 traces of subterranean vegetation, the marine petri- 
 factions, the beds of schistus and clay, observed by 
 Dr. Mitchill, justifies the inferences drawn by that 
 learned and sagacious observer, as to the situation of 
 the ancient waters. 
 
 The existence of these lakes explains the distribu- 
 tion of the banks of rivers into two corresponding 
 terraces, which takes place in almost all the rivers of 
 America, but particularly in those of the western 
 country, such as the Tenessee, Kentucky, Kenha- 
 wah, and Ohio. An example of this may be taken 
 from the figure of the last river, at Cincinnati or Fort 
 Washington, the strata of whose banks are exhibited 
 in the plate. 
 
 a a The bed of the river, when the waters are low- 
 est, such as I saw them in the month of August, 1796. 
 
 b b The bank, almost vertical, formed of layers of 
 sand, gravel, and soft earth, and worn away and un- 
 dermined by the vernal floods. This bank is almost 
 50 feet high. 
 
 c c The first bank, 900 feet wide, also formed of 
 gravel and smooth stones. The high waters rise to 
 
69 
 
 this bank, and wash away more and more of the gravel 
 and pebbles*. 
 
 d d Is a. soft ascent, about thirty feet high, com- 
 posed of different beds of gravel and of eardi, full of 
 fossil shells, and of Jiiivial substances. These are 
 also found in the loose bank. The floods never over- 
 top this bank. 
 
 e e A second bank, which extends to the foot of 
 the lateral hills, and on which is seated the new town 
 of Cincinnati. Such is the right bank of this river. 
 
 The left side has the same kind and number of 
 banks, at similar levels. In other places, these banks 
 show themselves only on one side, M'hile the oppo- 
 site margin is a steep precipice, on which the river 
 has left no durable traces, and sometimes a plain so 
 wide, that the eye can discover those traces at the foot 
 of the distant hills. 
 
 On examining the arrangement and position of 
 these layers or terraces, and the substance that com- 
 poses them, we shall clearly perceive, that even their 
 highest surface has been once overflowed, and even 
 been the bed of the river, in the history of which 
 three distinct periods may be traced. 
 
 At the first of these periods, the transverse ridges 
 of the hills, as yet unpierced and unbroken, barred 
 
 * These banks, and all the slopes along the Ohio, abound with 
 the stramoneum (stink-weed), which is said to have been brought 
 hither accidentally from Virginia, among other seeds, and which 
 have encreased so much, that there is no approaching any part of 
 the bank, without being incommoded by its disagreeable odour. 
 
70 
 
 up the river, and raised its waters to the level of the 
 circumjacent summits. All the lower plains and val- 
 lies formed a great lake or swamp of stagnant water. 
 In the lapse of ages, and the continual assaults of 
 annual floods, breaches were effected at the weakest 
 parts of this mound. At one of these rents or chasms 
 the waters would, of course, collect their principal 
 strength, and hollow out and enlarge the opening, till 
 its bottom should sink much below the level of the 
 lake within. This first process would form the first 
 plain or upper bank e e^ and the w aters of the river 
 or lake would flow over the mass c c, and its bank 
 would consist of the mass d d. 
 
 During the second period, the waters subsided in 
 this bed. 
 
 At the third period, the cataract was formed, by the 
 stream growing more active and regular, and the pre- 
 sent deeper and narrow er channel was scooped out, 
 leaving the present bank c c dry. 
 
 It is probable the Oliio was confined at more than 
 one point between Pittsburg and the rapids at Louis- 
 ville. When I descended the river from the Ken- 
 hawah, not entertaining my present notions on these 
 subjects, I paid no critical attention to the transverse 
 ridges which I met with. This deficiency, however, 
 was amply supplied by the ridges I encountered to- 
 wards Gallipolis, and as far as the Scioto. On my 
 return from Vincennes, on the Wabash, I was first 
 struck by the position of a ridge of hills, situated 
 below Siher Creeky about five miles from the rapids. 
 
71 
 
 This ridge, vaguely denominated, by the Canadians, 
 the Banks^ stretches from north to south, across the 
 basin of the Ohio. It compels the stream to change 
 its course from east to west, in search of an outlet, 
 which presents itself at its conflux with the Salt 
 River. It may be said to require the accession of 
 that river, in order to force a way through the ram- 
 part before it. The rapid but smooth declivity 
 of these banks may be descended in a quarter of an 
 hour. Compared with other heights, their elevation 
 may be stated at 400 feet. The summit is too thickly 
 studded with trees to permit us to trace the lateral 
 course of this chain with the eye. We may discover, 
 however, that it stretches far to the north and south, 
 and that it shuts up the entire basin of the Ohio. 
 
 Viewed from this summit, thq general appearance 
 of this vale tended strongly to confirm all my previ- 
 ous opinions respecting the existence of an ancient 
 lake. Other circumstances likewise lent their aid to 
 this conclusion ; for from this ridge to the White 
 Rher^ eight miles from Vincennes, the whole surface 
 is roughened by hills, frequently steep and lofty. 
 They are high and precipitous near the Blue River, 
 and on both sides of the White River. They take 
 a course, in general, transverse to the Ohio. 
 
 On the other side, at Louisville, I ha^ e observed 
 the Kentuckian bank of the river to be formed of si- 
 milar ridges. There appears every where a cluster of 
 ridges, rising in powerful opposition to the waters. 
 Much lower down, the country becomes flat, and the 
 
72 
 
 immense savannahs of the Wabash and Green River, 
 which stretch themselves as far as the Mississippi, 
 begin, and excUide every supposition of a rampart on 
 this side*. 
 
 Another circumstance favourable to these opinions, 
 is the rapidity with which the rivers of Kentucky flow 
 near their mouths, and their tardy course near their 
 sources, which is directly the reverse of what com- 
 monly happens in other parts of the world. We 
 must hence conclude, that the upper bed of these 
 rivers approaches to a plain, and that their lower chan- 
 nel is moulded into a declivity. This coincides ex- 
 actly with the supposition of an ancient lake ; for, 
 when this supposed lake occupied the whole region 
 at the foot of the Allegheny, its bottom, particularly 
 near its margin, was too uniform and level to allow 
 the motion of its waves to make any material altera- 
 tion in the surface : but when the mound, which 
 
 * A settler in Tenessee informed me, that all the rivers in this 
 country, which flowed immediately into the Mississippi, have 
 these banks. He accounts for it by stating, that every year, 
 in the month of May, the Mississippi has a rise of twenty-five 
 feet, which occasions all its branches to overflow, and enlarge 
 gradually their channels. This rise operates like a mound or 
 dyke to these rivers, and strengthens, in this respect, the theory 
 which I have applied to other cases. It may also be noted, that, 
 on its eastern side, the Mississippi is confined by a ridge of high 
 land, which seldom aflbrds to its periodical diffusions a breadth of 
 more than four or five miles ; while, on the western side, when 
 the waters surmount their immediate boundary, they spread them- 
 selves over a flat sixty miles in breadth. ^ 
 
73 
 
 maintained the tranquillity of this lake, was broken 
 down, the torrents thereby occasioned would furrow 
 up the bottom into hills and hollows, and when finally 
 the current, collected and concentered in the vale of 
 the Ohio, bore down its obstructions with augmented 
 rapidity, this valley would be hollowed out into a 
 deep channel, whose steep sides would accelerate the 
 streams, and their course continues to this day more 
 rapid than elsewhere. 
 
 Allowing, then, the Ohio to have once been dam- 
 med up, either by the ridge at Silver Creek, or by 
 some contiguous eminence, a lake of vast extent 
 would be formed, for from Pittsburg the declivity is 
 so small, thatthe river, when the waters are low, does 
 not move more than two miles an hour, which im- 
 plies a descent of four inches per mile. Now the dis- 
 tance from Pittsburg to the rapids at Louisville, com- 
 puting the turns of the river, does not exceed 590 
 
 miles*. 
 
 The difference of level, throughout this extent, 
 
 is about 200 feet. The height of the banks may, for 
 
 want of actual measurements, be safely conjectured 
 
 to be 200 feet. It will appear that such a mound 
 
 was sufficiently high to hold the waters which might 
 
 extend to the neighbourhood of Pittsburg. This 
 
 conjecture will acquire new force, when the reader 
 
 recollects what I have already said, that the region 
 
 * Hutchins, conjectures the distance to be 700 miles, but later 
 measurements have been made with more accuracy and precision. 
 
comprised between the Ohio and Lake Erie is a vast 
 plain, whose uniform inclination is almost insensible, 
 a fact which is supported by the following appear- 
 ances : 
 
 1. The Ohio, in its annual inundations, before it 
 reaches the level of the first bank, that is to say, be- 
 fore it rises to a height of fifty feet from its bottom, 
 mounts up the great Miami to Greenville, a distance, 
 northward, of 72 miles. Of this fact I was assured 
 by the officers at Greenville, the head quarters of 
 general Wayne, in 1794. 
 
 2. During the vernal floods, the north branch of 
 the Great Miami mixes its waters with the southern 
 branch of the Miami of the Lake. The carrying- 
 place, or portage, of a league, which separates their 
 heads, disappears beneath the flood, and we can pass 
 in canoes from the Ohio to Lake Erie, as I myself 
 witnessed in 1796* 
 
 3. At Loremier's Fort, or store, an eastern branch 
 of the Wabash serves as a simple canal to connect the 
 two Miamis ; and the same Wabash, by a northern 
 branch, communicates, above Fort Wayne, in the 
 time of inundation, with the Miami of Lake Erie. 
 
 4. In the winter of 1792-3, two boats (periagas) 
 were detached from Detroit, by a mercantile house, 
 from whom I received the information, which passed, 
 without interruption, from the Huron river, whiclx 
 enters Lake Erie, into Grand Riiicr, which falls into 
 Lake Michigan, by means of the rise at the heads of 
 the two streams. 
 
75 
 
 5. The Muskingum, which flows into the Ohio, 
 communicates, at its sources, through some small 
 lakes, with the Cayahoga, belonging to Lake Erie. 
 
 The inference from these facts is, that the land 
 lying between the Ohio and the lakes never exceeds 
 the elevation of a hundred feet above the first bank 
 of the river, nor of seventy feet above the second ; 
 which is the general level of the country. Conse- 
 quently a mound only two hundred feet high, placed 
 at Silver Creek, would suffice, not only to spread out 
 the waters towards Lake Erie, but to extend them 
 from the rampart of the Allegheny to the uorth of 
 Lake Superior. 
 
 In fine, the existence of stagnant waters in the 
 western regions, such as I have traced between the 
 Blue Ridge and the North Mountain, is no less evi- 
 dent to every observer of the scene. And this fact 
 clearly and simply explains a great number of local 
 appearances, which, in return, reflect new light upon 
 the theory. These ancient lakes, for example, ac- 
 count for the levelling of the earth throughout the 
 western country in horizontal strata ; wlw these 
 strata lie underneath each other in the order of their 
 specific gravities ; why, in so many places, there 
 appear the remains of trees and other vegetables, 
 and even of animals, such as the bones of the mam- 
 moth, found at a place called Big-bonec, as well as 
 elsewhere, thirty-six miles above the mouth of the 
 Kentucky river, and which could only have been thus 
 collected by the actit>n of the \A'aters. In fine, a 
 
76 
 
 happy and natural explanation is thus afforded to the 
 formation of those mines of coal, which predominate 
 in certain situations and districts. 
 
 The delving of the numerous inhabitants, for 
 twenty years together, has ascertained, that the 
 country above Pittsburg, comprised between Laurel 
 Hill and the upper branches of the Allegheny and 
 Monongahela rivers, is a mass of coal, from twelve 
 to sixteen feet in depth. This stratum lies upon a 
 horizontal bed of calcareous matter, and has a super- 
 stratum of schist and slate. Its undulations conform 
 to those of the strata above and below it, on the hills 
 and in the vallies. It is of greater thickness on the 
 hills, and less in the vallies, and in general its thick- 
 ness is six or seven feet. Considering its location, 
 we shall perceive that it chiefly prevails in the lower 
 basin of these two rivers, and their branches the 
 Yoghogheny and Kiskimenitas, all which tend, on a 
 gently inclined plain, towards the Ohio, near Pitts- 
 burg. Supposing the existence of this great lake, 
 the end of this lake may be fixed at this spot, and the 
 utmost verge of stagnant waters. 
 
 Fossil or pit coal is well known to be formed out 
 of fallen trees, gradually clogged and covered up by 
 earthy particles, brought down by rivers and torrents. 
 These vegetable heaps are not formed in the channel 
 of the current, but in spots somewhat removed from 
 it, where their position is left to be regulated by their 
 own weight. This order of things is still manifest 
 in many rivers of the United States, but especially in 
 
77 
 
 the Mississippi, which annually carries away an im- 
 mense number of trees. Some of these are left in 
 the bays and inlets which the inundations enter, but 
 the greater immber stop not till they reach the sea 
 shore. Here the river and ocean waters meet, and 
 occasion a stagnation or sluggish motion in the for- 
 mer, and the trees gradually become fixed and motion- 
 less, till overwhelmed and buried in the mud and 
 sand. 
 
 In ancient times, the rivers flowing from the Alleg- 
 heny and Laurel Ridges, into the vale or basin of 
 the Ohio, mixed, near Pittsburg, with the stagnant 
 waters, at the verge of the great lake, and there depo- 
 sited the trees, which the wintry and vernal torrents 
 had uprooted and hurled down by thousands from the 
 upper regions. These trees subsided into masses as. 
 level as the waters which transported them hither ; 
 and as the mound of the lake was successively ex- 
 tended, the lake receded step by step. By this ope- 
 ration, the vegetable depositions were gradually ex- 
 tended in the same line, and ultimately formed that 
 vast layer, which, in process of time, was covered 
 with mud, sand, and gravel, and assumed its present 
 appearance. 
 
 Pit coal is found in many other parts of the United 
 States, and always in circumstances similar to those 
 above-described. 
 
 Evans speaks of a mine near the Muskingum, op- 
 posite the mouth of Laminskicola creek, Vv hich took 
 fire in 1748, and burnt for a whole year. This mine 
 
78 
 
 was produced by the process just described ; and the 
 great rivers entering the Ohio would almost all of 
 them make depositions of this kind, in flat parts of 
 their course, and in the adjacent districts. 
 
 The upper branch of the Potowmack, above and 
 to the left of Fort Cumberland, is famous for its 
 mines of coal, pervading the downs near its bor- 
 ders, in such a manner that boats may be loaded 
 \vith this substance, >vhile lying at the foot of the 
 bank. Now this spot bears every appearance of a 
 lake, formed by some of the ridges, which may be 
 supposed to have once dammed up the Potowmack, 
 iibove and below Fort Cumberland. 
 
 In Virginia, the bed of James River, ten miles 
 above the rapids at Richmond, is formed by an ex- 
 tensive stratum of coal. In a few places, where wells 
 have been sunk on the left bank, there has been found, 
 under a mass of red clay, 120 feet thick, a stratum 
 of coal, 24 feet thick, in a bed of inclined granite. 
 It is evident, that the rapids below, which is still a 
 considerable obstruction to the stream, was once an 
 unbroken mound, and occasioned in this place a 
 s\A"amp, or, more probably, a lake. Wherever rapids 
 are found, there is a check or stagnation in the stream 
 immediately abo^'e. Here the floating trees would 
 be liable to entangle and fix themselves. When the 
 river had made itself a passage, and its level become 
 lower, the floods of every year Avould accumulate, 
 and make new additions to this mass of red clay, 
 whose distant origin is clearly proved, by the resem- 
 
79 
 
 blance it bears to the soil of the South-west Moun- 
 tain, and the upper vallies of this river. 
 
 It is not impossible, however, that beds of coal may 
 exist in the maritime country, whose formation can- 
 not be explained in this manner, but a few instances 
 of this nature ought not to overturn my general con- 
 clusions, because the whole country between the sea 
 and the Allegheny has been broken up by earth- 
 quakes, the traces of which are every where visible, 
 and these commotions have disturbed the regular 
 horizontal order of the earthy and mineral strata, 
 throughout its whole extent, from the St. Laurence 
 to the Gulph of Mexico. 
 
 Having thus unfolded the state of the soil of the 
 United States, it remains for me to speak of the most 
 remarkable circumstances in its physical condition, 
 and that which forms it grand distinction, since no- 
 thing like it is to be found in the rest of the globe : I 
 mean the fall of tlie river St. Laurence, at Niagara. 
 
80 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Of the Cataract of A^iagura^ and other remarkable Falls. 
 
 SOME late travellers* have considerably elu- 
 cidated this surprising physical phenomenon ; but as 
 they have chiefly dwelt upon its influence, as a specta- 
 cle, upon the eye, and paid little or no attention to its 
 topographical circumstances, of which the spectacle 
 is merely an effect, I shall confine myself principally 
 to the consideration of it in the latter view, in which 
 it is by no means unworthy of attention. 
 
 It is surely a wonderful fact in geography, that a 
 river, very near 2500 feet wide, and generally fifteen 
 in depth, should find the level of its channel suddenly 
 sink beneath its stream, and should throw down its 
 entire mass of water, from a height of a hundred and 
 
 * Travels in the United States of America, by La Rochefou- 
 cault Liancourt, vol. II, and Travels in Upper Canada, by Weld, 
 vol. II, which two works may be deemed a kind of portable library 
 of the United States — Y. The former of these works abounds 
 
 with the grossest errors. — Trans. 
 

 X4^^ 
 
 ^ii o^, ' -4^ ^, 
 
 
 
 :,3^>'~* 
 
 
81 
 
 forty- four feet, into a channel through which it pur- 
 sues its subsequent course, where the spectator can 
 discover no hill or ridge that could once have re- 
 strained or blocked up its passage. One cannot, at 
 first, conceive by what position or direction of the 
 surface nature has led to the production of this asto- 
 nishing scene ; but, when the process is discovered, 
 we are equally astonished at the obvious simplicity 
 of the means, and the grandeur of the end effected by 
 them. 
 
 To enable the reader more clearly and distinctly to 
 conceive this picture, we must remind him, that the 
 country between Lake Erie and the Ohio is a vast 
 plain, higher, in its general level, than almost all the 
 rest of the continent, as is proved by the course of 
 its rivers, some of which flow into the north Atlantic, 
 and others into the Gulph of Mexico. 
 
 From the west and north-west sides, this plain 
 proceeds, without interruption, from the savannahs 
 bordering the Mississippi and the lakes. Southward 
 and eastward, it touches the great rampart of the 
 Allegheny ; but on the northern side, having skirted 
 Lake Erie, and approached within six or seven miles 
 of Ontario, the level of this plain is suddenly lowered, 
 and a new plain commences at the foot of the decli- 
 vity, more than 230 feet below the former one, which 
 forms the verge or table of Lake Ontario. In reced- 
 ing from the shore of the lake, we distinctly and easily 
 perceive this change of level (see plate III, fig. 2, iett. 
 a, a. A), At a distance, viewed from the lake, it ap- 
 
 L 
 
i^ 
 
 I rr.4Mf ^^ 
 
 JT**^s 
 
 
 t*»«»>A 4. '.M* 
 
 :^^ f«»j 
 
 
82 
 
 pears like a lofty rampart (^), whose side is bristled 
 with forests, and which seems to interdict all passage 
 beyond it. If we enter the St. Laurence, and ascend 
 as far as Queenstown (3), we presently perceive a deep 
 and narrow chasm {c), from which flows the river, in 
 a swift but unrufiled course. The cataract still re- 
 mains unexplained. This precipice stretches from 
 Toronto, or even from a greater distance, and skirt- 
 ing the northern shore of Lake Ontario, at an inter- 
 val of one or two miles, it makes a bend towards the 
 east, on the southern shore of the lake, and crosses 
 the river seven miles from its mouth, and the Genes- 
 see river at eight : afterwards it bends southward, 
 and by a line five or six miles distant, west of the 
 Seneca Lake, where I discovered its declivity*, it 
 hastens to join itself with those branches of the Alleg- 
 heny, from whence this lake receives its principal 
 Waters. 
 
 We may add to these particulars, that the plain, 
 here nearly level with the mountains, extends itself, 
 with them, to the Hudson river, where it terminates 
 abruptly, as at Niagara, in a steep and lofty precipice, 
 
 * A mile and a half from Geneva, coming from Canandarqua, 
 I found myself at the skirt of an amphitheatre, of a gentler and 
 longer descent than that which I am going to describe, but 
 affording a nobler prospect, for it presents to the single glance 
 an immense flat table, on which is seen, north-west, Lake Onta- 
 rio, and, on the east, a boundless extent of forest, speckled, here 
 and there, by a few farms and villages, and the glistening surfaces 
 of the Iroquois lakes. 
 
S3 
 
 and presents another topographical prodigy, in a sur- 
 face which the tide pervades for a hundred and sixty- 
 six miles, along the very foot of a loftier surface, from 
 which other rivers proceed, such as the Delaware, in 
 a course of four hundred miles. 
 
 The true mechanism of Niagara will not be so 
 easily comprehended by those who approach it on the 
 side of Lake Erie, in which direction I approached 
 it, October 24th, 1796. From the lake, we have no 
 mountain in view, except near Presque Isle, where 
 some faint and remote ridges are seen, in the north- 
 west quarter of Pennsylvania. The country traversed 
 by the St. Laurence is a scene of continual forest, 
 and the sluggish motion of the stream, scarcely at the 
 rate of three miles an hour, affords no token of the 
 direful commotion lower down. It is not till we 
 reach the mouth of Chippeway creek, eighteen miles 
 below Lake Erie, that the water assumes a quicker 
 motion, and compels the boats to seek the shore, at 
 a village built at this spot. Here the river expands 
 into a sheet of water near two thousand feet wide, 
 overshadowed on all sides by woods. Two miles 
 and a half further is the fall (e). Our attention is at 
 first awakened by a dull and rumbling sound, like 
 the roar of a remote sea. This sound is lower or 
 iiigher, according to the direction of the wind, but 
 ihe eye as yet discovers nothing extraordinary. From 
 hence we pursue our way, on foot, through a rugged 
 waggon road, on the left bank of the river, while the 
 trees shut us out from all the scene before us. Hav- 
 
84 
 
 ing proceeded a mile, we perceive the river growing 
 turbid and tumultuous, and, in another mile, it is 
 entangled among rocks, which are covered with foam. 
 Beyond these breakers, we behold issuing, as it 
 Mere, from a chasm in the forest, a cloud of vapour, 
 and this is the only token, as yet, of the river. The 
 noise becomes now more violent, but the cataract is 
 still unseen. We continue to proceed along the 
 bank, which at first did not exceed the height of ten 
 or twelve feet above the water, but which soon be- 
 comes twenty, thirty, and even fifty feet high, by 
 which we may judge of the declivity thus far in the 
 channel of the river*. Some hollows oblige us here 
 to make a circuit from the river bank, which we pre- 
 sently reach again, by crossing some newly enclosed 
 fields, and emerging at length from the trees and 
 bushes, we find ourselves along side of the cataract. 
 We here behold the river fall in one sheet, twelve 
 hundred feet wide, into a hollow or canal worn by 
 the force of its waters, from a perpendicular height 
 of about two hundred feet. It is hemmed in by two 
 rocky walls, whose tops are crowned with firs, oaks, 
 cedars, &c. The traveller usually surveys the fall 
 from a spot where a jutting rock (i) towers above the 
 abyss. Some of my companions gave this spot the 
 preference. Some others, whom I joined, were told 
 
 * The settlers have ah'eudy made use of this descent, and con- 
 sequent rapidity of the stream, by the erection of grist and saw 
 wills (A //). • 
 
85 
 
 that the descent to the bottom of the gulph, more 
 than half a mile below, was practicable, by means of 
 Simcoe's ladder, and thought we should enjoy the 
 scene more completely, as objects of this kind are 
 viewed most advantageously looking upward to them. 
 We accordingly descended, not without difficulty, 
 by a kind of stairs, which are nothing more than the 
 trunks of trees, disposed conveniently, with notches 
 cut in them, on the face of the declivity. Having 
 reached the bottom, we re-ascended towards the fall by 
 a ledge of broken rocks mixed with sand, where lay 
 the bones and reliques of deer and other animals, 
 who, in attempting to pass the stream above, had 
 been borne down by its rapidity. 
 
 The current near us was extremely rapid, on a 
 stony bed, but unaccompanied with danger. Upon 
 our left, before us, was a portion of the fall, about 
 two hundred feet wide. A small isle divides this 
 from the great cataract. Beyond, and in front of the 
 spectator, this fall moulds itself into the form of a 
 horse-shoe, with an opening of about twelve hun- 
 dred feet, shrouded on the right by rocks jutting out 
 from the side of the chasm. For more than eighteen 
 hundred feet round the spray fills the air, and des- 
 cending in columns, wets the spectator to the skin. 
 Having just recovered from a malignant fever, which 
 I contracted at Detroit, I had neither the power nor 
 inclination to proceed any further. Some of my com- 
 panions undertook to reach the foot of the cataract, 
 but they were soon checked by obstacles much more 
 
86 
 
 formidable than they had iniaj^ined. An English tra- 
 veller, Mr. Weld, with whom 1 had sailed upon Lakt 
 Erie, had been more fortunate than we. Conducted 
 by excellent guides, and profiting by leisure and 
 means which we wanted, he proceeded as far as it 
 was possible to do so, without certainty of perishing, 
 and to satisfy my reader's curiosity, I shall extract 
 his description of the scene. 
 
 " From the foot of Simcoe's laddder you may walk 
 along the strand for some distance, without inconve- 
 nience, but as you approach the Horse-shoe Fall, the 
 way becomes more and more rugged. In some 
 places, where the cliff has crumbled down, huge 
 mounds of earth, rocks, and trees, reaching to the 
 water's edge, oppose your course ; it seems impos- 
 sible to pass them ; and, indeed, without a guide, a 
 stranger would never find his way to the opposite 
 side ; for to get there it is necessary to mount nearly 
 to their top, and then to crawl on your hands and 
 knees through long dark holes, where passages are 
 left open between the torn up rqcks and trees. After 
 passing these mounds, you have to climb from rock 
 to rock, close under the cliff, for there is but little 
 space here between the cliff and the river, and these 
 rocks are so slippery, owing to the continual moisture 
 from the spray, which descends very heavily, that, 
 without the utmost precaution, it is scarcely possible 
 to escape a fall. At a distance of a quarter of a mile 
 from the Great Fall, we were as wet, owing to the 
 spray, as if each of us had beeii thrown into the river. 
 
" There is nothing whatsoever to prevent you from 
 passing to the very foot of the Great Fall ; and you 
 might even proceed behind the prodigious sheet of 
 vi^ater that comes pouring dov^^n from the top of the 
 precipice, for the water falls from the edge of a pro- 
 jecting rock ; and, moreover, caverns, of a very con- 
 siderable size, have been hollowed out of the rocks at 
 the bottom of the precipice, owing to the violent ebulli- 
 tion of the water, wliich extend some way underneath 
 the bed of the npper part of the river. I advanced 
 within about six yards of the edge of the sheet of 
 water, just far enough to peep into the caverns be- 
 hind it ; but here my breath was nearly taken away, 
 by the violent whirlwind that always rages at the 
 bottom of the cataract, occasioned by the concussion 
 of such a vast body of water against the rocks. I 
 confess I had no inclination, at the time, to go far- 
 ther; nor, indeed, any of us afterwards attempted to 
 explore the dreary confines of these caverns, whei'C 
 death seemed to await him that should be daring 
 enough to enter their threatening jaws. No words 
 can convey an adequate idea of the awful grandeur of 
 the scene at this place. Your senses are appalled by 
 the sight of the immense body of water that comes 
 pouring down so closely to you from the top of the 
 stupendous precipice, and by the thundering sound 
 of t}ie billows dashing against the rocky sides of the 
 caverns below ; you tremble with reverential fear, 
 v^hen you consider that a blast of the whirlwind 
 plight sweep you from off the slippery rocks on which 
 
88 
 
 you stand, and precipitate you into the dreadful 
 gulph beneath, from whence all the power of man 
 could not extricate you ; you feel what an insignifi- 
 cant being you are in the creation, and your mind is 
 forcibly impressed with an awful idea of the power 
 of that mighty Being, who commanded the waters to 
 flow. 
 
 *' Since the falls of Niagara were first discovered, 
 they have receded very considerably, owing to the 
 disrupture of the rocks which form the precipice. 
 The r/Dcks at bottom are first loosened by the con- 
 stant action of the water upon them ; they are after- 
 wards carried away ; and those at top being thus 
 undermined, are soon broken, by the weight of the 
 water rushing over them : even within the memory 
 of many of the present inhabitants of the country, the 
 falls have receded several yards. The commodore 
 of the king's vessels on Lake Erie, who had been 
 employed on that lake for upwards of thirty years, 
 informed me, that, when he first came into the coun- 
 try, it was a common practice for young men to go to 
 the island in the middle of the falls ; that after dining 
 there, they used frequently to dare each other to walk 
 into the river, towards certain large rocks in the 
 midst of the rapids, not far from the edge of the falls, 
 and sometimes to proceed through the water, even 
 beyond these rocks. No such rocks are to be seen 
 at present ; and were a man to advance two yards 
 into the river from the island, he would be inevitably 
 swept away by the torrent. "It has been conjectured, 
 
89 
 
 as I before mentioned, that the falls of Niagara were 
 originally situated at Queenstown ; and, indeed, the 
 more pains you take to examine the course of the 
 river, from the present falls downward, the more 
 reason is there to imagine that such a conjecture is 
 well founded. From the precipice nearly down to 
 Queenstown, the bed of the river is strewed with 
 large rocks, and the banks are broken and rugged ; 
 circumstances which plainly denote that some great 
 disruption has taken place along this part of the river ; 
 and we need be at no loss to account for it, as there 
 are evident marks of the action of water upon the 
 sides of the banks, and considerably above their pre- 
 sent bases. Now the river has never been known 
 to rise near these marks, during the greatest floods ; 
 it is plain, therefore, that its bed must have been 
 once much more elevated than it is at present. Be- 
 low Queenstown, however, there are no traces on the 
 banks to lead us to imagine that the level of the 
 water was ever much higher there than it is now. 
 The sudden increase of the depth of the river, just 
 below the hills at Queenstown, and its sudden expan- 
 sion there, at the same time, seem to indicate that 
 the waters must, for a great length of time, have fallen 
 from the top of the hills, and thus have formed that 
 extensive deep basin below the village. In the river, 
 a mile or two above Queenstown, there is a tremen- 
 dous whirlpool, owing to a deep hole in the bed. 
 This hole was probably also formed by the waters 
 falling, for a great length of time, on the same spot, 
 
 M 
 
90 
 
 in consequence of the rocks which composed the 
 then precipice having remained firmer than those 
 at any other place did. Tradition tells us, that the 
 Great Fall, instead of having been in the form of a 
 horse-shoe, once projected in the middle. For a 
 century past, however, it has remained nearly in the 
 present form ; and as the ebullition of the water, at 
 the bottom of the cataract, is so much greater at the 
 centre of this fall than in any other part, and as the 
 water consequently acts with more force there, in 
 undermining the precipice, than at any other part, it 
 is not unlikely that it may remain nearly in the same 
 form, for ages to come. H 
 
 " At the bottom of the Horse- shoe Fall is found a 
 kind of white concrete substance, by the people of 
 the country called spray. Some persons have sup- 
 posed that it is formed by the earthy particles of the 
 water, which descending, owing to their great specific 
 gravity, quicker than the other particles, adhere to the 
 rocks, and are there formed into a mass. This con- 
 crete substance has precisely the appearance of petri- 
 fied froth ; and it is remarkable, that it is found ad- 
 hering to those rocks, against which the greatest 
 quantities of the froth that floats upon the water is 
 washed by the eddies. 
 
 " We did not think of ascending the clift' till the 
 evening was far advanced, and had it been possible 
 to have found our way up in the dark, I verily be- 
 lieve we should have remained at the bottom of it 
 ^antil midnight. Just as we left the foot of the Great 
 
91 
 
 Fall, the sun broke through the clouds, and one of 
 the most beautiful and perfect rainbows that ever I 
 beheld was exhibited in the spray that arose from the 
 fall. It is only at evening and morning that the rain- 
 bow is seen in perfection ; for the banks of the river, 
 and the steep precipice, shade the sun from the spray 
 at the bottom of the fall, in the middle of the day." 
 
 It remains for me to explain how the river extri- 
 cates itself from the chasm. I pursued my way on 
 foot, across the wood, by a steep path, for six miles. 
 I was endeavouring to discover the outlet, when I 
 suddenly lighted on the steep shelf before described. 
 The Canadians denominate this place the platon, or 
 platform. My view, here disembarrassed from the 
 trees, suddenly glanced over a boundless horizon. 
 On the north, Ontario stretched itself before me, like 
 a sea ; nearer lay an extensive meadow, through 
 which the St. Laurence flows, in three sweeps or 
 bends. Beneath me, and, as it were, at the bottom 
 of a valley, the little village of Queenstown is seated, 
 on the west bank of the river ; while, on the right, the 
 river finally issues as from a cavern, by an opening 
 concealed by the woods from my view. 
 
 To those, who closely examine the situation of the 
 scene, it is plain, that the fall commences here, and 
 that it has sawed through the layers of the rock, and 
 I thus hollowed out its channel. The chasm has been 
 gradually worn away, from age to age, till it reached 
 ; the place where the fall now appears. This opera- 
 tion has continued slowly, but incessantly. The 
 
92 
 
 oldest settlers in the neighbourhood, as Weld relates, 
 recollect a period when the bank of the fall was seve- 
 ral paces forward. An English officer, stationed for 
 thirty years at Fort Erie, states several facts, clearly 
 proving, that the rocks existing there thirty years 
 ago, are now undermined. 
 
 In the winter of 1797-8, the great thaw, and con^ 
 sequent floods, loosened great masses, which confined 
 the course of the water. If the European colonists 
 or travellers, to whom this region has been accessible 
 for a century and a half, had made careful memoran- 
 dums, from time to time, of the state' of the fall, we 
 should, by this time, have been able to trace the pro- 
 gress of those revolutions, which are easily proved to 
 have taken place, by vestiges and indications which 
 present themselves at every step*. 
 
 During five days which I passed with judge Powel, 
 ^^ ho has made a settlement five miles from Platon, I 
 had an opportunity of revisiting the ravi?iey at a spot 
 where a large bay is formed in one of its sides {k)» 
 Here the waters have formed a deep recess or whirl* ■ 
 pool, in which are entangled all the floating bodies, 
 which cannot go any further. We observe, at this 
 
 * It is extremely desirable that the government of the United 
 States, at present under the direction of a friend to the arts and 
 sciences, should order to be drawn up an exact description of the 
 present state of the cataract. This statement, compared with 
 subsequent appearances, observed from time to time, would ena- 
 ble us to trace with certainty the changes that may hereafter take 
 place. 
 
93 
 
 place, the river, checked by the stubborn rock, car- 
 ries its fall over several points, and appears to search 
 out the weakest spot, through which it continues its 
 way. 
 
 The fall at Niagara is undoubtedly the greatest of 
 the American cataracts, but there are many others 
 deserving the attention of philosophers, some on ac- 
 count of their volume, and others on account of their 
 height. 
 
 The continuation of the same ridge which forms 
 the Niagara falls, on the southern side of Ontario, 
 occasions two or three falls in the Genessee river, 
 which, taken together, are equal to Niagara, and 
 which prove that this bank or ridge preserves pretty 
 much the same level. I say two or ibree, because 
 travellers differ among themselves as to the number, 
 and not having explored them m.yself, I cannot settle 
 the dispute. Mr. Arrowsmith distinguishes only 
 two, of which, that nearest the lake is seventy-five 
 feet high, and the other ninety- six, which added to- 
 gether make a hundred and seventy-one. 
 
 Pouchot, a French officer in Canada, during the 
 Canadian war, enumerates three falls, the first of 
 which is sixty feet high, the second somewhat higher, 
 and the third a hundred feet in height, which in ail 
 are a hundred and sixty feet French. And this total, 
 the English foot being to the French nearly as four- 
 teen is to thirteen, sufficiently agrees with the num- 
 bers of Arrowsmith, vv'hose authorities appear to have 
 overlooked the second cascade of Pouchot. 
 
94 
 
 Bougainville, the famous circumnavigator, -who 
 served likewise in the Canadian wars, estimates the 
 second fall, in a manuscript account which he has 
 shown to me, at 20 feet. This will give a total 
 height of 180 feet. Now if Niagara be reckoned at 
 144, and for the declivity preceding it about 50 feet 
 English, which is near 46 French, the total will be 
 190 French, which differs only 10 feet from Bou- 
 gainville's estimate*-. Below Quebec, on the north 
 side of the St. Laurence, a river of secondary magni- 
 tude forms a celebrated fall, called the falls of Mont- 
 morenci. A sheet of water, from 46 to 50 feet 
 wide, falls from a height of 220 feet, and forms a very 
 picturesque appearance in the snowy flakes which are 
 occasioned by so long a descent. 
 
 Above Quebec, on the southern side, another river, 
 called La Chaudiere, has a fall, not above half the 
 height of the preceding ones, but its breadth is from 
 225 to 230, of which Mr. Weld has given us a des- 
 cription. A third fall, called the Cohoez, is that of 
 the Mohawk, three miles before it enters the Hudson. 
 
 * An anonymous, but apparently authentic writer in the Ame- 
 rican Museum (vol. 8, p. 215), states the elevations at Niaganv 
 thus : 
 
 1. Height of the rapids - - 58 Feet 
 
 2 of the fall - - - 157 
 
 3. of the hollow, or channel, to 
 
 P/rt/o;/, seven miles - 67 
 
 282 
 
95 
 
 This name, Cohoez, appears to be an imitative sound, 
 borrowed from the Indians ; and it is very remark- 
 able, that the same name is bestowed upon a small 
 cascade, nine miles from Spa. The Cohoez is reck- 
 oned by some to be 60 feet high, by others only 50 
 feet. The falling stream is about 800 feet wide. It 
 is roughened by numerous rocky points. 
 
 The fourth great fall is that of the Potowmack, six 
 miles above Georgetown. It has a height of 72 feet, 
 and a breadth of 8 or 900. The river, whose upward 
 course is through a valley, whose sides are wild as 
 those of the Rhone in the Vivarais, falls in one mass, 
 like the St. Laurence, into a hollow of pure rock of 
 micaceous granite, cut down into a sharp wedge-like 
 form. It frees itself a passage, some miles lower 
 down, by the spreading of the valley in the lower 
 country. 
 
 We might enumerate many other falls, more re- 
 markable for their height than the volume of the 
 stream. Such is Falling Spring, on one of the upper 
 branches of James River. Mr. Jefferson, In his Notes 
 on Virginia, estimates its height at 200 feet English, 
 but its breadth is only 15 feet. 
 
 The fall of the Passaic, in New Jersey, is from 66 
 to 70 feet high, and 100 wide. With respect to 
 what are called the Falls of St. Anthony, on the Mis- 
 sissippi, above the river St. Pierre, I shall only copy 
 Mr. Arrowsmith, who states the height at 29 feet. 
 
 To these grand phenomena of nature, Europe 
 offers nothing worthy of comparison, except the fall 
 
96 
 
 xe, || 
 
 of Terni, in Italy, and the cataract of the Rhine 
 ShafFhausen, whose descent, according to Mr. Coxe 
 is from 70 to 80 feet. ^ The stream is broken by- 
 large rocky projections, and, in this respect, as well 
 as in its height, suggests a comparison \\ith the fall 
 of Potowmack. As to Terni, it is higher than them 
 all, having a descent of no less than 700 feet, but 
 the stream is very inconsiderable. 
 
 The cascades, abounding among the Alps, Appe- 
 nines, and Pyrennees, do not deserve mention. The 
 cataracts of the Nile, anciently so much celebrated, 
 have been lately thoroughly explored, and found to .f 
 be no more than rapids, falling over ledges of granite, 
 about a foot in height when the waters are low, and 
 thus we have anew instance of the exaggerating spirit 
 of the Greeks, and of their imperfect knovviedge in 
 natural history and geography. 
 
 1 
 
^^7 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Of Earthquakes and Volcanoes, 
 
 THOUGH North America has only been 
 known about two centuries, this period, so brief in 
 the annals of nature, has supplied us with numerous 
 proofs, that earthquakes have been violent and fre- 
 quent throughout this region, in former ages, and 
 that they have occasioned those subversions, of 
 which the maritime country affords continual and 
 striking indications. If we ascend merely to the 
 year 1628, when the first English colonists arrived, 
 and deduce events down to 1782, a course of 154 
 years, says Mr. Williams, we shall find mention 
 made of forty-five earthquakes. His enquiries have 
 established the following general facts : 
 
 " That these earthquakes are denoted by a noise, 
 resembling that of a high wind, or that sound which 
 is produced by a chimney on fire. That they throw 
 down the chimney tops, and sometimes even houses 
 themselves ; that they have made doors and windows 
 
98 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 all 
 
 rattle, and leave wells, and even many rivers dry ; that 
 they make the waters turbid, and give them a fetid 
 smell of liver of sulphur ; that they throw up sand from 1 
 rents in the earth, which has the same odour ; that 
 their tremors appear to flow from internal fire, which 
 pushes the earth up\Vards, in a line generally running 
 from north-west to south-cast, in the course of the 
 Merrimack river, extending southward to the Potow 
 mack, and north to the St. Laurence, particular! 
 affecting the direction of Lake Ontario." 
 
 Some particulars in this writer's details have a 
 striking agreement with the appearances which I have 
 already enlarged upon. The odour of liver of sul- 
 phur (or ammoniacal sulphure), with which the water 
 and sand are impregnated, exuding from the earth, 
 in large crevices or rifts, is supplied by the strata of 
 schistus, which w^e see, under a calcareous super- 
 stratum, at Niagara, and which, when exposed to the 
 heat, exhales a strong sulphureous vapour. 
 
 This schistous stratum is found in the channel of 
 the Hudson, and appears, in many places, in Penn- 
 sylvania and New York, among sand stone and gra- 
 nite. There is reason to believe that it prevails all 
 round Ontario, and under Lake Erie, and consequently 
 that it forms one of the great layers of the country, 
 where earthquakes have their principal focus. 
 
 The line of this subterranean fire runs north-west 
 and south-east, affecting strongly the direction of 
 the sea and the Lake Ontario. This bias or tendency 
 is the more remarkable, considering the singular 
 
99 
 
 structure of the lake. The other lakes, notwithstand- 
 ing their great extent, have no great depth. Erie is 
 never more than 100 or 120 feet deep. Lake Supe- 
 rior is easily fathomed, in several places. Ontario, 
 on the contrary, is, in general, very deep, exceeding 
 250 feet, and, in many places, sounded ineffectually 
 with a line of 500 feet. This vast depth is some- 
 times discovered near the shore. From these cir- 
 cumstances, the inference is clear, that the bed of the 
 lake is the crater of an extinguished volcano. This- 
 conclusion is strengthened by the many volcanic sub- 
 stances found upon its shores, and of which skilful eyes 
 would, no doubt, discover many other specimens ; by 
 the shape of the great ledge or cliff" which forms an 
 almost circular border to the lake, and which every 
 where evinces, to reffecting observers, that ihtflat of 
 Niagara once extended to the midst of this lake, and 
 that it has been broken up and engulphed by the ac- 
 tion of a volcano. 
 
 The existence of this furnace agrees Avith all the 
 traces of earthquakes hitherto mentioned ; and these 
 two agents, which we here find united, prove at once 
 the existence of subterranean fires, at a great but un- 
 known depth beneath the surface, and explain that 
 confusion in which the strata of the Atlantic or mari- 
 time region is at present found. It likewise explains 
 why the calcareous, and even the granitic strata, have 
 so great an inclination as between 45 and 80 degrees, 
 their shattered masses beingheapedtogether in the pits 
 or chasms formed by great explosions. It is to this 
 
100 
 
 breach in the bed of isinglass that the little cataracts ' 
 are owing; and this fact shows us, that this secret 
 combustion extended, beyond the Potowmack, as far 
 south as this bank itself. 
 
 There is doubtless some communication between 
 this bank of talc and that of the Antilles. 
 
 I have already observed, that no trace of earth- 
 quakes is to be found in the western country ; that 
 the Indian languages contain no word corresponding 
 with this phenomenon : I may add, from the autho- 
 rity of Dr. Barton, that they no longer have in use a 
 name equivalent to volcano, of which they can per- 
 ceive no vestiges amidst the lake, but of which there 
 are numerous remains on the Allegheny. I was in- 
 formed, at Detroit, that the northern Indians relate a 
 story of a mountain, somewhere far inland, which 
 sometimes throws out smoke ; but the report wants 
 a surer foundation. 
 
 We may reasonably hope, that, in process of time, 
 learned associations may take place, in the United 
 States, who may employ, in geological investigation, 
 more steadfast and experienced means, and thus make 
 greater discoveries, than it is possible for single travel- 
 lers to accomplish. 
 
 Such investigations cannot fail to furnish new and 
 valuable materials for the history of the globe, and 
 will tend to confirm the conjecture of some natural- 
 ists, which I have likewise adopted, that North Ame- 
 rica has emerged from the sea, at a later period than 
 South America, or the greater part of the eastern 
 
101 
 
 continent. These waters, whether fresh or saline, 
 fluvial or marine, once covered the surface of this 
 globe, to a greater height than that of the most ele- 
 vated ridges, and for so long a time as to dissolve all 
 these matters, which were crystallized after their eva- 
 poration or subsiding. 
 
 I shall now proceed to some details respecting the 
 climate of this country. 
 
102 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Of the. Climate. 
 
 BY climate, strictly taken, we ought to under- 
 stand nothing more than the degree of latitude, but 
 as the heats or colds of a country have some connec- 
 tion with the degree of its latitude, we have now con- 
 nected with this term the customary temperature of 
 the atmosphere. Yet it is not strictly true, that the 
 temperature of a country is necessarily regulated by 
 the latitude. On the contrary, it seems to be modi- 
 fied by, and sometimes wholly to depend upon, vari- 
 ous circumstances of the surface. Thus, this tem- 
 perature is materially affected by the scarcity or 
 prevalence of trees or of water, by the height of its 
 general level above the sea, by the quarter to which 
 its slopes are turned, and, above all, by the kind, 
 force, and direction of those streams of air called 
 winds. Hence it follows, that the condition of the 
 surface essentially influences the temperature or cli- 
 mate. This truth Miill receive powerful confirmation, 
 
103 
 
 from the details into which I shall now enter of the 
 aerial phenomena of the United States. 
 
 1. The climate of the maritime region is colder in 
 winter, and warmer in summer, that that of the coun- 
 tries of Europe under the same parallels. 
 
 The historians of America and naturalists have 
 long ago noticed with surprise, that the climate of 
 the sea coast was, by many degrees, colder in winter 
 than the parallel regions in Europe, and even in 
 Asia and Africa, adjacent to the Mediterranean ; but 
 they seem to have overlooked a circumstance equally 
 remarkable, which is, that the heat of summer is, in 
 like manner, greater by many degrees, than that of 
 the eastern hemisphere. I shall give particular ex- 
 amples of both these peculiarities. In the northern 
 parts of New England, between 42° and 43°, by 
 observations made at Salem, near Boston, during 
 seven years, by Mr. Edward Holyoke,*, and com- 
 pared with twenty years of observation made at Man- 
 heimf, it appears, that the temperature of Salem is 
 higher in summer and lower in winter than that of 
 many cities of Europe. The difference will appear 
 in the following table. 
 
 
 Lat. 
 
 Lowest H 
 
 ighest 
 
 Var. 
 
 Rome 
 
 41° 55' 
 
 32 
 
 86 
 
 54 
 
 Marseilles 
 
 43° 17' 
 
 23 
 
 S8i 
 
 651 
 
 Padua 
 
 450 22' 
 
 9-i 
 
 ^n 
 
 87| 
 
 Salem 
 
 420 35^ 
 
 12 below 
 
 1021 
 
 1144 
 
 * Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. I. 
 t Ephemerides Meteorologies Palatinsc- Manheim. 
 
104 
 
 We may observe, in this table, the difference 
 throughout the year is 114^ degrees, while this differ- 
 ence at Rome is only 54 degrees, at Marseilles 65, 
 and at Padua 87. 
 
 Generally in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, 
 and Massachusetts, countries situated between 22" 
 and 45°, parallels corresponding M^ith the south of 
 France, and the north of Spain, the earth is covered, 
 every winter, with snow for three or four months, so 
 as to make the use of sleds and sleighs universal. 
 The thermometer, generally, in winter, between 32 
 and 10 degrees, sometimes descends so low as 5, 1, 
 and even 8 below 0. Mr. Belknap, the historian of 
 New Hampshire, has observed it, at Portsmouth, 
 north of Salem, at 18 degrees below 0, and S. Wil- 
 liams, the historian of Vermont, at 26 degrees below 
 0, at Rutland, at the foot of the Green Mountains. 
 
 A little farther north, namely, in Canada, at 46° and 
 and 47° latitude, which corresponds with the middle 
 of France, the snow begins to fall in November, and 
 continues on the ground till the end of April, a period 
 of six months, from four to six feet deep, with a 
 clear and dry air. At Quebec, the mercury usually 
 descends to 13 and 22 degrees below ; nay, the* 
 mercury was known, in 1790, to freeze*, which im- 
 plies a still greater descent. Now such an instance 
 seldom or never occurs in Europe, in latitudes be- 
 
 * Liancourt's Travels, vol. II, p. 207. 
 
 i| 
 
105 
 
 low that of Stockholm and Petersburg, which are 
 situated at 60°*. 
 
 This low temperature in winter gives rise to some 
 curious appearances, as to the expansive force of 
 water in freezing. 
 
 Major Edward Williams tried the following expe- 
 riment at Quebec : He filled iron bombs with water. 
 He closed the orifice with a tompion, driven close, 
 and then exposed them to the action of the air. 
 
 If the bomb had any cracks or defects, it burst at 
 the instant of congelation, and the enclosed ice shot 
 out small masses from its general surface, like wings 
 or fins ; but when the bomb was sound, the wooden 
 stopper was ejected, with a loud report, and to the 
 distance of from 60 to 415 feet, though weighing two 
 pounds and a half, and was found with a match or 
 fusee of ice fixed in it, six or seven inches long. 
 From these facts he infers, that water, in congealing, 
 dilates itself in the ratio of one seventeenth or one 
 eighteenth of its proper bulk. 
 
 At Montreal, above Quebec, the snows are of 
 shorter duration, by two months, than lower down 
 the river ; and further upward, at Niagara, they are 
 shorter than at Montreal, by an equal portion of time. 
 This is exactly contrary to appearances elsewhere 
 
 * The mean cold at Petersburg, for twenty years, from 1772 
 
 i to 1792, according to the reports of the Russian Academy of 
 
 i Sciences, was at 23 degrees below 0, but the greatest cold is not 
 
 ', mentioned. The ice is formed 25th September, and irielts 25th 
 
 April, as it does at Quebec. 
 
 , ' 
 
106 
 
 along the coast, and will serve to confirm a theory to 
 be hereafter explained. 
 
 In Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, the 
 heats are equally intense, from their commencement 
 at the summer solstice. For forty or fifty days to- 
 gether, the mercury is frequently observed to exceed 
 77 degrees, and sometimes rises to 86 and 90. Few 
 years pass at Salem without its rising to 99 and lOOtalj 
 degrees, which is the temperature of the Persian" 
 Gulph and the coasts of Arabia. This temperature 
 reigns in many other parts of New England. At 
 Rutland, S. Williams has seen the mercury at 93 
 degrees. What is more surprising, at Quebec, and 
 on the shores of Hudson's Bay, in the latitude of 
 59'', they suffer, for twenty or thirty days, a heat of 
 from 95 to 99 degrees, which is the more injurious, 
 as the constitution is unprepared for it, and since it 
 is accompanied either by a dead calm, or by a warm, 
 humid, suflfocatlng wind from the south. Since the 
 winter's cold is equal to 35 and 40, and even, at 
 Prince of Wales's Fort, to 51 degrees below 0, it 
 follows, that the annual variation is from 130 to 135 
 degrees of Fahrenheit. 
 
 In the middle states, which are those southward of 
 New York, throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
 and Maryland, the winters are shorter, and the snows,, 
 less abundant and more transient. They rarely last? 
 longer than fifteen or twenty days, but the heats arq 
 not less fierce and violent. They become settled 
 about the middle of June, and prevail, with little re- 
 
107 
 
 mission, for six or seven weeks. Towards the end 
 of October, they begin to decline. 
 
 At Philadelphia, in the latitude of 39" 55', and 
 corresponding, in this respect, with Madrid, Valen- 
 cia, and Naples, the mercury sinks, every winter, to 
 14 and 9, and, in some seasons, to 5 and 1. For 
 several days together, I have seen it 6 and 8 below 0. 
 This cold is so intense, that the Delaware, notwith- 
 standing its tide of six feet, and its breadth of a mile, 
 is sometimes frozen over in twenty-four hours. It 
 remains thus fixed almost every winter, for twenty, 
 thirty, and sometimes forty days, at one or two inter- 
 vals. There is generally, in the course of each sea- 
 son, two or three breakings up, which take place most 
 commonly between the thirtieth and fortieth day after 
 the solstice. 
 
 In the year 1788, on the 4th and 5th of February, 
 the mercury sunk, in one night, from 27 to 4 below 0, 
 and the river was frozen fast in the evening of next 
 day. 1764, December 31st, between the hours of 
 ten at night and eight in the morning, it froze suffi- 
 ciently hard to bear passengers. In this sudden me- 
 tamorphosis from liquid to solid, I have observed, 
 says Dr. Rush, a fume or vapour rise from the sur- 
 face, in so dense a column, that the people collected 
 in admiring crowds to behold it. 
 
 At the summer solstice, and even for twenty days 
 after it, the heats are so intense, at Philadelphia, that 
 the streets are deserted from noon till five o'clock, 
 and most of the inhabitants retire to repose after 
 
108 
 
 dinner*. The thermometer often rises to 88 degrees. 
 There are instances of its ascent to 95 and 99. In 
 
 * A native of that city will smile at this statement. The after- 
 dinner nap, ov siesta, is taken only by the old, infirm, or indolent, 
 and not by a larger proportion of the people than in the north of 
 Europe. At noon and an hour after, the streets are most busy 
 and frequented, the only noticeable circumstance being that a few 
 uf the passengers have umbrellas, and the rest prefer the shaded 
 side of the sU'eet. The truth is, that our manners do not accom* 
 modate themselves to the climate, either in v^inter or summer, 
 but we follow, in most respects, the fashion of our ancestors, who 
 came from the temperate atmosphere of Europe. Strangers, 
 from the torrid zone, especially from the islands, complain ex- 
 ceedingly of the heats of Philadelphia, when the mercury reaches 
 85 degrees, though natives of that city read, write, or pursue their 
 mechanical vocations, without sensible inconvenience, in a heat of 
 from 86 to 89. The writer of this note has been sitting at his 
 ease, in a spacious room, in an airy situation, surrounded by 
 trees ; at six o'clock, P. M., observing the noon-day heats remit- 
 ted, he has looked at the glass, and found it 89 degrees. This 
 happened several days together, during the present summer, , 
 1804. He has often observed men working diligently in the « 
 field, in a heat of 87, and has himself walked five miles, in a dusty, 
 shadeless road, at noon day, with a black beaver hat on his head, 
 Avhen the heat was 91, in the shade of an adjacent wood. Penn- 
 sylvania farmers frequently drive the plough and the wain, when 
 the hand would be blistered by touching the iron work of these 
 machines. At Lichfield, in Connecticut, at nine o'clock in a July 
 morning, the writer's hand has literally been bw-nty by laying it 
 by chance on the tire of a cart-wheel, before a blacksmith's shop. 
 These instances prove, at once, the great heats of the American 
 climate, and the influence of constitution and bodily habit to ena- 
 ble the natives to support them. These principles operate bene- 
 ficially, in spite of absurd modes in eating and dressing, and the- 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
109 
 
 the course of the day, it will sometimes rise from 65 
 and 70 to 80 and 85, a variation of 15 and 20 de- 
 grees. What renders this heat particularly irksome, 
 is the almost absolute repose of the air, particularly 
 for three hours after noon, and the moisture that 
 loads the atmosphere. From this detail it appears, 
 that the compass of the annual variation is from 95 
 to 105 degrees. 
 
 Dr. Rush was the first who noticed the analogy 
 subsisting between the climate of Pekin and that of 
 Philadelphia ; and a close examination will enable us 
 to discover a striking similitude between the climate 
 of North America and that of northern China and 
 eastern Tartary. 
 
 In the southern states, Virginia, Carolina, and 
 Georgia, the duration and intensity of the cold declines 
 in the same proportion as the latitude. The parallel 
 of Potowmack, or more exactly that of the Patapsco, 
 forms, in this respect, a distinguishing line. The 
 dominion of snow is bounded here, and he who tra- 
 vels southward may notice the sleigh before every 
 farmer's door, till he descends the steeps, at the foot 
 of which rolls the Patapsco, after which he will sec 
 that vehicle no more. 
 
 almost genial disuse of the bath. Vast numbers pass through 
 a long life, amidst all these heats, clothed in cloth, fl..nnel, and 
 black fur hats, and lying on a feather bed at night, drinking no- 
 thing but wine and porter, and eating strong meats three times a 
 day, and never allowing water to touch any part of them but their 
 exU'cmitits, for a year together. — Trans. 
 
no 
 
 In the interior of the country, towards the Blu( 
 Ridge, the snows prevail somewhat beyoiul this limit,] 
 on account of the greater elevation of the surface. 
 This quarter, nevertheless, is exposed to severe frosts, 
 for forty days ensuing the winter solstice. At Nor- 
 foik, on the 4th February, 1798, there fell, in one 
 night, five feet of snow. Even at Charleston, in the 
 latitude of 30% which answers to that of Morocco, 
 the mercury sunk to 23 degrees, according to Lian- 
 court, and the earth was frozen for a depth of tw( 
 inches, in one night*. 
 
 Along the coast, below the Potowmack, from a 
 month before the solstice, the heat is so violent, that, 
 for four months together, the mercury rises, in the af- 
 ternoon, notwithstanding the sea breeze, to 83 and 86 
 degrees. At Savannah, it reaches 102 and 106 de- 
 grees, a much higher temperature than is known in 
 Egypt, where the medium is 88 degrees in the shade ; 
 and even this temperature is there moderated by 
 a constant breeze, aiud a pure dry air. Henry Ellis 
 observed the mercury, at Savannah, at 100 degrees. 
 He complains that, for several nights together, it 
 
 * It is this which prevents the common growth of the orange; 
 but it docs not injure the olive, of which valuable product Mr. 
 Jefferson has made a present to his country, especially if it be the 
 Corsican olive, which, in 1792, I saw flourish, in spite of a tem- 
 perature of 27 and 25 degrees, in the mountains of Corsica, which 
 are 3000 feet above the sea. The Corsicans even affirm, that eight 
 days of snow, a foot deep, destroys noxious insects, and insurer 
 its growth. 
 
Ill 
 
 never sunk below 96. In his cellars it stood at 80*, 
 and under his arm at 96 degrees. Dr. Ramsay, who 
 made his observations at Charleston, has seen it rise 
 to 95 degrees, only once in five years. But Charles- 
 ton, situated at the mouth of a small river, shaken 
 by the tide, enjoys the sea breeze, and passes for a 
 cool place, among the people of the country^ who 
 make it their asylum in summer. 
 
 It follows that, in the southern states, the annual 
 variation is from 70 to 75 degrees, and the reader has 
 doubtless observed, that these variations decrease as 
 we 2:0 southward. Thus it amounts to 135 des:rees 
 near Hudson's Bay, to 110 in Massachusetts, and to 
 100 in Pennsylvania. It sinks to 80 degrees in Caro- 
 lina. Advancing nearer the tropics, the annual varia- 
 tion, in most places, exceeds not 45 and 50 degrees. 
 At Martinique, Porto Rico, and other windward isles, 
 the temperature, moderated by the sea breeze, mounts 
 no higher than 95, nor sinks below 55, a difference 
 of 40 degrees. On the ridge of hills, near Caraccas, 
 at 10° north latitude, a height of more than 7000 feet 
 above the sea, the mercury is stationary between 55 
 and 80 degrees. At Surinam, near the sea shore, it 
 vibrates between 88 and 93 degrees. The traveller 
 going from these latitudes northward, in summer, 
 finds the heat oppressive and irksome, exactly in pro- 
 portion to his progress in this direction ; and as to 
 myself, I greatly prefer the temperature of Cairo to 
 
 * See American Bluseum, vol. VIII, 
 
112 
 
 that of Philadelphia. It is true, that, as we go to- 
 Avarcls the mountains, the heat, though still fervent,] 
 becomes more supportable, and as we approach theirj 
 summits, wc meet with an atmosphere lighter, purer,' 
 and more elastic. In general, however, in what are 
 called the temperate zones, especially in low and 
 humid regions, the temperature is more unpleasant 
 than in A\hat are called the hot countries. 'Within 
 the limits of the torrid zone, the temperature is more 
 equable than in the contiguous regions, and far more 
 favourable to health, and to vital energy, if the air 
 were less saturated with exhalations from animal and 
 vegetable putrescence, and if strangers, especially 
 those from Europe, did not carry with them their 
 voracious attachment to gross meats and inflamma- 
 tory liquors. 
 
 The English and American philosophers, accord- 
 ing to the genius of their country, which is addicted 
 to system, are accustomed to deduce, from these ex- 
 tremes of heat and cold, a mean term, which they 
 set up as the standard of temperature. Having stated, 
 for instance, as the extremes, at Salem, 10 degrees 
 below and 100 degrees, the intermediate degrees 
 are 110, and taking the half, or 65, as the middle 
 term, they suppose 45 degrees to be the standard or 
 customary temperature of the country. They apply 
 the same process to the variations of the same day, 
 and if, as it often happens in the United States, there 
 are 20, 30, or 40 degrees of variation in the twenty- 
 four hours, they fix upon the medium between these 
 
113 
 
 as the temperature of the day ; but the truth is, this 
 supposed temperature never takes place : the transi- 
 tions are generally so quick, within the compass of 
 the same day, that the middle term is imperceptibly 
 passed over by the rising or sinking mercury ; and 
 even, in the course of a whole year, the temperature 
 is seldom or never stationary at this middle point for 
 more than a hundred hours. This arithmetical pro- 
 cess is somewhat less erroneous, when employed in 
 calculating the prevalence of winds, by the number 
 of hours and days that each prevails ; but when these 
 tables are not compared with the state of the thermo- 
 meter, during the prevalence of each wind, they fail 
 to instruct us in a point of chief importance, which 
 is, the connection between the direction of the wind 
 and the temperature, the latter being chiefly, if not 
 entirely, dependent on the former. 
 
 A better method of determining the general or 
 medial temperature of a country is suggested by Mr. 
 Williams, who proposes to take it from the tempera- 
 ture of the earth, as found in deep M^ells or caverns. 
 In pursuance of this plan, he ascertained the tempera- 
 ture of wells at Rutland, in Vermont, at the depth of 
 45 feet, t6 be - - 44 deg. 
 
 In different places in Massachusetts, 49 
 
 At Philadelphia, - - 53 
 
 In Virginia, according to Jefferson, 57 
 
 At Charleston, according to Dr. Ramsay, 63 
 
 We here observe a gradation corresponding with 
 the distance from the pole, which adds new force to 
 
 p 
 
114 
 
 De Saussure, in opposition to experiments confuting 
 the old opinion, that the mean temperature of the 
 whole globe is 55 degrees, and proves that heat is 
 proportioned to the action of the sun's rays on the 
 surface of the earth. 
 
 3. The daily variations are greater and more abrupt 
 in the maritime country than in Europe. 
 
 The great changes, incident to the atmosphere of the 
 coast, display themselves not only in the compass of 
 one season, but in that of a single month, week, and 
 even day. This vicissitude particularly takes place in 
 the middle states, and is greater in the flat than in 
 the mountainous country. This, no doubt, happens i| I 
 from the situation of the middle states, between two 
 adverse atmospheres, the polar and the tropical, be 
 coming thus a scene of continual warfare between ^ 
 large masses of hot and cold air. 
 
 It seems, says Dr. Rush, as if our climate were a 
 compound of all other climates in the world. We 
 have the damps and glooms of Britain in the spring, 
 the scorching rays of Africa in summer, the mild 
 temperature of Italy in June, the cold and snow of 
 Norway, and the ice of Holland, in the winter, some- 
 what of the storms of the West Indies at every sea- 
 son, and the capricious winds and fluctuating leather 
 of Great Britain throughout the year. 
 
 In winter, especially in January and February, the 
 temperature often varies fourteen, eighteen, and even 
 twenty-eight degrees, in the course of eighteen hours, 
 which has a pernicious influence on health. In 
 
 *l 
 
115 
 
 twenty-four hours, on the 4th and 5th of February, 
 1788, the mercury sunk from 37 to 4i degrees below 
 0, a difference of 41i degrees. Sometimes the south 
 and east winds raise the temperature to 54 or 58 
 degrees, and brings on a sudden thaw* ; and this 
 temperature, continuing for some days, has been 
 known to induce premature vegetation, and peach 
 trees have been covered with blossoms in the middle 
 of February : but April being the regular and cus- 
 tomary limit of the cold weather, the wind never fails 
 to return to the north-east and north-west quarters ; 
 the earth is bound again with frosts, and winter re- 
 sumes his reign with as much severity as ever. 
 
 Similar vicissitudes take place in summer, and the 
 intense heats of the day are usually succeeded by a 
 night of piercing cold. It has been noted, that the 
 higher the mercury rises in the afternoon, the lower 
 it sinks at day-break the ensuing day, three o'clock, 
 in the afternoon and morning, being the extremes of 
 diurnal temperature. When, at mid-day, the glass 
 has risen. to 86, and even to 90 degrees, it has some- 
 times fallen, on the ensuing night, to 65 and 60* 
 The descent from 80 degrees in the day time is usu- 
 ally to 68 at night ; but from 60 it sinks only to 56. 
 These changes are most apt to occur immediately 
 after thunder storms, with or without rain. In the 
 
 * Thaws are sometimes so rapid, that the snow melts to the 
 eye, and liquifies as fast as if hot water ^ere poured upon it. — 
 Trans. 
 
116 
 
 summer of 1775, after a storm of rain and thunder, 
 the mercury sunk 20 degrees, in an hour and a half. 
 If we except July and August, there are very few! 
 evenings in the year on which fire would not prove 
 agreeable*. 
 
 These changes are far less violent among the hills in 
 western Pennsylvania. There the cold is more equa- 
 ble in winter, and the heat less intense in summer, 
 and, in either case, the air is more pure, wholesome,, 
 and respirable, than in the lower country, where the 
 atmosphere is moist and dense. 
 
 What Dr. Rush here says of Pennsylvania, is 
 equally true of the southern part of New York, of| 
 New Jersey, and Maryland, and may also, in a con-j 
 siderable degree, be affirmed of the coast of Virginia! 
 and the Carolinas. In Charleston, variations of 18i' 
 and 22 degrees are often experienced, at all seasons, 
 in the same day. This variation has sometimes 
 amounted to 27 and 35 degrees, and Dr. Ramsay has 
 recorded one revolution, in the course of less than 
 fifteen hours, equal to 50 degrees. October 28th, 
 1793, the mercury sunk from 18 to 3 degrees, in 
 twelve hoursf. 
 
 Mr. Ellis tells us, that all the changes and variety 
 of weather, experienced in the temperate zone, 
 
 * Fires are rarely seen, in the middle states, between the lOlh 
 of May and the 10th of October. June, July, and August are the 
 months in which the evenings are much too warm for fire. — 
 Trans. 
 
 t Liancourt. 
 
 4 
 
117 
 
 throughout the year, have happened at Hudson's Bay- 
 in twenty-four hours ; but he thinks himself justified 
 in extending this observation much farther, for, in 
 his cellar, the thermometer stood at 81, in the next 
 story at 102, and in the upper one at 105 degrees ; 
 yet these violent heats would still be tolerable, were 
 it not for the sudden changes that take place in the 
 temperature. December 10, 1757, the temperature 
 was 86, and on the 11th of the same month it was at 
 38, a difference of 48 degrees. 
 
 In the northern regions, the same fluctuations pre- 
 vail, with this difference, that the greatest changes 
 are usually, in the north, from cold to heat, and, in 
 the south, from heat to cold ; and, consequently, the 
 effects produced by these vicissitudes are, in the 
 north, chiefly connected with contraction, in the 
 south, with dilatation. In Bougainville's manuscript 
 journal, I found the following facts recorded : 
 
 December 11th, 1756, Quebec. Within the last 
 
 three days, the glass has risen from 10 degrees below 
 
 to 32. To-day it rains and thaws, and a south 
 
 wind makes the weather as sultry as in spring. 
 
 December 14th, afternoon. The wind has just 
 
 veered round to north-west, and it freezes hard. 
 
 The glass is at 25 degrees. On the 15th, it rose to 
 
 79 degrees. A mild gale from the south-west, and 
 
 a beautifully clear sky. 
 
 January 18th, 1757. The wind north-west ; the 
 
 glass 29 degrees below 0. Clear, and intensely cold. 
 
 Travellers arrive with their noses, hands, and feet 
 
I 
 
 118 
 
 frozen. The cold more moderate in the lower town 
 than in the fort, the latter having a north-west expo- 
 sure, and the former being sheltered on that side. 
 
 At Hudson's Bay, the accurate and judicious ob- 
 servers Urnphraville and Robson mention similar 
 facts. They relate that, during the twenty or thirty 
 hot days of summer, the nights continue sultry, but 
 in winter, gales from the south raise the temperature 
 from 8 and 12 degrees belov/ to 32, which occasions 
 the sultriness which Bougainville complained of at 
 Quebec, a circumstance surprising to the inexperi- 
 enced natives of France or Britain, who shiver in the 
 temperature of 32 degrees ; but the sensation is simi- 
 lar to what is produced in us by a change from 32 to 
 75 degrees, or in an African by a change from 75 to 
 115, our notions of heat and cold being, in all cases, 
 merely comparative. Hence it is, that, at Charleston, 
 people complain of the cold, when the temperature J 
 does not exceed 55 or 60 degrees, and consume, in ' 
 consequence, as much fuel annually, according to k 
 Liancourt, as at Philadelphia, Avhere the mercury falls 
 35 degrees lower. 
 
 From all these materials, and from daily observa- 
 tions I myself made on the American atmosphere, it 
 was easy to perceive a correspondence between these 
 vicissitudes of temperature and certain changes in the 
 wind. When the wind changed from north-east or 
 north-west to south or south-east, a transition imme- 
 diately took place from cold to heat ; whereas the 
 opposite transitions, from heat to cold, always accom- 
 
119 
 
 panled changes of the wind from south or south-east 
 to north-west or north-east, throughout the whole 
 extent of maritime country, from the Gulph of Flo- 
 rida to Hudson's Bay. Here we have one material 
 for erecting a theory, by which the phenomena of 
 these cHmates may be explained ; but as a few facts 
 form an inadequate foundation for a rational theory, 
 I shall not be in haste to draw my general conclusions, 
 but proceed to quote some appearances, which, at 
 first sight, may look like exceptions to the above- 
 mentioned rule. 
 
 3. The temperature of the vallies of the Ohio and 
 the Mississippi is warmer, in the proportion of three 
 degrees of latitude, than that of the maritime districts. 
 
 This singularity deserves a more careful examina- 
 tion, because it has never hitherto, to my knowledge, 
 been accurately described. For the principal fact, 
 I shall borrow Mr. Jefferson's own words*. 
 
 " It is remarkable, that, proceeding in the same 
 parallel of latitude westwardly, the climate becomes 
 colder, in like manner as when you proceed directly 
 north. This increase of cold continues till you reach 
 the top of the Allegheny, which is the highest land 
 between the ocean and the Mississippi. Thence, 
 descending in the same parallel to the river, the 
 change is reversed, and, if we credit travellers, it be- 
 comes warmer than it is, in the same latitude, on the 
 sea coast. Their testimony is strengthened by the 
 
 ! 
 
 j * See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. 
 
120 
 
 vegetables and animals known to subsist and multiply 
 there naturally, which does not happen on the coast. 
 Thus, catalpas grow spontaneously on the Mississippi, 
 as far as the latitude of 37°, and reeds as far as 38°; 
 paroquets winter on the Scioto, in the latitude of 39°. 
 In 1779, the thermometer was at 90 degrees at Mon- 
 ticello, when it was 110 at Kaskaskias." 
 
 My own observations enable me to confirm and 
 extend these statements of Mr. Jefferson. While 
 travelling, in the summer of 1796, from Washington 
 city to Vincennes, on the Wabash, I made some 
 notes, among which the following are the most im- 
 portant : 
 
 1796, May 5. Strawberries appear, for the first 
 time, at Annapolis, near the shore, and at the level of 
 the sea. 
 
 May 12. The first strawberries at Washington, 
 where the land is somewhat higher. 
 
 May 30. The first at Frederickstown, at the foot 
 of the Blue Ridge, about 120 feet above the sea. 
 Here cherries ripen as late as at Albany, 140 miles 
 north, but on a level with the tide. 
 
 June 6. The first strawberries in the vale of the 
 Shenandoah, Avestward of the Blue Ridge, and pro- 
 bably 900 feet above the sea. 
 
 July 1. At Monticello, the wheat harvest com- 
 menced, at the foot of the South-west Mountain, , 
 fronting the south and south-east, while, on the oppo. ! 
 site side, it did not begin till the 12th or 14th. 
 
121 
 
 July 10. Harvesting at Rock-fish Gap, on the 
 summit of the Blue Ridge, 1150 feet high. It was 
 earlier, by two days, in Staunton valley, 230 feet 
 lower. 
 
 July 12. Harvest on Jackson's Mountain, a height 
 of 2200 feet. 
 
 July 20. Harvest on the Allegheny, 2600 feet 
 high. 
 
 Thus we perceive the harvest later and later, as we 
 go higher and higher. 
 
 Descending the opposite side, the harvest at Green- 
 briar, in a low plain, took place on the 15th, or five 
 days earlier than on the summit. 
 
 In the valley of the Grand Kenhawah, at the mouth 
 of Elk creek, it began on the 6th. 
 
 At Gallipolis, on the Scioto, on the 11th. 
 
 At Cincinnati, further north, on the 15th. 
 
 Wheat is not grown at Vincennes. The products 
 chiefly attended to are maize, tobacco, and cotton, all 
 which have been deemed congenial to a hot climate. 
 
 July 1. Harvest had commenced at Kaskaskias, 
 and this was as early as at Monticello. 
 
 The second line from the Allegheny is less uni- 
 form than that just described, by reason of the greater 
 irregularity of the surface, and varieties in the lati- 
 tude. Cincinnati is not so forward as Gallipolis, be- 
 cause it lies somewhat north, and is, at the same 
 time, less screened from the boreal blasts, and less 
 accessible to kindly gales from the south. The ear- 
 lier harvests of the Kenhawah valley, notwithstanding 
 
122 J|j 
 
 its superior elevation, are owing to its being narrower 
 and having steeper sides, which concentrate the heat. 
 The heat I found greater here than elsewhere. The 
 influence of different aspects is exemplified in our 
 ordinary gardens, where the ripening of fruits depends 
 upon the quarter of the sky to which they are exposed, 
 on the distance or vicinity of walls, which reverberate 
 the sun's rays, or ward off chilling and unwholesome 
 blasts. It is true, however, that the law resulting 
 from elevation is generally fulfilled in the parallel 
 mentioned, and that the time of harvest coincides, 
 with remarkable exactness, at Monticello and Kas- 
 kaskias, which are both in the same latitude, and 
 nearly at the same level above the sea. 
 
 It must not be denied, that there are several ap- 
 pearances, in the state of the temperature and the 
 progress of vegetation, in the western country, not to 
 be explained by the elevation or aspect. One of the 
 most remarkable of these appearances has been no- 
 ticed within a few years, but is now confirmed by 
 daily observation. Naturalists have observed, in com- 
 paring the places, on cither side of the Allegheny, 
 where certain plants grow spontaneously, that there is 
 a difference between them, equivalent to three degrees 
 of latitude, in fiivour of the valley of the Ohio and 
 the Mississippi. Trees and herbs are found on the 
 Avestern side of the mountains, three degrees farther 
 north than the same products are found spontaneously 
 growing on the eastern side : thus, cotton, which 
 flourishes at Cincinnati and Vincennes, in latitude 
 
123 
 
 39°, cannot be raised, in Carolina, further north than 
 35° or 36°. It is the same with the catalpa, sassa- 
 fras, papavv, pakan or Illinois nut, and many other 
 plants, which I am not sufficiently conversant with 
 this branch of natural history to enumerate*. 
 
 Through all the seasons, proofs of the milder tem- 
 perature of the tramontane regions continually occur. 
 All the intelligence I was able to collect, in my jour- 
 nies on the Ohio, and during my residence at Galli- 
 polis. Limestone, Washington (Kentucky)^ Lexing- 
 ton, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Vincennes, agreed as 
 to the following facts : 
 
 That winter commences near the solstice, and does 
 not prevail, with any rigour, longer than seven weeks 
 after it. Even during that period, there are intervals 
 of mild, genial weather. The mercury, in general, 
 falls no lower than to 20 or 18 degrees. Frost is 
 seen, for a few days, in October, and after vanishing 
 for three, four, or five weeks, re-appears at the end of 
 November, but is not permanent or rigorous till near 
 January. The brooks, creeks, and pools are then 
 frozen,' but seldom continue fast bound more than a 
 fortnight ; frequently they are free again in three days. 
 
 In the winter of 1796, the mercury fell to 2 degrees 
 below 0, and the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio 
 were frozen over from the 28th of November to the 
 30th of January, a period of 65 days, but this was 
 
 * Dr. Barton, the celebrated botanist of Pennsylvania, told me 
 he was preparing a treatise on this interesting subject. 
 
124 
 
 considered as a case without example. The Wabashj 
 is usually frozen in winter, but only for five, ten, or^ 
 fifteen days. In Kentucky, and throughout the vale of 
 the Ohio, the snow remains from three days to ten, 
 and even in January they experience hot sultry days, 
 when the mercury rises to 66 and 72, Avith the wind 
 at south or south-west, and a clear sky. The spring 
 is ushered in with showers, blown from the north- 
 east and north-west^ and the heats become great and 
 permanent within forty days after the equinox. For 
 sixty or seventy days ensuing the summer solstice, 
 they prevail with the greatest intensity, the thermo- 
 meter ranging between 90 and 95. This period is. . 
 tempestuous, storms almost daily occurring on the^l 
 Ohio, and these storms rather aggravate than mode- 
 rate the heat. Rain is sometimes brought by the 
 south and south-west winds, and sometimes is formed 
 by the vapours rising copiously from the river and 
 the immense forest that overshadows all the country. 
 The rain,* which descends in torrents, gives only 
 momentary relief to the parched soil, and the heat of 
 the ensuing day obliging it to re-ascend, it forms 
 heavy morning mists, which afterwards become 
 clouds, and thus continually renews the electrical 
 process. The river water is at the temperature of 
 64 or 66. After a night of dead calm, a breeze is 
 called up from the west or south-west, between eight 
 and ten in the morning, which dies away about four 
 in the afternoon. 
 
125 
 
 The prevailing wind throughout the year is the 
 south-west. This current ascends by the course of 
 the Ohio, and comes, by the way of the Mississippi, 
 from the Gulph of Mexico. This wind is hot and 
 tempestuous in the valley of the Kenhawah, the tem- 
 perature of which it raises, being checked by the 
 ridges of the mountains. Its direction conforms to 
 the winding course of the Ohio, having sometimes 
 the direction of west and south ; but it is always one 
 and the same current of air, and prevails for five- 
 sixths of the year, leaving to the other winds only 
 one-sixth. It prevails equally over all Kentucky, but it 
 is not there attended with exactly the same effects, for 
 while the vale of Ohio, in a breadth of twelve or 
 fifteen miles, is moistened by copious rains, the con- 
 tiguous country is parched with drought, sometimes 
 for three months together, and the cultivators have 
 the vexation of beholding, from the summit of the 
 hills that border this vale, a sea of mists and rains, 
 whose skirts touch, but never overpass, this border. 
 
 At the autumnal equinox, rains come with north- 
 east, south-east, and even north-ivest winds. The 
 coolness they induce is the fore-runner of frost. 
 Autumn is a season of mild, serene weather, and sur- 
 passes the other seasons in pleasantness, of which, 
 however, there are only two, summer and winter, for 
 spring is quite unknown in North America. 
 
 Such is the climate of Kentucky, and the vale of 
 the Ohio, and it extends, with little variation, to a 
 great distance. We must proceed very far north 
 
126 
 
 before we meet with any remarkable diversity, or 
 find any correspondence between the temperature and 
 seasons of the maritime and inland regions. Even at 
 Niagara the seasons are so mild, that severe cold does 
 not prevail more than two months, though this is the 
 loftiest part of the great platform. This circumstance 
 agrees not with the laws arising from elevation. 
 
 The winter in Genessee, as it has been described 
 to me, partakes not of the rigours of the same season 
 as they are experienced in Vermont and New Hamp- 1 1 
 shire, but agrees witlr the \vinters at Philadelphia, 
 three degrees farther south. In that city, it has often 
 been remarked, that frosts occur, more or less, every 
 month in the year, except July. Now this cannot be l| 
 said of any place in Genessee, farther south than the 
 Oneida village, latitude 43° ; whereas, east of the 
 mountains, at Albany, frost occurs every month of 
 the twelve, and peaches and cherries refuse to ripen. 
 
 At Montreal, in latitude 43° 20', the temperature 
 is much higher, and the cold of shorter duration, 
 than east of the mountains, in Maine or Nova Scotia. 
 Snow lies not on the ground so long, by two months, 
 as at Quebec, though this toAvn is lower down the 
 river ; and this is likewise an exception to the law of 
 elevation, and for this, therefore, some other cause 
 must be sought. 
 
 Before I investigate this cause, it will be necessary 
 to mention some other facts and observations. 
 
 From the comparative statements already made, it 
 follows, that, in order to maasure the temperature of 
 
127 
 
 the United States, two thermometrical scales must 
 be applied to the whole country. One must be 
 placed in the order of the latitudes, having its lowest 
 point, or the extreme of cold, nearest the pole, at the 
 river, for example, of St. Laurence, and its highest 
 point, or extreme of heat, nearest the tropics, as in 
 Florida. Between these points, the temperature 
 varies, by regularly increasing or diminishing, in the 
 same ratio with the latitude, the aspect and elevation 
 being equal. 
 
 The other scale must be placed transversely, from 
 east to west, in the order of the longitudes, and ought 
 strictly to consist of a double scale, commencing from 
 one common point or extreme of cold, to coincide 
 with the highest ridge of the Allegheny, and pro- 
 ceeding respectively east and west, till they terminate 
 at their highest points or extremes of heat, one of 
 them at the sea shore, and the other at the Missis- 
 sippi. In each, the temperature must be calculated 
 from the elevation and aspect conjunctly with the dis- 
 tance. From these principles alone can we deduce 
 accurate ideas of the temperature and state of vegeta- 
 tion in America. The sketch of a general table of 
 the American climate, published by a society at New 
 York, may be useful, but, in order to be accurate, 
 we must adopt no other principles than those above- 
 stated. 
 
 Between the climates of the inland and maritime 
 districts there are two points of diversity, of great im- 
 portance, though hitherto unnoticed. The first is. 
 
128 
 
 1 
 
 that southward, beyond the latitude of 35° and 36 
 the temperature of both regions becomes the same. 
 The Floridas, and western Georgia, from the Missis- 
 sippi to the Savannah rivers, enjoy the same climate 
 and seasons. Hence it clearly appears, that the pre- 
 vious difference was. owing chiefly to the mountains, 
 this diversity keeping pace with them, and ending 
 only where they end. 
 
 Secondly, the superior warmth of the western quar- 
 ters ceases to take place when you reach the great 
 lakes, and the latitude of 43° and 45° north. On 
 leaving the southern shore of Lake Erie, the cold 
 incessantly and prodigiously increases. At Detroit 
 and Niagara the same climate prevails, but from 
 Lake St. Clair the cold is much more severe and 
 permanent than at Detroit. That lake is frozen over 
 every year from November to February. South and 
 south-west winds, which moderate the weather at 
 Lake Erie, occur less frequently here, and no fruits 
 but winter pears and apples reach maturity. 
 
 At Machillimakinaw, 2}° further north, observa- 
 tions made in 1797, under the direction of general 
 Wilkinson*, show% that frora August 4 to September 
 4 the thermometer, in several places beyond Lake 
 St. Clair, never was higher at noon than 70 degrees, 
 and that, in the morning and evening, it often sunk 
 to 46 degrees, which marks a colder atmosphere than 
 at Montreal, on the same parallel. 
 
 * See New York Medical Repository, vol. I. 
 
129 
 
 These statements fully accord with those lately 
 published by Mackenzie. While at Philadelphia, I 
 made acquaintance with that respectable traveller, and 
 procured from him much information on this subject. 
 One of his companions, Mr. Shaw, I was likewise 
 fortunate enough to meet with, in 1797, on his return 
 from a residence of thirteen years at the remotest sta- 
 tions. From the information of these two intelligent 
 observers, I collected the following facts : 
 
 That from Lake Superior westward to the Stony 
 or Chippewan Mountains, and north as far as 72°, a 
 climate every where prevails, whose rigours can only 
 be compared with the climate of Siberia. The 
 ground, generally fiat, and either naked or producing 
 a few stunted trees and shrubs, checkered with lakes, 
 bogs, and innumerable rivers, is eternally whistled 
 over by violent and icy gales, coming from the north 
 and north-west. Above the latitude of 46°, the earth 
 is frozen the whole year. At several stations, be- 
 tween 50° and 56°, they can sink no wells. Mr. Shaw 
 attempted to dig one at St. Augustine, forty miles 
 from the mountains, but, though it was July, the 
 earth was frozen three feet deep, and as it grew harder 
 and harder, he was obliged to desist, after penetrating 
 twenty feet. 
 
 The testimony of these gentlemen is incontestable, 
 but it receives new strength from the evidence of 
 other travellers. Robson, who, in 1795, built Prince 
 of Wales's Fort, at Hudson's Bay, in latitude 59°, 
 relates, that, in attempting to sink a well, in Sep- 
 
 R 
 
130 
 
 tember, he found the earth, to the depth of three feet,*l 
 thawed by the previous warm weather ; then a stra- 
 tum of eight inches, frozen as hard as a stone ; under J 
 this a loose sandy mass, dry and full of frost, where 
 his borers could find no water, because, as he ima- 
 gined, the intense cold, arresting the descending 
 waters, prevented them from sinking below a point 
 where the heat of summer might have thawed them*. 
 
 Umphraville, a factor of the Hudson's Bay com- 
 pany, from 1771 to 1782, and a careful and judicious 
 observer, likewise affirms, that the greatest heats of 
 summer, which are very great for four or five weeks, 
 do not thaw the earth to a depth of more than four 
 feet, even where the wood has been removed, and 
 the surface exposed to the full force of the solar rays ; 
 but where the scanty shade of the pines and junipers 
 protects it, it is not thawed above two feet deep. 
 
 Hence it is evident, that, beyond a certain latitude, 
 the eastern and western regions have the same tem- 
 perature. This line, being about the latitude of 44** 
 or 45°, and skirting along the lakes and Algonquin. 
 Mountains, limits the warm climate of the western 
 country, to an extent of nine or ten degrees, a space 
 bounded, on the other three sides, by mountains. 
 This peculiarity is occasioned, in some manner or 
 degree, by these bordering ridges, but what is the 
 grand and primary cause ? This is the problem to 
 be solved, the discovery to be effected ; and as vari- 
 
 * An Account of Six Years Residence at Hudson's J3ay. 
 
131 
 
 ous observations have concurred in pointing out, as 
 the principal agent in these events, an aerial current 
 constantly prevailing in the valley of the Mississippi, 
 and which is widely different from those winds that 
 prevail along the sea coast, it will be here necessary 
 to explain fully the laws by which the winds of the 
 United States are governed. 
 
132 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Winds af the United States. 
 
 IN Europe, especially in France and England, 
 the inconstancy of the winds, and the consequent 
 changes of weather, are frequent topics of complaint ; 
 but, in this respect, we experience nothing compar- 
 able to the fluctuation and caprice of winds and wea- 
 ther in America. For near three years together, 
 from October, 1795, to June, 1798, I never saw the 
 wind at the same point for thirty hours at a time, or 
 the mercury remain stationary for ten hours. The 
 wind is in incessant change, not merely a few points, 
 but from one point to its opposite ; from north-west 
 to south and south-east, from south and south-east 
 to north-west ; and these variations are of more im- 
 portance, and attract attention the more, because 
 the vicissitudes of temperature are equally sudden and 
 great. In winter, on the same day, snow Mill fall in 
 the morning, with an east or north-east wind, and the 
 mercury at 32 degrees ; at noon, the mercury will 
 
133 
 
 rise to 45 or 48, with the wind at south or south-^ast ; 
 in the evening it will be 28 or 30, with a north-west 
 wind. 
 
 In summer, a calm may be expected at two o'clock 
 in the afternoon, the thermometer at 86 or 88 degrees. 
 Rain succeeds, with a south-west wind, at four or 
 five. The wind speedily veers to the north- west, 
 strong and cold, and at midnight the thermometer 
 sinks to 68 or 70. Autumn is the only season when 
 a succession of a few fair days, and a steady gale 
 from the west, may be expected. This mutability is 
 the more remarkable, inasmuch as it extends through 
 the whole maritime country, from the sea shore to 
 the mountains, and from Halifax to Charleston, the 
 same vicissitudes taking place nearly at the same 
 time, through all this vast extent. Particular posi- 
 tions of the surface, and of the sun above the horizon, 
 have doubtless some effect on these aerial currents y 
 and winds, local and partial in their prevalence, may 
 sometimes be observed ; but it is strictly true, that 
 the winds of the United States blow, in general, over 
 an extensive surface, and the same blast is much 
 more amply diffused than in Europe. 
 
 This is more particularly true of the three princi- 
 pal winds, the north-west, north-east, and south-west. 
 These powers appear to have shared the dominion of 
 the air among them. Dividing the year into thirty-six 
 parts, we may affu'm, that these three engross thirty 
 or thirty -two of these parts^ the north-west and south- 
 
134 
 
 west having each twelve of them, while the east and 
 north-east have six or eight. The rest of the year 
 is distributed among the south-ccist, south, and west : 
 the north can hardly be admitted to any share. 
 
 Each of these winds, having considerable influence 
 on the weather, and being itself an effect of some- 
 thing else, will be examined and explained in due 
 order. 
 
 I. OF THE WINDS BETWEEN NORTH AND EAST. 
 
 No wind occurs so rarely in the United States as 
 the north. From the tables I have seen at Boston, 
 Philadelphia, and Monticello, it does not blow eight 
 days in the whole year in these latitudes. It seems 
 to be most frequent in the southern countries, from 
 observations made at Williamsburg, and quoted by 
 Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia. These sum- 
 mary notices, however, appear to be extremely vague, 
 and, if admited as true, we may conjecture that this 
 wind at Williamsburg is local, and owing to the 
 course of the adjacent stream, which flows south into 
 James River. The course of a general wind is often 
 inflected, from 30 to 80 degrees, by the hollow of a 
 river, a ridge of hills, a lake, forest, or the like. It 
 is at least certain, that, both east and west of the 
 Allegheny, a north wind seldomer occurs than any 
 
135 
 
 """"''■'' 
 other*. When this wind blows, it is is generally 
 
 moist and cloiidy, and always cold. 
 
 This circumstance seems, at first view, hostile to 
 the general theory of winds, which refers all move- 
 ments of the atmosphere to the action of the sun's 
 rays, by which it is unequally dilated, and commotion 
 occasioned in establishing an equilibrium between 
 masses which are light or heavy in proportion as 
 they are warm or cold. Hence it is that the atmos- 
 phere is continually shaken by streams moving in 
 different directions, and that the ccld dense air of the 
 north, must, by the law of equilibrium, be constantly 
 flowing southward, to fill up the room made for it by 
 the dilatation and levity of the air near the tropics. 
 
 Though the influence of these general laws is ob- 
 structed or modified by local circumstances, we shall 
 prove that the American winds are all reducible to 
 this principle, and that the debt which the north 
 owes the south is fully paid by its collaterals, the 
 north-west and north-east, these winds beins: armed 
 and supplied from the great arsenal of the north. 
 
 NORTH-EAST WIND. 
 
 This wind, like most others, changes its qualitities 
 with its country. In Egypt, where it is named gri- 
 
 * This assertion is confirmed by the tables of Dr. Ramsay, at 
 Charleston, which give but four days to this wind in a series of 
 four years, from 1791 to 1794. In 1792 it never once occurred, 
 l^nd it is no less rare at Quebec. 
 
I 
 
 136 
 
 ga!t\ I found it gloomy, chilly, and oppressive ; in 
 the Mediterranean, it was rainy and tempestuous ; 
 in France, particularly north of the Cevennes, it is 
 dry and parching ; and, lastly, in the United States, 
 it is dreaded as the harbinger of wet and cold. We 
 need only look at a map of the world to perceive the 
 cause of this diversity. In Egypt, this current over- 
 tops the snowy ridges of Taurus, which ranges north 
 of Syria, and not having time to imbibe moisture or 
 warmth in its short flight over the extremity of the 
 Mediterranean, it "masses, for the most part, unaltered 
 over Egypt. 
 
 As we go westward, this current comes to us from 
 the Archipelago and Greece, where it imbibes some 
 degree of warmth, and crossing the broadest part of 
 the Mediterranean obliquely, it absorbs a great deal 
 of humidity, and distils rain on the coast of Spain. 
 
 In France, south of the Cevennes, by blowing over 
 the Alps, it becomes dry and cold, but .it rarely ocu' I 
 curs, its place being usurped by a collateral wind, 
 called, by the Provencals, the mistral. North of the 
 Cevennes, it reaches us only after traversing the con- 
 tinent, from Russia through Poland and Germany, 
 and in this long course it parts with all its moisture, 
 and gives us nothing but a settled cold. If we push 
 this line a little north, we shall see it traversing the 
 White Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Bothnian Gulph, 
 from which, and from the bogs of Finland, it sucks 
 up moisture in abundance, which it again pours along 
 the coast of Sweden, and carries to Norway nothing 
 
137 
 
 but its cold. This desiccation is likewise promoted 
 by the ridge of Dofine mountains, which divides the 
 two countries, and intercepts the clouds and vapours. 
 
 In North America, this wind acquires humidity 
 without heat by traversing a vast ex cent of water, 
 which reaches to the pole. It bears this character 
 throughout the maritime country. Its approach may 
 always be discovered by the deliquescent state of your 
 salt, soap, or sugar. The sky is soon overcast, and 
 the scattered clouds, if previously there be an}', 
 quickly coalesce into a dark and universal canopy. 
 If the air be cold, these clouds congeal into snow; if 
 hot, they dissolve into rain. 
 
 From Cape Cod to Newfoundland, this wind fills 
 the air with the chilliest and most benumbing fog I 
 ever witnessed, and at Philadelphia, as at Cairo, I 
 could tell when this wind blew, on waking in the 
 morning, merely by the sensations it produced. In 
 both places it oppresses the brain, and produces tor- 
 por and head-ache*-. 
 
 If this state of the body, or one similar to it, be 
 necessarily produced by a given state of the atmo- 
 
 * It is the error of all observers to represent particular 
 
 effects as general, and occasional appearances as constant. There 
 
 are many natives, as well as visitors, at Cairo and Philadelphia, 
 
 who are totally strangers to the sensations here described, as con- 
 
 ! nected with the north-east wind. They experience nothing but 
 
 j the sensible consequences of wet, cold, and the absence of sun- 
 
 ', shine, which are rather uncheering to the fiincy than directly hurt- 
 
 \ ful to the health. — Trans. 
 
 s 
 
sphere, must we not believe that the physical and moral 
 constitution of man is greatly influenced by the state 
 of the air ? And may not these causes explain tlie 
 diversity we meet with in the character of nations, 
 some being- distinguished by lively wit and keen per- 
 ception, and others by torpor and feebleness of mind*? 
 
 The north-east wind possesses these qualities in a 
 less degree as it goes southward ; but, even in Geor- 
 gia, they are sufficiently perceptible, and the name of 
 this wind is sure to suggest images of cold^ wet, and 
 disagreeable^ from Halifax to Augustine. 
 
 On crossing the Allegheny, this language and these 
 associations are changed. There the emigrants from 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut are surprised to find 
 this wind rather dry than wet, rather light and plea- 
 sant than heavy and irksome ; but the cause is evi- 
 dent. As in Norway, this current is arrested and 
 disburthened of its vapours, by the ridge of mountains 
 which screens the western country on the north and 
 
 * Baoiiian crasao jurares acre natum, said a philosopher and 
 poet. — V. It is somewhat surprising that notions, so crude 
 
 and so generally exploded, should be countenanced by our author. 
 The mental influence above-described operates through the me- 
 dium of the body ; and though a native of a warm, serene climate 
 may be discomposed and stupified by cold fogs and rains, they 
 tend to harden the constitution of those exposed to them from 
 birth, and the mind is not enfeebled or impaired by this cause, 
 except through the body. This evil influence, therefore, is only 
 to be dreaded by weak and eflcminate forms, which a mild and 
 serene climate is more-likely to produce than a bleak and churlish 
 one. — Traxs, 
 
 i\ 
 
139 
 
 cast. Hence it seldom carries the wished-for rain, 
 especially in summer, to Kentucky and the vale of 
 the Ohio ; and hence also it happens, that, when rain 
 comes from this quarter, it continues at least a day, 
 and sometimes three days, because a very consider- 
 able chasm must be produced, above the valley of the 
 Mississippi, to bring the vapours unbroken and entire 
 over the mountains, and the sun must rise once or 
 oftener, before the equilibrium is re-established, on 
 both sides of the ridge. This occurs oftenest in 
 vi^inter, because then the atmosphere is every where 
 more turbulent and mutable. The east and north- 
 east winds will then frequently cross the mountains, 
 and clothe the western regions with snow, or deluge 
 them with rain ; but they are soon driven from these 
 precincts by their great adversary the south-west, 
 which reigns here five-sixths of the year. When the 
 contest proves obstinate, they both ascend vertically 
 to the upper regions, and there turning back, they 
 glide away horizontally, or sink again to the lov/er 
 strata*. Sometimes the south-west overpowers its 
 antagonist, and keeps onward to the ocean ; at other 
 times the north-east wins a passage to the Mississippi 
 and the Gulph of Mexico. 
 
 These commotions are most violent at the equi- 
 noxes, when the sun, by carrying its ardent influence 
 from one pole towards the other, produces a great 
 
 * Glissent horizontalementy ou at; reversent dans leu couches infe- 
 riures. 
 
140 
 
 revolution in the atmosphere, and the equilibrium 
 being suddenly destroyed between large masses and 
 adverse currents of air, the uproar of the elements 
 extends for and wide. At these periods, of course, 
 and in April and October, occur tliose tornadoes, 
 which, in the United Statues, most commonly owe 
 their birth to the north-east wind. These whirlwinds 
 move in narrow veins, about half a mile broad, and 
 four or five miles in length. Within these lines, they 
 twist off and lay level the largest trees, and their 
 course through a forest is like that of a reaper through 
 a field of wheat. Sometimes, though rarely, their 
 progress is more ample, and they traverse the whole 
 country, an incident which I shall explain when I 
 come to consider the laws of the south-west wind. 
 
 The prevalence of the north-east wind, in the mari- 
 time country, is partly owing to the direction of the 
 coast and of the inland mountains, which conforms i 
 to the course of the airy current. Observations made a 
 at Monti cello, Frederickstown, and Bethlehem, prove, 
 that at times when the wind is north-east at Newport, 
 New York, Philadelphia, and Norfolk, there prevails 
 a different wind inland. The partial reign of this 
 wind is sometimes manifested, by the snow it brings 
 with it extending less than ten miles from the shore. 
 There fell, at Norfolk, on the 14th February, 1798, at 
 night, more than forty inches of snow, the wind at 
 north-east ; whereas, twenty-five miles inland, it did 
 not even rain, and the wind tended to north-west, as 
 the newspapers of the day recorded. The change from 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
141 
 
 north-east ijs generally to east, which, though less 
 frequent than the former, is, in like manner, abundant 
 in rain and cold, especially north of 40°. Southward 
 of this, it becomes lenient and milder, but it is still 
 wet, which the temperature of the sea, from which it 
 blows, and of these latitudes, sufficiently accounts for. 
 This wind is not to be confounded with the tropi- 
 cal or trade wind. This never extends further north 
 than 32°, and only thus far when the summer sun 
 rarifies the northern atmosphere, and thus forms a 
 vacuity to be supplied by this stream. In winter 
 it does not reach further than 22°, being repulsed at 
 this time by the colds of North America, and at the 
 same time drawn southward by the ascent or rarefac- 
 tion of the atmosphere in South America, on w^hich, 
 at that season, the sun exerts his full force. At all 
 times, and even when the fluctuating east and north- 
 east prevail in the Atlantic Ocean, they are separated 
 from the trade wind by an intermediate space of calm, 
 or of counter streams, whence arises their unequal 
 temperature, their density, and velocity. There. is 
 also another difference between them. Though ge- 
 nerally capricious and irregular, the extra-tropical 
 north-east and east prevail at the equinoxes, and for 
 forty or fifty days afterwards. Hence this season is 
 most favourable to the voyage from Europe, and the 
 opportunity is anxiously seized by the merchant 
 ships. Before or after this period, the prevalence in 
 winter of the north-west, and in summer of the south- 
 west winds, occasions a long delay. These winds 
 
142 
 
 allow but little time to the south and south-east 
 winds, which I shall now proceed to explain. 
 
 II. SOUTH-EAST AND SOUTH WINDS. 
 
 The south-east wind, in the United States, bears 
 some resemblance to the sirocco of the Levant, which 
 also blows from that quarter, being hot, moist, light, 
 and rapid, and producing, though in a much less de- 
 gree, the same torpor of the brain, and the same un 
 easy sensations. 
 
 Since the kams'm^ or south wind, in Egypt, and the 
 south-west at Bagdat and Bussora, have the same 
 properties, which they imbibe in consequence of 
 sweeping over a burning surface of sane], /oimtainkss 
 and dry^ we may naturally impute this influence to 
 the operation of caloric, or some combination of that 
 fluid, on our nerves. This inference is favoured by 
 the actual quality of these winds, since the south-east 
 wind in America is more supportable than the same 
 wind in Sicily, because it loses some of the qualities 
 which the sands of Africa imparted to it, in its passage 
 over the Atlantic, and the sirocco of Naples is more 
 knient than the kamsin and harmattan, because the 
 former is obliged to cross the Mediterranean, while the 
 latter blow over an uninterrupted extent of dry land*. 
 
 il 
 
 * Heri aijain a nalive of America will be surprised to find him- 
 st!f continually exposed to the horrible sirocco, kamsin, and har- 
 
143 
 
 When the south-east blows in winter, in the mari- 
 time country, which most frequently happens at the 
 approach of the equinox, it is apt to occasion thaws, 
 even in Canada, one injurious effect of which is to 
 spoil the meat, of which, in cold countries, there is 
 usually provided a store for five or six months. In 
 the south, these imseasonable gales give a spring to 
 vegetation, and call forth, in January and February, 
 those germs and blossoms, which the speedy return of 
 frost is sure to destroy. 
 
 Near the equinoxes, especially the vernal, thiswind 
 is apt to generate storms, more particularly near the 
 coasts of Jersey and Maryland. These gales com- 
 monly last about twelve hours, and they resemble a 
 hurricane or tornado, in raging within a narrow space 
 of forty or fifty miles in length, by a breadth of fifteen 
 
 mattan, of Africa. A mucky breeze from the south will some- 
 times discompose him in the sultry mornings of August, but it is 
 rare that the south or south-east produces any remarkable effect, 
 nor, though always warm, and sometimes wet, does it deserve to 
 be in any respect compared to the poisonous breath of the African 
 deserts. The south-east wind in North America does not, in fact, 
 traverse any part of Africa, but comes over the whole south Atlan- 
 tic, and over the bogs and woods of Brazil and Guiana. The 
 south wind comes from the region of the Andes, and the Gulph of 
 Mexico. The sandy Africa lies between east and east-north-east 
 of the United States, which winds are moist and cold, as might be 
 expected from their journey over so much water, notwithstanding 
 the hot and dry point from which they may be supposed to set 
 out. The parching and suffocating kamsin and siroc, therefore, 
 or any degree of them, cannot be known in North America. — 
 Trans. 
 
144 
 
 or twenty. Two examples of this occurred within 
 my own observntion at New York, and one at Phila- 
 delphia, where there raged so violent a storm for half 
 a day, that all the ships near the coast were supposed 
 to have been wrecked, whereas, twelve hours after, 
 many vessels arrived in perfect safety, which had ex- 
 perienced no extraordinary wind. 
 
 This violent irruption of hot rarified air, cannot be 
 explained by ordinary principles, since every other 
 air is colder and denser than this. We must therefore 
 suppose it produced by the dilatation of a large quan- 
 tity of air, by means of heat, and which, of course, 
 drives to a greater distance the colder air that is con- 
 tiguous. The bays and mouths of rivers, where this 
 stormy Mind most frequently occurs, having a conical 
 or funnel-like outline, favours this opinion : for a large 
 body of air being forced into these inlets, is pressedj 
 into a channel that grows narrower and narrower,*; 
 An appearance similar to this t^ikcs place in a pool 
 of water, which, if the banks be entire, remains in 
 cquilibrio and at rest ; but if a narrow outlet be made, 
 the water crowds to the opening, where a deficiency 
 is first occasioned, and its impetuosity depends, 
 first, upon the degree of general pressure, and, next, 
 upon the amplitude of the space, in which it dif- 
 fuses itself after escaping through the outlet. This 
 exterior space, with respect to the wind in question, 
 is the middle region of the atmosphere, somewhat 
 less, perhaps, than three thousand feet above the sur^ 
 face, and the south-east torrent pours into this region 
 
145 
 
 by ascending, like all heated fluids. There it is 
 either condensed by the freezing stratum above, or 
 flows off" horizontally beneath it ; or, perhaps, ac 
 quires a vortiginous direction around a horizontal 
 axis, about fifteen hundred feet high, its circumfe- 
 rence brushing the surface of the earth. As to the 
 cause of this previous vacuity above it, unproduced 
 by thunder, or any other obvious meteor, a great 
 number of preceding and attending circumstances 
 must be investigated in order to discover it ; but, as 
 I possess not these necessary data of enquiry, I shall 
 not attempt to supply their place by conjecture. 
 
 OF THE SOUTH WIND. 
 
 We should naturally suppose a wind directly from 
 the south would be hotter than one from the south- 
 east, yet, in this country, it Is cooler. In summer, 
 when it prevails most, they deem it a cooling and 
 agreeable breeze, since it impregnates the air with 
 moisture. This vapour, I observed, at Philadelphia 
 and New York, accompanied with a strong smell of 
 sea marshes, such as oysters have, and by these un- 
 pleasant means it indicates its sources*^. It tempers 
 
 * The south wind at New York comes directly and wholly from 
 the sea, and the dampness it breathes is saline to the taste : at 
 Philadelphia it comes from the sea over the sandy tracts of Dela- 
 ware and Maryland, atid the senses of a native cannot perceive 
 the odour here mentioned.— —Trans. 
 
 T 
 
the heat produced b}' the direct and reflected rays, 
 of a burning sun, in June, July, and August. For 
 the sake of this breeze, a southern aspect is generally 
 preferred for a house in the United States, as in 
 France we prefer, on a similar account, an east and 
 south-east exposure. The course of the summer sun 
 is so high above the horizon, that it does not enter 
 apartments shaded by piazzas, which are generally in 
 use throughout America*. In winter its course be- 
 ing lower, the house is cheered by its oblique rays,* 
 in spite of the keen north-wester, which is then the 
 usual accompaniment of sun-shine, but from which it 
 is screened by a blank wall [". At this season, if the 
 south wind be cold, it is made so by the snow which 
 sometimeslies upon the ground in Carolina. If it bring- 
 snow instead of rain, this arises from the clouds, from 
 the north and north-east, encountered on its course, 
 and not having time to retreat back into the ocean, or 
 towai'ds the pole. Such snows immediately dissolve, 
 or turn, while falling, into rain. Six hours blowing 
 will derive from this wind the warmth and moisture 
 which the tropical seas impart to it. At Philadelphia, 
 March 10, 1798, it produced. the temperature of Flo- 
 rida. In summer, when it is brisker than usual, it 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 * Piazzas in the country and in villages only. In the large fl 
 towns, an awning protects shops and booths. — Trans. ■ 
 
 t The thermometer, at noon, on the north side of a wall, will 
 sometimes sink to 20 degrees, while, on the south, it shall rise to 
 35 ; on one side it shall freeze intensely, while, on the other, the 
 clods shall be slippery and wet. — Trans. 
 
 \ 
 
147 
 
 uhimately produces a storm ; and it is remarlied at 
 Louisville, and other places on the Ohio, that thunder 
 is sure to follow its continuance for twelve hours. If 
 we rate its motion at forty-five or fifty miles an hour, 
 twelve hours will enable it to bring to the Ohio the 
 vapours of the Gulph of Mexico. The prevalence of 
 this wind, in summer, proves a powerful attraction 
 to the north, at this season, in North America ; but 
 whether this centre of attraction is within or beyond 
 the Algonquin Hills, north of the great lakes, cannot 
 be ascertained but by contemporary observations 
 made on the line extending, from the coast of Flo- 
 rida, through Kentucky, the Lakes Huron and Erie, 
 and over the Algonquin Mountains, to Hudson's Bay. 
 These would greatly elucidate the laws of re-action 
 between the polar and tropical atmospheres, and be- 
 tween the north-west and south-west currents, which 
 are chief among American winds. 
 
 III. THE SOUTH-WEST WIND. 
 
 The south-west is one of the three most prevalent 
 winds in the United States, is more frequent in 
 summer than in winter, and in the western than the 
 maritime regions. In winter, it is unable to sur- 
 mount the Allegheny, from which it is probably re- 
 pelled by the counter-blasts from the north-west, 
 north-east, and east. Sometimes it overcomes these 
 obstacles, and rushes more impetuously, as well 
 
14» 
 
 as with greater cold, than its customary moderation 
 and its sources would allow us to expect. These 
 extraordinary qualities it owes to the mountainous 
 country, covered with snow, and the plains, deluged 
 with wet, which it is obliged to traverse. 
 
 In spring, it occurs more frequently, bringing tem- 
 porary snows, torrents of rain, and even hail. These 
 may be considered as belonging to the north- wxst, 
 north-east, and east, whose cloudy freight, arrested 
 by the Allegheny, it turns back and drives before it. 
 This mountain is, indeed, the frontier on which these 
 hostile winds contend. The observer, on the plain, 
 may see the clouds tending towards the Blue Ridge, 
 on the wings of the east or north-east wind. There 
 they are checked, and either disappear in rain, or fly 
 back before a south-west wind, which blows for a 
 few hours. I witnessed this spectacle the evening I 
 spent at Rock-fish Gap, on the Blue Ridge, and mine 
 host, though no philosopher, explained very satisfac- 
 torily the reasons of what he saw. 
 
 At the summer solstice, the south-west prevails 
 more steadfastly than any other, in the maritime coun- 
 try. It is then the chief agent in the storms, which 
 rage in July and August, with a violence unknown 
 in France. A gale, which usually rises from the 
 south, at ten or eleven o'clock, yields, at noon, to the 
 south-west, which darkens the afternoon with thunder 
 clouds. For a few hours, the most vivid lightning 
 and the loudest thunder are accompanied with heavy 
 rains, but at sun-set the roar is stilled, and the clouds 
 
149 
 
 break and disperse, and an evening of enchanting cool- 
 ness and serenity succeeds the hubbub and glooms of 
 the tempest. 
 
 At the autumnal equinox, the north-east takes its 
 turn to reign, with some intermissions, for forty or 
 fifty days. The south-west then revives, and shares 
 the rest of autumn with the north-west, which now 
 begins to be keen and brisk, and with the west, 
 which is the most equable, serene, and bland of any in 
 America. 
 
 The south-west, in the vallies of the Mississippi 
 and Ohio, as far as the St. Laurence, is more uni- 
 form and simple in its progress. It prevails, v/e may 
 venture to say, for ten months out of the twelve, 
 from Florida to Montreal. For two months only, at 
 the winter solstice, the north-west and north-east rule 
 the air. Afterwards it revives and sti'engthens, as 
 the sun approaches the zenith, till, in July and August, 
 it is nearly as steadfast in the western regions, for 
 forty or fifty days, as the trade wind is at the equator. 
 It prevails nearly as much on the St. Laurence, and 
 ships are obliged to ^vait a month for a wind to carry 
 them up that river, and then the wished-for gale is 
 brief and transitory. It is this wind that thaws the 
 river, in April, as the north-west freezes it again, in 
 December. The south-west, as well as the south, is 
 the hot wind of Canada, Vermont, and Genessee, but 
 it properly merits this name only in summer, for it 
 I cools as the sun recedes from the zenith, or the laud 
 
150 
 
 verges towards the pole, and is hottest near the^ 
 Gulph of Mexico, which is its focus. W 
 
 Being so near this focus, it raises the temperature 
 of Lower Louisiana, in winter, so much, that the 
 intermeddling winds from the north, north-west, and 
 east, which arc pretty frequent, cannot check the 
 growth of the sugar cane, especially the species 
 brought from Otaheite. This advantage is out- 
 balanced by the excessive heats of summer, which 
 bring with them almost daily storms, like those that 
 sailors call white squalls. This stormy season begins 
 after the solstice, and its progress is remarkable. At 
 first, the humid and suffocating heat reaches its height 
 about five in the afternoon ; tempestuous clouds then 
 roll from the mouth of the river, and from the south- 
 west parts of the Gulph of Mexico. These clouds 
 rise some minutes earlier every day, so that, in the 
 middle of August, thunder is heard about two o'clock 
 in the afternoon. Heavy rain accompanies its tre- 1 
 mendous peals. By sun-set all is still, and the sky 
 is sometimes clear, and sometimes obscured by mists, 
 which the sun sucks up from the neighbouring 
 marshes. The night is calm and sultry, and infested 
 with mosquitoes. Next day, the heat increases as 
 the sun approaches the meridian, and is greater as the 
 air is calmer, and in the afternoon the customary 
 storm succeeds. The south-west wind drives these 
 tempestuous clouds towards Kentucky and Tenessee, , 
 where they meet and mingle with others exhaled j 
 
151 
 
 from rivers, swamps, and lakes, and thus the gloomy 
 canopy is uninterruptedly stretched as far as Canada. 
 Justly to estimate the laws of this great aerial cur- 
 rent, and its influence on the surface of the earth 
 which it sweeps, to determine the nature of the re- 
 servoir which supplies it, which is the atmosphere 
 of the Gulph of Mexico, many circumstances of 
 these regions must be investigated and compared. 
 The northern tropic passes over the middle of this 
 gulph. During the six summer months, its whole 
 surface is exposed to the rays of a vertical sun, by 
 which an immense evaporation is produced. During 
 the six winter months, the solar influence is still 
 powerful enough to exclude frost from the precincts 
 of this sea. The shores of Yucatan, Campeachy, 
 Vera Cruz, Florida, and Cuba, are all extremely hot. 
 This heat arises from the contiguous gulph being 
 surrounded on all sides by high land, by v/hich the 
 air is rendered stagnant, and this gulph is more vexed 
 by alternate storms and calms, thunder, water-spouts, 
 and whirlwinds, all of which necessarily attend a 
 moist and fiery atmosphere, than any other water in 
 the torrid zone. 
 
 These circumstances will fully account for the 
 qualities which the south-east wind in North Ame- 
 rica possesses ; but the enquirer will naturally ask, 
 whence is supplied this immense reservoir, from 
 which such abundant streams are incessantly flowing ? 
 
 If we carefully inspect the map (No. II.), we shall 
 sec, that the two mouths or outlets of this gulph are 
 
152 
 
 placed between the isle of Cuba and the peninsulas of 
 Yucatan and Florida ; that by the opening on the side 
 of Yucatan, which is the largest of the two, this re- 
 servoir receives water and air, from the Atlantic 
 Ocean, through the intermediate Gulph of Hondu- 
 ras and the Caribbean Sea ; that through the other 
 and narrower outlet, between Florida on one side, 
 and Cuba and Bahama on the other, the contents of 
 this reservoir are continually flowing back into tke 
 Atlantic, and that the access of air on this side is 
 obstructed by a triple chain of islands. We shall see 
 that both these channels lie between the latitudes of 
 20° and 24° north, and that of Yucatan, supposing 
 it to extend through the Caribbean Sea, falls as far 
 down as 10°. Now, since the eastern trade or tropi- 
 cal wind blows throughout the year on the Atlantic ; 
 since this wind springs up about three hundred miles 
 from the coast of Africa, and moves 24 miles an 
 hour, and, after a progress of six hundred miles, 4 
 reaches the Caribbean islands, we shall naturally per- r 
 ceive that this immense airy flood must easily sur- 
 mount this insular barrier, and that, on entering the 
 interior seu, it is hemmed in and compressed be- 
 tween St. Domingo and Jamaica on the north, and 
 Tierra Firme on the south, and thus driven into the 
 Bay of Honduras, and ultimately makes its way into 
 the Mexican Gulph : thus it supplies the waste of 
 air occasioned by the south-west wind. 
 
 It is this steady current from the east, which pro- 
 duces most of the phenomena observable in the gulph. 
 
 
153 
 
 Its first recess is violent, because the entrance be- 
 comes more and more narrow. The insular moun- 
 tains break and divide this current, as a stream of 
 water is broken and divided by the piers of a bridge, 
 and these obstacles, as in water, produce eddies. By 
 being divided and compressed in the channels between 
 these islands, its force is augmented, and on issuing 
 from them, it expands again with violence, and each 
 current forming eddies in its rear, they contend with 
 each other for the vacuity. These conclusions are 
 strengthened' by observing, as we coast these islands, 
 the various courses which the wind assumes, as the 
 distance from them varies. 
 
 These motions are parallel to what take place in a 
 stream of water, allowance being made for the greater 
 levity of air ; and careful observation of the eddies 
 which occur under a bridge, or among the obstruct- 
 ing rocks of a torrent, will afford accurate notions of 
 what happens in the present case, and in all airy cur- 
 rents. 
 
 Some may suppose that the trade wind would 
 naturally keep on its course westward, notwithstand- 
 ing the interposition of the grand isthmus of Mexico ; 
 but air, though so much lighter than water, is sub- 
 ject nearly to the same laws, and does not easily 
 transgress the limits of its customary channels. It 
 is clear that the mountains of Honduras and Nicara- 
 gua, which are elongations of the Andes, form an 
 insuperable barrier to this wind. To judge of this 
 with accuracy, we must know the height of these 
 
154 
 
 ridges, and the thickness of the stratum of moving 
 air. This stratum may possibly be thinner than we 
 should at first imagine, for acriiil voyagers assure us, 
 that the strata of the atmosphere do not often exceed 
 600 feet in thickness, and that contiguous masses 
 often move in opposite directions, so that two or three 
 different winds may be found to blow in an ascent o: 
 three or four thousand feet. New observations o 
 this head would be highly serviceable, and woul 
 particularly throw useful light on the subject befor 
 us. 
 
 As to the Mosquitoe or Nicaragua Hills, let us 
 suppose their iieight to be, in general, only 1800 feet. 
 This mound would obstruct and repel the trade wind, 
 to a degree that would leave it all its volume and 
 force. What would escape over the top, would be 
 a useless superfluity, but we cannot suppose that any 
 of it thus escapes, since no trace of it is found, be- 
 yond this ridge, on the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. 
 There, the customary winds are widely different, be- 
 ing the local breezes to and from the sea. These 
 penetrate several miles inland, and extend 100 miles 
 to sea, at w^hich distance ships may expect to light 
 upon the general winds. The latter commonly blow, 
 especially in summer, from the west, and are there- 
 fore directly adverse to Atlantic gales. They prevail 
 from latitude lO'' to 21°, quite along the Mexican 
 coast, from Cape Bianco to Cape Coruntas. 
 
 Neither does the trade wind turn aside and cross 
 Panama, since there the summer gales blow south 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
155 
 
 and south-south-west, from the Pacific Ocean. — 
 Hence it is evident, that the Andes of Mexico are its 
 insuperable boundary, and whatever be its height, is 
 the border line between two sets of Vvinds. 
 
 Thus obstructed, the trade wind must find a vent. 
 That between Jamaica and the iVIosquitoe shore pre- 
 sents itself of course,^ and through this it rushes into 
 the bay of Honduras. The mass, however, is not 
 perfectly entire, for sidelong and detached currents 
 skim the adjacent lands. Mariners relate, that from 
 Cape Vela, one projecting point of the gulph of Ma- 
 racaybo, the winds vary, and swerve into a course 
 parallel^ to the grand stream, shutting up the bays of 
 Santa Martha, Carthagena, Darien, and Porto Bello. 
 Some are influenced by the mountains and rivers on 
 this shore, and blow from south-east to north-west. 
 Some blow west, and are real counter-currents, such 
 as we meet with in the course of all rapid streams of 
 water, and such as so much aid the navigation of the 
 Mississippi. On the right of the grand stream, ano- 
 ther detached portion forms a south wind, v/hich, 
 from June to August, fans the coast of Cuba and Ja- 
 maica, and thus again, we see the whole force and 
 natural direction of the stream only in the middle of it. 
 
 On enterinGT the bay of Honduras, it veers a little 
 to the south-east, and encountering no new obstacles, 
 it enters the Gulph of Mexico .^ The bank of sand 
 called Yucatan is interposed between the two bays, 
 
 * Does not Volney mean obliqvie, or p.-rpendlcular ? — Ti?a:.^s. 
 
156 
 
 but its level is too low and uniform to constitute any 
 obstacle. Accordingly, Bernard de Orta, who has 
 published* some useful information on the winds of 
 La Vera Cruz, tells us, that the south-east prevails 
 in all these parts. 
 
 If, then, we imagine a volume of air, three hundred 
 miles in breadth, by fifteen hundred feet in depth, 
 that moves at least half a mile a minute, and is 
 accumulated in the great basin formed by the Gulph 
 of Mexico, it is evident that, from the curvature 
 of the edge of this basin, and from the diminution 
 of the propelling power, this stream, considered 
 as one and entire, must acquire a rotary or vorti- 
 genous motion, whose axis or centre, though not 
 permanent, is chiefly found in the northern part of 
 this gulph, whence it parts with its superfluity to 
 the adjacent lands, and hence a principal cause of all 
 appearances near this spot, and in the south-west part 
 of the continent, whose winds and meteors are influ- 
 enced from this quarter. 
 
 Pursuing the course of the grand stream, we shall 
 quickly see it divide itself into numerous branches, 
 all which obey the primary impulse, in connection 
 with, and modified by, certain local and partial causes. 
 
 The first of these branches crosses Yucatan, coasts 
 along La Vera Cruz and Panuco, and, impelled by 
 the original force, and by the Tlascalan Mountains, 
 
 * In the Supplement to the Mexican Gazette, for October, 
 1795. 
 
 i 
 
157 
 
 penetrates the inland of Mexico, and along the chan- 
 nels (or vallies) of Panuco, Las Nacas, Del Norte, 
 or Bravo, with those of all their branches, assails at 
 length the mountains of New Biscay, New Mexico, 
 and Santa Fe. Without any actual observation I may 
 safely affirm, that in all these regions the prevailing- 
 winds are from south to east. 
 
 No doubt it is this current which, having reached 
 the mountains of New Mexico, assumes new quali- 
 ties, and pours down upon the north-west coast, so 
 skilfully examined by Vancouver, and blows, in sum- 
 mer, as far as Nootka. 
 
 Captain Mears, who made many useful observa- 
 tions there, in 1791, represents the south-east vvind, 
 in that quarter, as violent, tempestuous, wet, and 
 piercing cold. These qualities, so rare in the south4 
 east wind in the northern hemisphere, it acquires in 
 its passage over the cold summits of the mountains I 
 of New Mexico, which are so deeply clothed with 
 snow and ice, as to obtain the name of icy and shin- 
 ing*. These hills are not unworthy of comparison 
 with their parent stock, the Andes. The south-east 
 wind of Nootka owes its strength to their altitude, 
 for Mears likewise tells us, that the reigning wind, 
 . in the ocean absurdly called Pacific^ blows, in sum- 
 
 j * How happens it that this moving stratum is able to surmount 
 I these hills? Its primary impulse must be lessened; it must have 
 parted with much of its heat, and consequently grown denser, 
 1 and of less thickness ; hence must be less able lo surmount this 
 J ridge than that of Nlcargua. — Trans. 
 
158 
 
 mer, from the west, as far as the latitude of 30 , 
 " where begins the zone of eastern trade wind." It 
 thus appears, that the parallel of 30° forms the boun- 
 dary line between two winds exactly opposite. This 
 western gale, mild and serene, is the counter-current 
 of the eastern trade, which, being brisk and rapid, 
 produces, by its friction with the adverse stream, 
 those calms, squalls, and whirlwinds, so fatal to the 
 early circumnavigators. 
 
 A second branch of the trade wind, within the 
 former, . and taking off the larger portion of the whole 
 remaining volume, blow^s towards the shores of Loui- 
 siana and Florida. Its general direction is south- 
 west, but, on the Mississippi, it is rather south, the 
 navigators of that river observing that they experi- 
 ence, strictly speaking, only two winds, the south and 
 north, which arises from the constant conformity be- 
 tween the course of the rivers and that of the conti- 
 guous currents of air. It may also be naturally ex- 
 pected, that it should have a tendency directly south 
 sometimes before it becomes steadily south-west, and 
 that this tendency should particularly prevail in the 
 neighbourhood of Bernard's Bay. 
 
 A third branch endeavours to cross the peninsula 
 of Florida to the ocean beyond ; but the eastern trade 
 wind reigning in the Atlantic, during summer, as 
 high up as latitude 30° or 32°, meets and checks its 
 career, and finally turns it back towards the gulph. 
 This returning wind, mingling with the one last men- 
 tioned, tends, among other causes, to add unusual 
 
159 
 
 force to the south-west wind of the United States, in 
 July and August. 
 
 The middle portion of this great stream, kept in 
 equilibrium by opposite impulses, gives rise to the 
 variable winds, calms, squalls, and tornadoes, which 
 infest the Gulph of Mexico. 
 
 These inferences are all confirmed by the experi- 
 ence of navigators. Don Bernard de Orta, comman- 
 dant in the port of La Vera Cruz, assures us*, that 
 the south-east and east are, in summer, the predomi- 
 nant winds, in the south part of the gulph. In win- 
 ter, they veer to north-east, and bring along with 
 them transient but violent squalls. Bernard Romans, 
 an English traveller, who published, in 1776, a very 
 intelligent and useful book on the Floridasf, tells us, 
 that the north-west and west are prevailing winds at 
 the curved shore, where the continent shoots out into 
 the peninsula, and such is exactly the course of the 
 airy current in returning to its fountain in the gulph. 
 
 Lastly, these writers, as well as every navigator, 
 assert the frequency of water- spouts, whirlwinds, 
 hurricanes, squalls, and calms, in these seas. 
 
 Some philosophers have already noticed the agree- 
 ment, as to time, between the hurricanes of the Gulph 
 of Mexico and tempests even far north upon the con- 
 tinent. Dr. Franklin compared the hour at which a 
 north-east storm, that traversed the country from Bos- 
 
 * See his Dissertation on the Winds, &c. 
 t Natural and Civil History of the two Floridas : New York, 
 now very scarce. 
 
IGO 
 
 ton to Florida, in October, 1757, was felt at different 
 places, and found that the airy motion began at Bos- 
 ton several hours after its commencement near the 
 Gulph of Mexico, and that it began later and later, 
 as the distance from the gulph augmented. This 
 circumstance, which ordinary enquirers considered 
 as fortuitous, the inquisitive mind of that philosopher 
 perceived could only be accounted for by placing the 
 commencing point of this motion in the gulph, and 
 by supposing it occasioned by the northern air rush- 
 ing in to fill a vacuum produced there by the rarefying 
 heat of the sun, in the same manner as water in a 
 trough is set in motion by opening it at one end ; 
 that which is nearest the opening beginning to move 
 first, and this motion gradually extending to the fur- 
 ther end. 
 
 This simple explanation has been confirmed by 
 subsequent observation and experience. Every year, 
 between the 10th and 20th of October, a storm of 
 twelve or fifteen hours duration usually occurs in the 
 north part of the United States, particularly on Lake 
 Erie ; and always, at the same time, news are brought 
 us of a hurricane on the coasts of Florida and Loui- 
 siana, imth northerly ixiinds'^. 
 
 * This coincidence merely proves the extent of the storm, and 
 not the priority of its occurrence near the gulph. Few or no 
 observers have investigated this fact with the minute accuracy of 
 Dr. Franklin, or ascertained, like him, the commencing point or 
 velocity of the gale. — Tkans. 
 
161 
 
 The suction exerted at the gulph is evident ; but 
 how is this vacuum produced, and why does the air, 
 with which it is replenished, flow from the north-east ? 
 for this is the quarter whence the inland storms, whe- 
 ther universal or partial, generally arise. By care- 
 fully examining the history of winds, and arranging 
 all the facts which I have been able to collect on this 
 subject, I think I have qualified myself for solving 
 this mysterious problem. 
 
 Stormy clouds have not yet been subjected to the 
 an^ilizing processes of chemistry, nor their mode of 
 acting on each other, their violent detonations, the 
 rapid solutions that take place in consequence of these, 
 the sudden and mighty condensations by which a vast 
 bulk of vapour is converted into a small quantity of 
 water and cold air, been as yet demonstratively ex- 
 plained ; but many important facts, and their conse- 
 quences, are not unknown, and some satisfactory con- 
 clusions may be built upon them. 
 
 It is known that all clouds have moist surfaces ; 
 that they are produced by the evaporation of water, 
 and by the volatile principles it contains ; that eva- 
 poration is proportioned to the previous heat, dry- 
 Be^, and renewal of the air ; and consequently clouds 
 are^^aSferated by the combination of water with calo- 
 ric, the igneous, or the electrical fluid, which, in my 
 opinion, are merely different names of the same thing, 
 either in a simple or compound state. This fluid, 
 essentially volant and centrifugal, fastens itself to par- 
 ticles of water, which is, comparatively, a gross and 
 
 X 
 
162 
 
 heavy substance, and forms of them little balloons or 
 floating vesicles, filled, sustained, and animated by 
 diiferent portions of this fiery essence. Hence we 
 may consider clouds as a kind of volatile neutral salt, 
 combining air, water, and caloric, all which principles 
 become sensible to us at the instant of their reduc- 
 tion or detonation ; the water in the form of rain ; the 
 fire in the lightning that gleams and the thunder that 
 roars ; and the air in its influence on the touch, on the 
 nerves, and on the respiring organs. All clouds, 
 however, are not fraught with thunder, nor tempes- 
 tuous. To make them such, a larger portion of calo- 
 ric appears necessary, clouds being capable of absorb- 
 ing or imbibing different quantities of that fluid. 
 Caloric seems to enter niore sparingly into the com- 
 position of clouds above the sea, because there the 
 aqueous vapour abounds, and the temperature is low, 
 and hence they are less tempestuous and detonant. 
 Seamen observe, that storms are rarer as we go fur- 
 ther from land, and are more violent, as well as fre- 
 quent, as we approach it. Hence we may infer, that 
 a principal cause of storms is great heat or abundance 
 of caloric, and this abundance is greatly owing to 
 reflection from the earth's surface. Many substances, 
 rare or unknown at sea, contribute to this effect, as 
 volatile mineral substances, sulphur, and the gasses 
 which exhale from animal and vegetable bodies, in 
 the state of putrefaction or maceration. These gasses 
 abourid in wet and marshy places, ^^ hose matters are 
 much more susceptible of heat than mere water, and 
 
 i 
 
163 
 
 such places particularly abound in the regions under 
 our consideration, for all the Delta of the Mississippi is 
 half immerged in water, partly fresh and partly brack- 
 ish. Alt the west bank of the river, fifty miles wide, 
 and four hundred long, is buried under an annual 
 deluge. Five hundred miles of the shore of the gulph, 
 from Mobile Bay quite as far as Rio del Norde, con- 
 sists entirely of marshes. The shores of Yucatan, 
 Cuba, Campeachy, and Florida, is an endless swamp. 
 We may easily conceive what immense exhalations 
 must arise from a surface of this kind amounting to 
 many hundred square miles. 
 
 It is clear, likewise, that when clouds differently 
 charged approach each other, and come into contact, 
 a commotion ensues, for the purpose of equilibrating 
 the electric fluid and every other gas, in each. In 
 this eflbrt, the electric fluid exerts more energy and 
 more velocity than the air and water, and, from its 
 extreme tenuity, all its parts unite at once, and their 
 separation from every other fluid is instantaneous. 
 In consequence of this separation, the water, now 
 free, operates with its natural gravity. Hence the 
 rain, more or less copious, that follows lightning, 
 which is a ray from the electric fluid in its simple 
 state, and the thunder, produced by the concussion 
 of the air rushing into the vacuity occasioned by the 
 sudden condensation of the aqueous vapour into 
 water. 
 
 When we recollect that water converted into steam 
 occupies eighteen hundred times more space than it 
 
164 
 
 did as water, and that even at a less degree of heat 
 than boiling it expands to a thousand times its former 
 bulk : of consequence, that a cloud of a thousand cu- 
 bic fathoms may be suddenly reduced to one, or at the 
 most to ten ; and that the air rushes into the vacuum 
 hereby produced, at the rate of 1380 feet in a second, 
 that is, with the velocity of a cannon-ball, we shdl no 
 lonp-er wonder at the force of those winds, which, un- 
 der the name of squalls, water-spouts, and tornadoes, 
 uproot trees, overwhelm houses, and wrench from 
 their places twenty-four pounders with their carriages, 
 many instances of which are known in the West In- 
 dies. In fine, the sudden formation of vacuums in 
 the atmosphere are the general cause of all the mo- 
 tions to which the air is subject. 
 
 These vacuums readily explain the cause of the 
 north-east and north-west winds of the United States, 
 and the tempests which sometimes attend them ; for 
 if the same mass of air diffuse itself between Lake 
 Erie and the Allegheny on one side, and the Andes 
 of Mexico and Darien on the other, it is plain, that 
 if a considerable condensation is effected by a thun- 
 der storm, in the air over the Mexican Gulph, a va- 
 cuum takes place, into which the air of the Missis- 
 sippi valley must rush with violence, whose motion 
 will of course propagate itself further north, the air 
 behind moving continually forward to supply the 
 place of the air before. This motion usually takes a 
 north-east course, because the south-west wind is 
 that which is deficient and withdraws itself, so tliat 
 
 W 
 
165 
 
 the north-east may be considered as the return of the 
 sout4i-west. 
 
 It is proper to consider the space above-described 
 as filled with one entire mass of air, as a kind of 
 aerial ocean or lake, bounded by the western, south- 
 western, and northern mountains, and the West In- 
 dian isles. The Allegheny, while it bounds this 
 viewless lake on one side, is likewise the shore of a 
 similar expanse of air, that of the maritime country, 
 on the other. Now the latter being contiguous to 
 the northern and north-eastern atmosphere, whose re- 
 servoirs supply its currents, is relatively cold and 
 dense, while that of the western waters is warmer and 
 lighter, consequently the former continually exerts a 
 pressure on the skirts of the latter, and tends to 
 overflow on that side. As soon, therefore, as the 
 counter-pressure of the western atmosphere ceases, 
 by its being set in motion south-west, the maritime 
 air overflows and spreads itself in the same south- 
 westerly direction. 
 
 The almost regular recurrence of a north-east storm 
 in Autumn must, however, have a cause equally per- 
 manent, and this, I think, may be traced in the great 
 revolution which takes place in the whole atmosphere, 
 when the sun passes the equator. While the sun 
 continues north of this line, and in the neighbour- 
 hood of the tropic, its radiance must occasion un- 
 usual heat in the northern continent, and thus create 
 a focus of suction, towards which all the prevailing 
 winds must tend. Thus the atmosphere of the torrid 
 
166 
 
 zone is pushed to the verge of the polar circle, and 
 there checks and circumscribes the fury of the nor- 
 thern blasts ; whereas, when the sun has re-passed 
 the line, it becomes, in twenty or thirty days, that 
 is, about the middle of October, vertical to the broad- 
 est part of South America. The reflection of its hot- 
 test rays, from so vast a surface of land, creates here a 
 new focus of vacuity, to which the circumambient air 
 must flow in immense volumes, and all the winds, to 
 a great distance, must acquire a new tendency in this 
 direction. The northern airs are then permitted to 
 diffuse themselves as far as the tropic, the trade wind 
 is confined to the narrower limits of 18° 20° or of 
 latitude, and hence arise those periodical north-east 
 winds that flow from the ocean into Guiana, from De- 
 cember to March or April, when the sun is over Para- 
 guay. These winds, after discharging the superflu- 
 ous humidity on Guiana, pursue their course to the 
 Andes. Hence also those northern winds, which, 
 after October, prevail in the Mexican Gulph, and 
 extend as far as the Andes of Darien. 
 
 The sun's passage to the south of the equator is a 
 moment of revolutions and commotions, which reach 
 from one polar circle to the other. At the instant of 
 one of these changes, the air of the gulph, suddenly 
 impelled toward the south, leaves behind it a vast 
 vacuity, into which the air of the Mississippi regions 
 pours itself, and since the period of twelve hours, 
 during which the autumnal storms rage in the United 
 States, is nearly proportioned to the space requiring 
 
167 
 
 to be traversed and replenished, the cause here as- 
 signed to them seems liable to no objection. To the 
 existence of vacuums formed by detonation can alone 
 be ascribed those mysterious hail storms, during 
 which we see descending from the atmosphere masses 
 of ice weighing several pounds*. The electric ex- 
 plosion having suddenly disengaged the caloric con- 
 tained in an immense mass of vapours, which are in- 
 stantly condensed into falling water, the icy air above 
 rushes into the vacuum, compressing the drops toge- 
 ther, and freezing them, and whirls them aloft into 
 
 * I had long entertained doubts as to these enormous hail-stones, 
 said to weigh many ounces, and even pounds; but the storm of 
 13th July, 1788, convinced me of the truth of such reports. I 
 chanced, on that day, to be at Pont Chartrain, ten miles from 
 Versailles, and walking out, at six o'clock in the morning, I found 
 the sun intolerably hot, and the air calm and suffocating, in other 
 words, extremely rai'efied. The sky Avas without cloud, yet I 
 heard four or five peals of thunder. A quarter after seven, a 
 cloud rose in the south-west, which presently obscured the whole 
 horizon, and hastened swiftly to the zenith, with an encreasing 
 wind. A storm of hail suddenly assumed, the stones falling ob- 
 liquely, at an angle of about 45 degrees, so large, that they might 
 have passed for fragments of mortar from a wall that was pulling 
 I down. I could scarcely credit my own eyes. Manyof the pieces 
 I were larger than my fist, and many of them were plainly frag- 
 ; ments of still larger masses. As soon as I could safely venture, 
 1 I picked up one of them, which weighed more than five ounces. 
 Its shape was very irregular. It had three horns or projections, 
 as big and nearly as long as my thumb. I was credibly informed, 
 j that a hail-stone at St. Germain weighed more than three pounds ; 
 ( after which, nothing of this kind can surpass belief. 
 
168 
 
 the upper region, with the same force with which it 
 tears up trees, or beats down houses. All hail storms 
 are therefore accompanied with wind, whose violence 
 is generally proportioned to the size of the hail. 
 
 In the same manner may water-spouts be explain- 
 ed, which are vortigenous masses of air and water, 
 seen only in cloudy weather, and commonly attended 
 by thunder and a calm. These move over the sea, 
 and sometimes over land, shaped like an inverted 
 cone, whose base is a cloud, and whose point below 
 pours out a torrent, sometimes sufficient to sink a 
 ship. 
 
 These were once attributed to submarine volca- 
 noes, spouting out those watery columns as whales 
 do. Such cases may possibly exist, but then the co- 
 lumn would be stationary, and very bulky : but the 
 common water-spout moves along with great speed, 
 apparently vagrant and capricious in its course, and 
 must therefore be differently accounted for. We 
 may suppose, that in a turbulent atmosphere, whose 
 detonations are limited and partial, vacuums take 
 place in the middle regions of the air, more slowly, 
 and to a smaller extent, than in regular storms ; into 
 these, however, the clouds are drawn, and are sud- 
 denly condensed into rain by a contiguous mass of 
 cold air, which acts like a cold effusion in the steam 
 engine. Whether this rain is upheld by the density 
 or heat of the lower air, or by the whirling motion of 
 the vortex itself, its different threads are joined to- 
 gether in the shape of a funnel, whose top is the dis- 
 
169 
 
 solving cloud, and whose point touches the sea, 
 where the water takes a natural descent. 
 
 The conical figure of the mass is produced by the 
 same cause, though acting in an opposite direction, 
 as the similar shape of the flame, observed in the 
 great fires kindled in the American woods by the 
 clearers of land. They collect into one heap, in the 
 middle of the field, the trees they have felled, that 
 they may burn the easier, and with less danger to the 
 trees which remain. They set fire to this immense 
 pile, which sometimes covers an acre, and, when 
 fully kindled, we observe the flames bending inward 
 to the common centre of the pile, from which they 
 aspire in the form of a cone, the point of which pos- 
 sesses the same spiral motion as that of the water- 
 spout. In bodi cases there is a confluence of air from 
 all parts of the circumference to the centre, where in 
 one case it rises, and in the other descends, with a 
 spiral motion to a point ; the fluid in the first case 
 being relatively light, and in the other heavy, and ac- 
 quiring this kind of motion by the pressure or oppo- 
 sition of the air, which they pierce or bore. 
 
 A water-spout may possibly be occasioned by the 
 friction of two opposite streams of air, that being suf- 
 ficient to produce a gyratory motion. If one were 
 colder than the other, the cloud would condense, and 
 all the usual appearances would follow. 
 
 I have now, I think, clearly proved that the south- 
 west wind ofi the IJnited States is the tropical or trade 
 wind with aii-'altero:!/ course, and that of consequence 
 
 V 
 
170 
 
 the air of the western country is imported from the 
 West Indies through the Gulph of Mexico, and thus 
 is it distinctly seen why the temperature of the wes- 
 tern regions is higher, by three degrees of latitude, 
 than that of the maritime country, though only parted 
 by a ridge of mountains, and uhy the superior acti- 
 vity of a warm air, when free from mounds and im- 
 pediments, promises to all these tracts a very great 
 improvement of their climate, by the removal of the 
 forests. This improvement will be more speedy and 
 considerable in the country near the lakes, and even 
 in the vale of the St. Laurence, than in places farther 
 south, eastward of the mountains. This effect begins 
 already to appear, since that river is now shut by the 
 ice nearly a month later than when Canada \vas first 
 visited by Europeans, and marine insurances, which 
 at the beginning of this century contained a condition 
 to sail by the end of November, now require ships to 
 leave the river merely before the 25th of December. 
 Some drawbacks on this hope will indeed be found, 
 in the history of the north-west wind ; but before I 
 enter on the history of this wind, I shall take this op- 
 portunity of speaking of a phenomenon, which has 
 an intimate connection with the facts first detailed, 
 but which has received less attention from geogra- 
 phers than it deserves : I mean the great current in 
 the Gulf of Mexico, called the gulf stream. 
 
171 
 
 IV. OF THE GULPH STREAM. 
 
 The influence of the tropical wind is not confined 
 to the air only. Blowing over a space of three thou- 
 sand miles, this wind heaps up water in the Gulph of 
 Mexico. To what hei!<ht thi^ kind of inundation 
 raises the expanse of the gulph above its natural 
 level, we are furnished with no means of judging. 
 The Spanish government has sometimes thought of 
 connecting the two seas by a canal, at Darien, but it 
 has not caused the respective levels to be ascertained. 
 I can, however, assert that the level of this gulph is 
 several feet higher than that of the Gulph of Hondu- 
 ras and the Caribbean sea, and still higher than that 
 of the South Sea. I deduce this fact from its ana- 
 logy to the state of the Mediterranean, and of lakes 
 of a certain extent, where a steady wind of a few days 
 creates a rise or flood of two or three feet, at that end 
 to which it blows. This is very perceptible in the 
 harbour of Marseilles, where I have seen the water 
 raised thirty inches by easterly winds, whereas a 
 westerly wind produces opposite effects. The French 
 engineers have found a variation of thirty-three inches 
 on the coasts of Syria and Egypt. 
 
 The rise, in the present instance, must be much 
 greater, as the wind is so much more powerful and 
 steadfast, and operates upon a greater mass of water. 
 As the Red Sea has been found to be near thirty feet 
 higher at Suez than the Mediterranean at Damietta, 
 
172 
 
 it is natural to infer a similar disparity between the 
 South Sea coast and that of the United States. It isl j 
 obvious, however, that whatever be this height, the 
 fluid must somewhere subside to the same level ; but 
 this cannot be by the reflux of the waters of the 
 gulph through the channel of Yucatan and Cuba, be- 
 cause this is adverse to the current of air and water 
 which forms this very redundance. It must then re- 
 lieve itself by issuing through the channel of the Ba- 
 hama islands. After coasting the shores of Mexico, 
 Louisiana, and Florida, it turns the southern point of 
 the peninsula, under shelter of Cuba, and the sand 
 banks of Bahama, which ward off" the refluenfce of the 
 ocean on the east, and repel the trade wind. 
 
 The celerity of the gulph stream is a proof univer- 
 sally known of the height of the fountain, in the 
 Gulph of Mexico. After passing through this chan- 
 nel into the ocean, its identity is still preserved, by a 
 course of four or five miles an hour, and likewise by 
 its colour and temperature, which is from 10 to 22 
 degrees hotter than the contiguous water. This re- 
 markable stream coasts the whole of the United 
 States, varying in its breadth, which, at a medium, 
 is forty-five or fifty miles. Its force is not destroyed, 
 nor its peculiar properties lost, till it reaches New- 
 foundland, where it diff"uses itself suddenly, in the 
 direction of north-east. 
 
 The gulph stream first attracted the attention of sir 
 Francis Drake, at the end of the sixteenth century, 
 who conjectured its true cause ; but its most remark- 
 
173 
 
 able property, the warmth of its temperature, es* 
 capecl his notice. This was not observed till 1776, 
 when Dr. Blagden, experimenting on the temperature 
 of rhe ocean at different depths, was struck by this 
 peculiarity. He found the thermometer, in the 
 latitude of 31° north, off Cape Fear, when plunged 
 into the sea, stand at 72 degrees. Presently it rose 
 to 78, and continued so many leagues, when it sud- 
 denly sunk again to 69 and 67. Here they ap- 
 proached the coast, the water became green, and 
 they got soundings. 
 
 This discovery attracted much attention in Eng- 
 land, which was much augmented by the observations 
 of Dr. Franklin, the next year, on his passage to 
 Europe. Mr. Jonathan Williams, his companion on 
 that voyage, pursued this subject still further, and 
 after repeated experiments, laid the foundation for the 
 following conclusions : 
 
 1. The gulf stream pursues a settled and distinct 
 course from Florida to Newfoundland. 
 
 2. It conforms to the direction of the American 
 coast, at a distance varying with the state of the wind, 
 but generally of 23 leagues. 
 
 3. As it advances, its force lessens, and its breadth 
 encreases. 
 
 4. It has hollowed out a very deep channel in the 
 bed of the ocean, for in it you can reach no bottom 
 with a very long line. 
 
 5. It wears away the south-eastern shore of the 
 United States, though opposed by the rocks of Hat^ 
 
174 
 
 teras, which turn it a point and a half towards the 
 east, and which it will, at some future time, over- 
 whelm and destroy. The sand}^ isles of Bahama, the 
 banks along the American coast, and the shoals of 
 Nantucket, appear to be merely heaped up by this 
 current. I am, indeed, tempted to affirm, that the 
 banks of Newfoundland merely constitute a bar at 
 the mouth of this vast shoreless river. 
 
 6. On each side, it forms eddies or counter-cur- 
 rents, which, aided by the depositions of the rivers, 
 forms the muddy stratum or deposit, termed sound- 
 ings. 
 
 7. A south-west W'ind, of long duration, makes its 
 limits and course less distinct, by driving the ocean 
 billows in the same direction ; but the north-east 
 wind, being directly adverse to it, makes it more 
 conspicuous, by causing such a heavy sea, as mari- 
 ners call it, as greatly to endanger vessels of single 
 decks and deep waisted. 
 
 8. When the colour of the water changes from the 
 sky blue of the ocean, or the olive green of soimdings, 
 into a deep indigo green, you are in the gulf stream. 
 Examined in a glass, it is colourless as that of the 
 sea between the tropics, and is more saline than the 
 rest of the Atlantic. 
 
 9. A great plenty of floating weeds denotes your 
 near approach to this current. 
 
 10. The incumbent air is warmer than in the 
 neighbourhood. The ice, which may chance to 
 cleave to a vessel entering, it immediately melts. 
 
 I 
 
175 
 
 You find yourself drowsy, and the space between 
 decks becomes unpleasantly hot. Some fads will 
 give distinct ideas of this high temperature. 
 
 In December, 1789, Mr. Jonathan Williams, sail- 
 ing from the Chesapeake, noted that, in the water of 
 the sea, the mercury stood, 
 
 1. In soundings, - - 47 deg. 
 
 2. Approaching the stream, 60 
 
 3. In the stream, - 70 
 
 4. In the stream, near Newfoundland, 66 
 
 5. At Newfoundland, out of the stream, 54 
 
 6. Beyond the bank, in the open sea, * 60 
 
 7. Approaching the English coast, 48 
 Captain Billing, on a voyage to Portugal, June, 
 
 found, near the American coast, and within sound- 
 ings, - - 61 deg. 
 In the gulf stream, - 77 
 
 Now there appears here a difference of 15 degrees. 
 According to Mr. Williams, who examined it in 
 winter, the difference is equal to 10 degrees, so that 
 the difference, as might be expected, is less in sum- 
 mer than in winter. 
 
 These observations have led to another important 
 discovery. After numerous trials, it is found that 
 the temperature of the water varies w ',th the depth, 
 being colder as it is shallower. 
 
 In July, 1791, captain Billing likewise observed, 
 that three days before he came in sight of Portugal, 
 \ the mercury sunk, in a few hours, from 65 to 60 de- 
 grees, and this variation coincided exactly with the 
 
176 
 
 line where the ocean became fathomable. Mr. Wil- 
 liams likewise observed, durin,^ another voyage, in 
 November, that, on approaching the English coast, 
 the mercury fell from So to 48 degrees ; and both 
 these gentlemen remarked, that the sudden sinking 
 of the mercury indicates a shoal beneath*. This 
 effect arises from the bottom of the sea beina: colder 
 than the water above it, or because evaporation, 
 which always cools, has a more perceptible influence 
 in shallow than in deep waterf. 
 
 From the phenomena, just detailed, of the gulf 
 sU'cam, some light will be reflected on two facts in 
 the natural histor}^ of the American coast. First, if 
 we admit what I have asserted, that this current is 
 one cause of the alluvial soil bordering its channel, 
 its still or retarded waters depositing the matters sus- 
 
 * The learned traveller, Humboldt, to whom we owe many 
 new and important observations, also found, that, in shoal water, 
 his 'glass sunk 6|^ degrees. Lalande, who deemed this observa- 
 tion perfectly new, wasdoubtlessunacquainted with the facts above 
 related. 
 
 t We may here suggest the possibility, by maturing and ex- 
 tending this discovery, of finding out a scale for measuring the 
 depth of the sea, similar to that applied to the height of moun- 
 tains, the thermometer, in one case, being the instrument, as the 
 barometer is in the other. We may also suggest to the enquirer, 
 whether the great depth of the gulf stream has not some effect 
 upon the thermometer, as well as the warmth of the water. By 
 the observations of Williams and Billing, it should seem that the 
 dejith has an influence on the temperature, not only of the air 
 above, but of tlie water itself. — Trans. 
 
177 
 
 pended in it, we shall no longer be surprised at the 
 occurrence of tropical- productions, in a fossil state, 
 in the northern regions. By this, or some such cur- 
 rent may have been brought these masses of petrified 
 shell-fish, found in digging wells and pits on the 
 coast of Ireland*, and which have no resemblance to 
 any but the shell-fish of the tropics. It cannot be 
 denied that the gulph stream prolongs itself beyond 
 the banks of Newfoundlands 
 
 Secondly, Viewing the spread of this current near 
 Newfoundland as the mouth of a great river, we see 
 the reason why cod-fish so much abound there, and 
 why they are attached to these waters ; for the strearft 
 carries with it, as it coasts along the United States, 
 all those animal and vegetable matters Avhich float 
 down the rivers and inlets, and these carried onward 
 till the current loses its force, it is natural that these 
 fish should resort to the spot where their favourite 
 food is most apt to accumulate. 
 
 Thirdly, The gulph stream will supply us with an 
 explanation of the incessant fogs, for which these lati- 
 tudes are noted ; for as a large mass of tropical water 
 is continually brought northward by tliis current, 
 which is nine degrees warmer than the neighbouring 
 sea, in the first place, a more plentiful evaporation 
 must follow, and, secondly, the vapours thus exhaled 
 must be condensed into mists by the native atmo- 
 sphere above and around ; this atmosphere being sub- 
 
 * Philosophical Transactions, vol. X, XIX. 
 Z 
 
178 
 
 jected to the chilling influence of the north-west and 
 north-east winds. 
 
 I shall now return from this digression, though it 
 scarcely deserves that name, since the airy and aque- 
 ous currents are inseparably connected together, and 
 since the gulph stream is a collateral effect of these 
 causes which modify so much the atmosphere of the 
 United States*. 
 
 * While this sheet was in the printer's hand, I received from 
 America the fiftli volume of the Transactions of the Philosophical 
 Society, of Philadelphia, which contains, p. 90, a paper by Mr. 
 Strickland, in which he recounts a series of observations, made in 
 1794, on a voyage to and from Europe, that fully confirm all I have 
 advanced above, on the indications of depth to be drawn from the 
 thermometer. This observer adds, that he noticed a branch of 
 the gulf stream, in the parallel of Jaquet Island, latitude 47° north, 
 longitude 39° west, and he dwells on the probability of the pro- 
 ducts of the tropics, having been conveyed by this current to the 
 coasts of Ireland. He has given new force to my conjecture, that 
 the bank of Newfoundland is the bar of this river.^ whose current, 
 before these sands were collected together, pursued a straight 
 course to Ireland, l)ut after the obstacle Avas formed by the gra- 
 dual accessions of many ages, Avas compelled to turn ofl" to the 
 east. The gravel of this bank might be compared, with some ad- 
 vantage, to that of the Atlantic coast. 
 
 i 
 
179 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Of the J\''orth.-ivest Wind. 
 
 THE north-west wind is almost the chief wind 
 in the United States. It differs, in two respects, 
 from the southr-west, inasmuch as it is cold, dry, and 
 even stormy. It is more frequent in winter, of which 
 it may be deemed the harbinger, than in summer, 
 and is more Tife eastward of the Allegheny than west 
 of it. It can be compared to nothing so properly as 
 to the mistral of Provence, which blows, in like man- 
 ner, from the north-west, thou£rh it has an origin 
 much less remote than the American v/ind. The 
 mistral, a stranger north of the Alps, and the moun- 
 tains of Auvergne, and the Vivarais, has its source 
 within the limits of our temperate ocean, in the upper 
 regions of the hills that border the vallies of the 
 Rhone and Durance, where it prevails with most fury, 
 and its chief source appears to be the summits of the 
 Alps, which cool the neighbouring air, and occasion 
 it to rush down upon the southern vallies, and parti- 
 
180 
 
 cularly that of the Rhone, where its career being 
 checked by the hills of the Vivarais, it traverses all 
 Provence in a north-west direction. The descent of 
 this stream is the more violent and rapid, since the 
 force of its natural gravity, and the pressure of the 
 atmosphere above it is augmented, by the void which 
 it finds over the Mediterranean, and which is formed 
 by the burning coasts and plains of Africa. Hence 
 it is always observed first at sea, and afterwards suc- 
 cessively in the districts situated inland. Currents 
 from the tops of the Vivarais hills may possibly mix 
 themselves with the stream from the Alps, but the 
 latter is the chief of these torrents, for the principal 
 reservoir is doubtless placed among the loftiest Alps. 
 Without this supposition, the mistral, in some of its 
 appearances, could not be explained. Its flight, after 
 every rain, is as sudden as the report of cannon, espe- 
 cially in hot weather. 
 
 The American north-west is likewise, in some de- 
 gree, sudden and abrupt. In many cases, as will 
 hereafter be shown, it comes from the upper regions 
 of the atmosphere, but commonly, particularly when 
 of long duration, it comes from the polar seas, and 
 the icy deserts, nordi of Lake Superior, 
 
 The cold brought by this wind was formerly ima- 
 gined to proceed from the five great lakes. This 
 opinion has been since exploded, in consequence of 
 more accurate knowledge of the country beyond these 
 waters. It was, indeed, long ago remarked, that, in 
 Vermont and New York, the cold was no less intense 
 
18i 
 
 than ill the countries leeward of the lakes ; and the 
 Canadian traders, who extend their excursions far 
 beyond these M'aters, have removed all doubt from 
 this subject. These pilgrims affirm, that the farther 
 they penetrate into what they term the great northy 
 the stronger and more icy are the north-west gales, 
 and that it is the chief plague of this naked and 
 swampy Siberia, and of the country traversed in 
 ascending the Missouri to the western mountains. 
 The source of this wind must therefore be sought 
 among the deserts, which, between latitudes 4§° and 
 50", are frozen nine or ten months in the year; in 
 the Frozen or Arctic Ocean, which commences at the 
 parallel of 72° ; and in the northern ridges and 
 slopes of the Chippewan Mountains, which are always 
 buried in snow. Beyond these mountains, on Van- 
 couver's coast, the north-west has more moisture and 
 less cold, because they receive it directly from Beer- 
 ing's Bay and the ocean : but this is a variable wind, 
 and belongs to another system. The north wind, 
 according to captain Mears, is the reigning wind in 
 this quarter. 
 
 The degree of cold which icy surfaces impart to 
 the air has been noticed by the missionary Charle- 
 voix, v/ho relates, that while crossing the bank of 
 Newfoundland, in warm weather, the ship was sud- 
 denly assailed by such a freezing wind, that the peo- 
 ple were obliged to shelter themselves below. Soon 
 after, they perceived an island of ice, such as are 
 annually floated from the north into the Atlantic. 
 
182 
 
 While to leeward of this island, which was near a 
 mile long, the cold was extreme. Those who navi- 
 gate these seas frequently encounter these temporary 
 and freezing blasts. 
 
 On the Atlantic coast, this wind, after traversing 
 the continent, comes sometimes freighted with rain, 
 snow, and even hail. But these more properly be- 
 long to th.e nordi-east and south-west, Avhich are 
 checked in their course, and driven back, encumbered 
 with all their vapours, on their own footsteps. This 
 moisture it sometimes imbibes from the lakes, rivers, 
 and marshes which it is obliged to pass over. Hence, 
 in the places leeward to the lakes, and the general 
 coarse of the Mississippi and Ohio, this wind is dis- 
 tinguished as wet in winter and tempestuous in sum. 
 mer. Elsewhere, on the contrary, for instance, 
 along the coast from Charleston to Halifax, it is noted 
 not only for being keen and violent, but likewise dry, 
 wholesome, elastic, and invigorating. In some res- 
 pects, it is a treacherous gale; for, when invited abroad 
 by the bright sun and clear sky, you find yourself as- 
 sailed by a most cutting blast, which makes the face 
 sore, and fills the eyes with tears, while sudden and 
 fitful cncreases of the whistling blasts make your 
 footing insecure upon the slippery ice. Less bois- 
 terous in summer, it is wished for, because its influ- 
 ence tempers the scorching rays ; and, indeed, this 
 w ish is usually gratified after heavy storms of rain 
 and thunder. On such occasions, it can only come 
 from tlic higher regions of the atmosphere, which, in 
 
 i 
 
183 
 
 these regions, are about ten or twelve thoiisaiKl feet 
 above the surface, because a half hour v^^ould scarcely 
 be sufficient to bring it from the distant north. In 
 these cases, a vacuum being produced below by the 
 condensation of tlie vapours, the upper stratum must 
 sink down to fill its place, and its peculiar direction 
 is owing to the lightness and warmth of the south- 
 western air, Vvhich therefore must yield to the pres- 
 sure of this denser and colder mass. It is prevented 
 from taking a southern course, by the reflux of the 
 south-west and of the trade uind, whose counter- 
 current occupies these middle latitudes. 
 
 From the combination of all these currents springs 
 up, from latitude 35° to 48° and 5b\ north, that 
 western breeze, so constantly prevailing on the coasts 
 of England, France, and Spain. * 
 
 Williams, in his history of Ver^iont, confirms this 
 
 representation, by remarking that their north-west 
 
 and west breezes always begin on the^ea-side ; that 
 
 is, if several ships lie on a line, thatSvhich is furthest 
 
 at sea feels the wind first, and so succ1?ksively to that 
 
 one which is nearest the shore. Mariners observe 
 
 1 the same progress in the winds iie^r the shore. The 
 
 I day wind, called the sea breeze, beginning far in- 
 
 j land, at the tops of hills, which, at noon, become a 
 
 1 sort of chimney to the neighbouring air. There the 
 
 wind is felt twenty or thirty minutes earlier than on 
 
 the shore, in proportion to their mutual distance, as 
 
 I often noticed in Syria and Corsica, and the night 
 
 wind, or land breeze, commences at the same points, 
 
184 
 
 because refrigeration commences there, and its own 
 weight carries the mountain air to the sea, just as the 
 Siime principle carries along a stream of water. The 
 true causes of these different motions in the air de- 
 serve to be examined, because they form the distin- 
 guishing marks and properties of different winds : 
 but all these motions are ultimately reducible to 
 changes in the density, and relative vacuities pro- 
 duced, among contiguous masses of air, by the ab- 
 sence or presence of the sun's rays alternately on the 
 land and the sea. This order is a kind of systole 
 and diastole, occasioned by the air alternately ascend- 
 ing when heated and dilated, and descending when 
 cooled and condensed. 
 
 Dr. Bfelkntip betirs witness, in his history of New 
 Hampshire, to .^iiese descents of the upper air. He 
 describes a place ill tha* state, where the wind seems 
 always to fall from af>ove, like the water of a mill- 
 dam, and am^iarka]^le instance of the same kind 
 occurs in Franc^^on the hills of Forez, which sepa- 
 rate the vallies of the Rhone and Loire. In several 
 places among these hills, particularly between Belle- 
 ville and RouanCj^siliteen or seventeen miles beyond 
 Tarare, we always find, that while mounting the 
 steeps, on the side' of the Rhone, no wind is to be 
 felt, but when you reach the summit, and still more 
 when descending towards the Loire, a strong breeze 
 is perceived from the east, that is, from the Rhone to 
 the Loire, which wholly disappears when you retread 
 your steps, from the mountain top to the Rhone. 
 
 J 
 
185 
 
 This appearance is easily explained, by considering 
 the valley of the Rhone as a lake of cold dense air, 
 connected with the atmosphere or the Alps, while 
 that of the Loire is a similar lake of warm light air, 
 filled from the atmosphere of the ocean by the wes- 
 tern winds. The ridge of Forez is a mound divid- 
 ing these lakes, which, below this mound, are both 
 tranquil, but, above this level, the surplus air of the 
 Rhone overflows like water, and is colder and more 
 rapid, inasmuch as it is the discharge, from the mid- 
 dle region, of air from the Alps, and descending as 
 it sweeps the surface of the airy lake below it. 
 
 This is the proper place for removing a difficulty 
 that arises from maintaining the greater frequency of 
 the north-west wind east of the Allegheny than west 
 of it, since it can hardly be imagined to pass over 
 the former region without previously traversing the 
 latter, which lies in the way. 
 
 This fact, which cannot be disputed, must be ex- 
 plained in the same manner as the winds of France, 
 just mentioned. The Allegheny is the shore of an 
 airy lake, which, below the level of the top of this 
 I bank, is at rest, unaffected by the movements of the 
 i stratum above it. Hence the south-west wind traverses 
 j the valley of the Mississippi and Ohio, Kentucky, and 
 .i the contiguous countries, as far as the valley of the 
 St. Laurence, by which it flows off, while the north- 
 west stream glides over it diagonally, and, overtop- 
 ping the highest Allegheny, pours down on the mari- 
 time country, where its force is augmented by its 
 
 2 A 
 
186 
 
 own specific gravity, the slope of the earth's surface, 
 and the vacuity above the ocean in the south-east. 11 
 
 The same movements occur in Lower Canada, and 
 over the St. Laurence. Here the reigning wind is 
 the south-west, and, next to it, the north-east. Very 
 often the north-west is unknown at Quebec, while it 
 blows in Maine and Nova Scotia, and this could only 
 take place by its gliding over the concave bed of the 
 St. Laurence, leaving undisturbed the air in this bed. 
 When we observe a brisk current produced in a 
 room, by opening two opposite doors or windows, 
 which does not put out or even agitate a candle 1 1 
 placed in a corner of the same room, or even ever so 
 little out of the direct line between these openings, 
 we are led to conclude, that air is not sucha very tremu- 
 lous and fluctuating fluid as we might at first imagine. 
 Another property of the American north-west re- 
 mains to be mentioned. The mortar and plaster of 
 walls exposed to it, are harder and more tenacious 
 than those which have a different exposure, which is 
 no doubt owing to its dryness. The north-western 
 side of forest trees have a thicker and firmer bark 
 than the other sides, and this is one among the marks 
 by which Indians direct their journies through a 
 woody wilderness. By such simple and natural ap- 
 pearances as this, carefully noted, are they enabled to 
 display that sagacity for which they are so famous ; 
 and when visionary theorists or fire-side travellers la- 
 vish their encomiums on the instinctive adroitness 
 and discernment of savages, and thence infer the 
 
187 
 
 marvellous superiority of the man of nature to the 
 civilised man, they only show us their ignorance of 
 the art of the hunter, and the improvements of sight 
 and smell which a life spent in hunting is sure to 
 produce in every individual who pursues it. The 
 fancied superiority of the red men has been exploded 
 ever since the settlement of emigrants from Europe 
 along the frontiers, who become, in a few years, more 
 strenuous and indefatigable warriors, and more skil- 
 ful and sagacious foresters, than the aborigines them- 
 selves. I shall, in future, discuss this subject in 
 a manner which will show this race to be far more 
 entitled to pity and horror, than to envy or applause. 
 
188 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The United Stater, com/iared nvith Eurofie^ in relation to JVi/u/nj 
 Eva^ioration^ Quantity of Rain, and Electricity, 
 
 FROM what has been said, some notions may 
 be formed of the climate of the United States. Since 
 the predominant winds flow almost directly from the 
 torrid and frigid zones, it follows that the climate 
 must be distinguished by great heats and colds, by 
 variable and capricious weather. Since one of the 
 prevailing winds, the south-west, comes from a warm 
 sea, another, the north-east, from a cold one, and the 
 third, the north-west, from frozen deserts and lakes, 
 the reason is plain why these winds are respectively 
 warm or cold, clear or obscure, wet or dry. Some 
 exceptions, it is no less clear, must flow from the 
 local circumstances of the country. A dry wind 
 must become rainy, when its course lies across a 
 watery surface, as occurs in Genessee, where rain is 
 brought by a north-west wind from the Lakes Huron 
 
189 
 
 and Ontario, and by a south-west wind from Lake 
 Erie ; while the north-east and east, so rainy on the 
 coast, are there dry. At the sources of the Wabash 
 and the two Miamis, every wind brings rain. At 
 Gallipohs, on the Ohio, it rains most with a west and 
 south-west; while lower down, at Cincinnati, the 
 west wind is dry, and the north-west is rainy. 
 
 A rainy wind must become dry, after depositing 
 its waters on the sides and tops of mountains ; and 
 sometimes, in great airy commotions, all the currents 
 appear to mingle, and their distinctive properties are 
 for a time lost or confounded. 
 
 Since the mountains of this country are of the 
 lower order, and do not offer any considerable ob- 
 stacles to the course of the winds, the winds must, of 
 consequence, be general, and sweep the whole sur- 
 face of the territory. The sea and land breezes are 
 the only exceptions to this rule. They prevail in the 
 six summer months, and conform to the direction of 
 the coast and of the rivers, and are influenced by the 
 distance, declivity, and aspect of the ridges of moun- 
 tains. For instance, from Florida to Jersey, the gale 
 inclines to the south-east, and accordingly we see the 
 land slope and the coast turn to that quarter ; whereas 
 from New York to Cape Cod, the gale is due south ; 
 and from thence to Nova Scotia its course is east 
 I and north-east, being still governed by the same cir- 
 cumstances. It is stronger or weaker, earlier or later, 
 according to the degree of heat, the slope of the land, 
 and the distance of the heights, which form the sue- 
 
190 
 
 lion. In Massachusetts, the breeze commences at 
 half after eight or nine o'clock in the morning, in 
 June ; in Carolina, it sets in at ten or eleven : the 
 cause of this difference is perceivable on comparing 
 the distance of the respective mountains from the 
 coast. 
 
 From this view arise two very important facts in 
 physical geography : 
 
 First, The temperature or climate of a country 
 depends on its customary currents of air, or winds. 
 
 Secondly, The condition of the surface has a power- 
 ful influence on the course of these winds, and thus 
 becomes a primary cause of the climate. 
 
 In Europe, the application of the same principles 
 produce an opposite effect. In the western parts of 
 Europe, the chief rainy winds are westerly, because 
 they come from the Atlantic Ocean ; and these are 
 colder in England, and hotter in France and Spain, 
 on account of the latitudes from which they proceed. 
 
 In the United States, these winds are dry, because 
 they traverse the broadest part of the continent. In 
 France they are prevalent beyond others, because the 
 eastern barrier of the Alps operates as a continual 
 cooler and condenser, and in America they are rare, 
 from the want of such a focus. 
 
 In Europe, there are few general winds. They 
 are divided into numerous systems, independent of 
 each other, because the lofty Alps and Pyrenees form, 
 in some sense, great lakes of air, separated from 
 each other ; and because a great number of secondary 
 
191 
 
 ridges, like those of Spain, the Cevennes, Vosges, 
 Ardennes, Appenine,Corpathian,Dofrine,and Gram- 
 pian hills, in different parts of Europe, almost all of 
 which are higher than the Allegheny, and which form 
 subdivisions equally distinct. 
 
 In France, we have as many systems of wind as 
 there are principal rivers, each river with its branches 
 being considered as the ribs of a separate valley, such 
 as those of the Rhone, the Garonne, the Loire, and 
 the Seine. The Ardennes occasion a distinct and 
 peculiar system to prevail in Flanders. The English 
 channel supplies that province with a stream of moist 
 cool air, which though at first west, becomes after- 
 wards south-west, and contributes so eminently to 
 the fertility of that country. 
 
 If western Europe be more temperate than the 
 eastern part, it may be caused, as Pallas conjectures, 
 I by the protection it receives from the Scottish and 
 1 Norwegian mountains, but it is doubtless chiefly 
 i owing to the temperature of the sea, whence come its 
 I prevalent winds, which are the west and south-west. 
 i| Hence it is that the coast of Norway is widely dif- 
 ferent in its climate from that of Sweden, and that 
 the temperature of Bergen has as little resemblance 
 to that of Stockholm, as London has to Petersburg, 
 ■[ The east of Europe owes its cold, dry, and salutary 
 airs to the east and north-east winds, which issue 
 from the deserts of Siberia; and if Russia possessed 
 a mountainous screen on the east, or Siberia been 
 protected by a wall of hills from the icy breath of the 
 
192 
 
 polar ocean, these countries, and even Poland, would 
 have enjoyed a temperature as mild as Denmark and 
 Saxony. 
 
 The atmospheric differences between Europe and 
 North America are chiefly or solely owing to their 
 topographical differences. We may thus explain why 
 the annual quantity of rain is greater in America than 
 in France, England or Germany ; why the falls of 
 rain are generally more abrupt and sudden, and the 
 subsequent evaporation more copious and rapid ; why 
 the reigning Avinds are more violent, and tempests 
 more frequent, in America than in Europe. Each of 
 these facts I shall proceed to illustrate more particu- 
 larly. 
 
 I. OF THE (QUANTITY OF RAIN IN THE UNITED ' 
 STATES. 
 
 Numerous observations have been made by intelli-* 
 gent Americans, in various parts of the country, on 
 this subject, by which it clearly appears, that the an- 
 nual and mean quantity of rain in the United States 
 greatly exceeds that of most countries in Europe, 
 except certain mountainous regions, or the heads of 
 gulphs. The following table will prove this differ- 
 ence. No part of the western country is included in 
 it, because I know of no observations that have been 
 made there. 
 
193 
 
 Inches. 
 At Charleston, according to Ramsay, in 1795 71| 
 The medium between 1750 and 1760, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Chalmers - 41| 
 At Williamsburg, according to Jefferson 47 
 At Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to 
 
 Williams - - 47i 
 
 At Andover, Massachusetts - 51 
 
 At Salem - . - - 35 
 
 At Rutland, Vermont - 41 
 
 At Philadelphia, according to Rush 30 
 
 In Europe, the known quantities are these : 
 At Petersburg - - 12| 
 
 At Upsal - - - 15 
 
 At Abo - - - 251 
 
 [At London - i 22| 
 
 lAt Paris - - - 21| 
 
 ^At Utrecht - - 28| 
 
 At Marseilles - - 2 If 
 
 At Rome - - 30| 
 
 At Naples - - - 37i 
 
 At Algiers - - 29^ 
 
 At Padua - - - 35} 
 
 At Bologna - - 25| 
 
 At Vienna - - - 44| 
 
 Hence it appears, that, in general, one-third less 
 rain falls in Europe than in North America : yet 
 Mr. Holyoke, in a memoir already quoted, enume- 
 rates twenty cities of Europe, where at a mean, for 
 ttwenty years, there had been annually 122 days of 
 
 2 E 
 
194 
 
 rain, while, at Cambridge, there had been only 88, 
 and at Salem 95. Hence the inference is plain, that 
 rain must fall in much heavier showers at the latter 
 towns than at the former ones, and all the facts ob- 
 served corroborate this inference. 
 
 II. OF EVAPORATION AND THE DRYNESS OF 
 THE AIR. 
 
 Observations, no less accurate and numerous than 
 those above- stated, may be brought to testify, that ^ I 
 evaporation is more rapid in the United States than 
 in Europe, and, of consequence, that the atmosphere 
 is generally dryer and more turbulent. This posi- 
 tion was long ago published by Dr. Franklin, and 
 and destroys the airy speculations of De Pauw*. 
 
 * Dc Pauw's work concerning the Americans is a strange book< 
 Returning from America, I was anxious to read it, for the sake 
 of the important information it was said to afford : but when I 
 saw the dogmatic confidence with which he embraced false facts, 
 how rashly he deduces from them chimerical consequences, with 
 what earnestness he maintains the most silly paradoxes, and how 
 acrimoniously he treats other writers, the book fell from my hand. 
 I cannot imagine how any one can sit down gravely in his closet, 
 and decide positively upon facts, of which he has no direct know- 
 ledge, and of which the evidence on all sides is vague and insuf- 
 ficient. My own experience has taught me, that nothing is more 
 rare and difficult than to observe complex objects in the just point 
 of view, and in their real connections ; that it is quite impossible 
 to judge truly of a country or a people, without residing in it; 
 
195 
 
 The doctor describes a mahogany box, with draw- 
 ers, made with the greatest nicety, by the celebrated 
 artist, Nairne. The drawers, which fitted exactly, 
 and were even tight, at London, became too loose at 
 Philadelphia : but \\ hen sent back to London, they 
 became as tight as ever. Hence he justly infers, that 
 the air at Philadelphia is dryer than that of London : 
 but this single case was not an adequate foundiiiion 
 for a general rule. But this inference has been further 
 illustrated and confirmed by Mr. J. Williams*. He 
 found, by a series of enquiries and experiments, that 
 the mean annual quantity of evaporation, at Cam- 
 bridge, Massachusetts, during seven years, was 56 
 inches, while in seven German and Italian cities, on 
 a mean of twenty years, it was only 49, which makes 
 a difference of 7 inches. .Yet Italy is in latitudes 
 much more favourable to evaporation than Massachu- 
 setts, which borders the Atlantic Ocean. At Salem, 
 in one year, there was 175 fair days, at twenty cities 
 of Europe 64. At these cities, the cloudy days were, 
 in 1785, 113, at Cambridge 69, at Salem, ot a mean 
 of seven years, 90. Water in vessels renewed once 
 a month evaporated 4.10 inches, when renewed once 
 a week 6.35 ; a difference no doubt owing to the 
 M^nd, in the former case, not reaching the bottom of 
 
 that this is more truly the pase with respect to past times ; and 
 that the great obstacle to knowledge is that posilive and dogma- 
 tic spirit, which is so generally inculcated by the popular modes 
 of education. 
 
 * See Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 
 
196 
 
 the vessel. On a river, a vessel evaporated 1.15 
 inches, in a dry place 1.50. Four plants, weighing 
 118 grains, placed in a box of sand, and well watered, 
 evaporated 10944 grains, more than ten square inches 
 of surface would have given in the same time. 
 
 Thus it is evident that, in general, more rain falls 
 in the United States, in fewer days, than in Europe ; 
 that there are more fair days, and more evaporation. 
 The cause of this diversity is easily seen, in the dif- 
 ference between the two continents, in their topo- 
 graphical circumstances. 
 
 The superior quantity of rain in the United States 
 arises from all its winds, except the north-west, and 
 especially the most prevalent ones, coming from some 
 sea, and having thence imbibed a great deal of mois- 
 ture. That the rains are heavier and more sudden, 
 is the consequence of the great difference in the tem- 
 perature of different winds, which is very favourable 
 to solution ; and the rapid mixture of these hot and 
 cold streams occasions heavy and plentiful rains. 
 Our gentle showers are so rare in North America, that, 
 when they do occur, the people call them English 
 rains and English ivcather. They are sometimes apt 
 to fall after the equinox, when people, going abroad 
 without umbrellas, ai/b unexpectedly wet to the skin*. 
 
 * Ijght showers, such as I suppose are here meant, frequently 
 occur in May and June, but are far from producing the impres- 
 sions here described. On the contrary, the Americans are apt 
 to exchiim English iveaihcr only during the drizzling rains ancj 
 incessant fogs, sometimes occurring in November and i'ebruary, 
 
197 
 
 These mixtures of winds, and the consequent varia- 
 bleness of the atmosphere, are occasioned by the flat- 
 ness of the country, in consequence of which the 
 winds find no considerable obstacle in their course, 
 and thus the topography of the country exercises no 
 small influence on its atmosphere, with respect to the 
 abundance of rain. 
 
 In Europe, on the contrary, high mountains inter- 
 rupt and break the streams of air ; the atmosphere is 
 more equable and stationary ; hot and cold winds in- 
 termix less frequently : consequently solution is not 
 so rapid ; the rains are gentle ; the air continues 
 loaded for a longer time with vapours, clouds, and 
 fogs ; and evaporation is more tardy. 
 
 Evaporation is accelerated in the United States by 
 the freedom of the winds from the constraints of an 
 uneven surface, and the extensive prevalence of the 
 dry north-west, which occupies two- fifths of the 
 year. 
 
 In Europe the west, whose character is moist, pre- 
 vails above other winds. 
 
 This copious evaporation will account for the heavy 
 dews in North America. So heavy are these in sum- 
 mer, that I often, on waking in the western forests, 
 supposed it to be raining, till I looked above at the se- 
 
 jand v.hlch have been knov/n to obscure the sun for seven, ten, or 
 even fifteen clays together. A vernal shower, preceded and fol- 
 
 jiowed by a bright serene sky, is as opposite as possible to the 
 ideas prevalent in America, be they true or false, respecting 
 
 'jLnglish Aveather.i— Trans. 
 
198 
 
 rene sky, when I saw that the large drops falling from 
 the leaves were only dew, that is, the water, evapor- 
 ated in the day, and deposited again at night. 
 
 Lastly, the American winds are more rapid, and 
 storms more frequent, because the tropic is nearer, 
 and the currents of air range more freely. If the 
 Apalachian ridges were five or six thousand feet high, 
 the atmosphere of all the w^estern vallies would be 
 difterently modified. 
 
 III. ELECTRICITY OF THE AIR. 
 
 The last circumstance of difference between the 
 atmosphere of Europe and America is the quan- 
 tity of the electric fluid, with which the latter is much 
 more highly charged. This difference may be made 
 perceptible to the senses at any time, without any 
 complicated apparatus, merely by drawing a silk 
 riband swiftly over a piece of woolen cloth, when the 
 silk contracts more quickly than ever I saw it do in 
 France. It is likewise evident in the superior vivid- 
 ness of the lightning, and loudness of the thunder. 
 When I first saw thunder storms at Philadelphia, the 
 electric fluid appeared to me so copious, that all the 
 air was on fire. Its arrowy and zigzag lines were 
 broader and longer than any I had ever before seen, 
 and so strong were the pulsations of this fluid, that 
 they seemed to my ear and my face like the wind 
 produced by the wings of some passing bird. Its 
 
1^9 
 
 effects, however, are by no means limited to the sight 
 and hearing, for they often occasion the most disas- 
 trous accidents. In the summer of 1797, from the 
 month of June to the 28th of August, the newspapers 
 reported seventeen persons killed by lightning ; and 
 Mr. Benjamin F. Bache informed me he had counted 
 eighty severe accidents of this kind. They are fre- 
 quent in the country, especially beneath trees, and 
 few people appear to be acquainted with the use, 
 as a preservative at the same time from the rain and 
 lightning, of oiled silk or cloth*. 
 
 The abundance of this fluid is an additional proof 
 of the dryness of the air, as its scarcity in Europe is 
 an indication of the moisture of our atmosphere. Ca- 
 loric is absorbed and neutralized by water in the state 
 of vapour, when it no longer displays its native or 
 usual properties ; for the igneous or electric fluid 
 abounds most, and its presence is most evident, in 
 the driest and coldest atmosphere, because, in such 
 an atmosphere, it has no aqueous vapour to combine 
 with. Hence it is, among other reasons, that vege- 
 tation, when it once takes place, is more rapid and 
 active in the United States than in France. It can- 
 not be said that the abundance of this fluid is owing 
 
 * From the use of conductors, or from some other cause, acci- 
 dents from lightning are rare in the American cities. One death, 
 from this cause, in twenty years, in New York or Philadelphia, 
 avould be a liberal calculation. The terror of lightning, which 
 prevails greatly, especially among the female sex, is a genuine 
 and formidable evil in America. — Trans. 
 
m 
 
 200 
 
 to the proximity of the sun, because it is always most 
 copious when the north-west wind is the most keen, 
 and, according to the learned travellers in the Russian 
 empire, it is excessively abundant in the driest and 
 bleakest regions of Siberia. 
 
 It is worth remarking, that fogs and damps are pro- 
 lific causes of disease ; that they particularly excite 
 coughs, catarrhs, rheumatisms, and, in general, ob- 
 structions in the vascular system ; that they produce 
 fevers of various kinds, but all attended with shiver- 
 ing, succeeded by heat. Now if moisture, in the 
 form of mist or vapour, has a tendency to attract and 
 absorb the igneous or electric fluid, robbing of it 
 those bodies that previously possessed it ; if this fluid 
 be one of the vital principles of the human constitu- 
 tion, one of the causes of the circulation of the blood 
 and other fluids, and perhaps the radical principle of 
 the nervous fluid ; may we not infer that aqueous va- 
 pours are injurious to us, by abstracting from the 
 frame the due portion of this vital heat ? By depriv- 
 ing of this animating fluid the cellular membrane and 
 nerves, it occasions palsy, obstructions of more or less 
 duration. Besides the preventive indication, the cure 
 iriight be effected by the inverse process. The salu- 
 tary influence of friction and fomentations confirms 
 this opinion ; but a more chemical and systematic 
 operation is still to be discovered. 
 
201 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Whether the Moon has any Influence on the Winds. The Injluence 
 of the Sun. C/ian^es of Climate produced by felling the Woods. 
 
 I HAVE hitherto said nothing of the in- 
 fluence upon the atmosphere, which some have as- 
 cribed to the moon. This influence was admitted 
 by the ancients, but with them it was merely a magi- 
 cal or astrological connection, rather than a physical 
 and natural one. It has, however, like many ancient 
 opinions, been revived of late years, in a more rea- 
 sonable and scientific form. It is naturally inferred, 
 from the influence which the moon is known to have 
 upon the tides of the ocean, that it exerts some power 
 on a fluid still lighter and more volatile than water ; 
 and indeed it is suggested, that the impulses which 
 water receives from the moon must be communicated 
 through the medium of the air ; that the atmosphere 
 must also have its ebbs and flows ; and hence has 
 arisen an entire theory of winds. As mere analogy, 
 
 2 c 
 
202 
 
 however specious, was insufficient for forming rational 
 conclusions on this head, an eminent naturalist, M. 
 La Marck, has endeavoured to corroborate it by facts. 
 The issue of his labours it is impossible to judge of, 
 but his method is rational and accurate. He pub- 
 lishes a meteorological diary, and predicts the tem- 
 perature and winds of the ensuing year, calculated 
 according to his lunar theory : thus the truth of his 
 system is subjected to the nicest and most palpable 
 test. Every month, and every quarter of the moon, 
 we have an opportunity of comparing appearances 
 with the prognostics. M. La Marck himself enables 
 us to do this, if, as we have a right to expect, he 
 gives us the history of the year past with the prog- 
 nostics of that which is4o come. Whatever be the 
 issue of his labours, as to his own theory, truth must 
 necessarily result from them, since they contain the 
 infallible means of confuting or establishing his no- 
 tions on the subject. It would be well, if we pos- 
 sessed the means, in every branch of science, of com- 
 ing even at negative truths, and were enabled to 
 discover what we ought not to belie'oe. 
 
 On this subject, my own enquiries have supplied 
 me with too many facts to leave me undecided ; and 
 were I left to judge from the experiments just men- 
 tioned, I could not admit any perceptible influence 
 of the moon upon the winds. Admitting the action 
 of this orb to be the cause of tides, no clear inference 
 is dcducible as to its action on the air. The great 
 ocean of air may experience a general impulse or 
 
203 
 
 pressure, while its internal and relative changes and 
 movements may be unaffected : just as the sea expe- 
 riences a libratory motion, w^hile its interior currents 
 remain undisturbed. The tides can only be per- 
 ceived on the shore, or where the great mass of liquid 
 meets with solid obstructions, but the aerial ocean 
 has no such limits or obstructions. It is a sea with 
 bottom, but without shore, and the undulations on 
 its upper surface are, of course, far removed beyond 
 human cognizance. Admitting the influence of the 
 moon on the winds, they must correspond, in some 
 degree, with its phases and revolutions, as the tides 
 do ; their courses must be periodical, and the moon's 
 irregularities must be manifested by irregularities of 
 the same kind in the air. Nothing of this kind, 
 however, is observable. Fifteen out of twenty of the 
 prognostics in the almanacs are wrong, and without 
 admitting the infallibility of the prophet, it is only 
 surprising that so fev/ of these predictions chance to 
 be right. 
 
 The winds are supposed to be most regular on the 
 sea ; but even there mariners generally agree, that all 
 is caprice and confusion, and that nothing can be 
 suspected to have any power over the winds, or to 
 afford any clue in decyphering them, but the approach 
 to land, the vicinity of capes, the nature of the coast, 
 or the proximity to certain latitudes. It is acknow- 
 ledged by astronomers, that the period of nineteen 
 years, which brings back the same positions of the 
 moon, has no similar effect upon the winds, whose 
 
204 
 
 fluctuations conform to no such period, so that, on 
 the whole, there appears no ground whatever for ad- 1 1 
 mitting the moon to have any influence on the winds. 
 The action of the sun is much more clear and de- 
 finite, and is manifest, not only in their original for- 
 mation, but in all their subordinate movements. This 
 influence shows itself in the seeming irregularities of 
 the airy currents, since they can always be traced to 
 varying degrees of heat, depending on the presence 
 or absence, the absorption or reflection, the concen- 
 tration or dispersion, of the solar rays ; on the height 
 and shape of mountains ; on the free or obstructed 
 course of the winds, by a naked or wooded surface. 
 The sun, in its equatorial position, produces the 
 grand current of the trade wind, by which all other 
 winds are influenced. This current is not set in 
 motion by the rotary motion of the earth, but by the 
 continually changing position of the vertical or meri- 
 dional place of the sun, which, as the earth revolves 
 from trest to east, is continually moving forward in i 
 the opposite direction, and which is constantly fol- ' " 
 lowed by cold dense air, that fills up the vacuity oc- 
 casioned by its heat. Hence the trade wind blows 
 strongest at noon, and weakest at midnight. When 
 the sun approaches the southern tropic, the zone of 
 the trade wind follows it, and, in proportion as its do- 
 minion enlarges on one side, does it shrink and recede 
 on the other. On the contrary, it returns north as 
 the sun returns, and regains the spaces on the nor- 
 
205 
 
 thern side, which it had before lost, and loses on the 
 southern border in the same proportion. 
 
 This current is more regular in the Pacific Ocean 
 than elsewhere, because the sun's action is more uni- 
 form on so vast a plane of uninterrupted water : but 
 as land absorbs more heat than the sea, this influence 
 is changed on approaching the continents, and the 
 airy currents are modified by the figure, extent, and 
 condition of the coasts and plains of India, Africa, 
 and South America. Thus, as in summer the val- 
 ley of the Ganges receives tlie sun's vertical rays, a 
 focus of heat and consequent suction takes place east 
 of the Ghauts, which divide Malabar from Coroman- 
 del, and the current called the summer monsoon is 
 produced. This is a south-west gale, hot, stormy, 
 and wet, on the Malabar coast, because there it blows 
 from the great gulph between India and Arabia, 
 while, on the Coromandel side, it is north-west, dry, 
 and cold, because it has crossed the inland moun- 
 tains, and, in crossing, parted with its moisture and 
 heat. 
 
 In winter, the retiring sun gives birth to another 
 monsoon, whose course is north-east, because the fiat 
 spaces near the Bay of Bengal, and the bay itself, are 
 covered by a light damp air, which yields easy way 
 to the dense and cold air rushing down from the 
 snowy regions of Thibet. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the Atlantic, between Africa and Bra- 
 zil, the same causes produce different effects, because 
 the topographical circumstances are different. The 
 
206 
 
 equatorial regions of Africa have no lofty mountains, 
 which compel a great stream of air ; the focus formed 
 by the reflection from its maritime plains, exerts no 
 influence beyond a distance of two or three hundred 
 miles, and the trade wind begins only beyond the 
 sphere of its attraction. 
 
 America is in a widely different situation. Its pe- 
 culiarities consist in the shape and distribution of its 
 two limbs or members, which form two vast islands 
 of nearly equal dimensions ; in the interposition of a 
 great lake or gulph between them ; in the nan*ow and 
 mountainous neck or link of Darien, Avhich connects 
 the two peninsulas together, and which forms the bot- 
 tom of this intervenient water ; and, lastly, in that 
 mountainous ridge, the highest on the globe, which 
 runs due north five thousand miles, forming, on its 
 western side, the steep and narrow shore of the Paci- 
 fic Ocean, and subsiding on the east into interminable 
 plains. From these peculiarities of surface and shape, 
 it follows that, in South America, the sun's rays, 
 vertical to the broadest part of it six months together, 
 that is, from the autumnal to the vernal equinox, 
 creates, over all the country east of the Andes, a 
 focus of suction, by which the force of the trade wind 
 coming from the ocean is redoubled. This centre 
 has an attractive force far north, and gives the nor- 
 thern trade a north-easterly couse, by which all" the 
 exhalations of the Atlantic are carried to Guiana. 
 All these winds find a common and unsurmountable 
 barrier to their further progress at the Andes, and on 
 
207 
 
 the eastern side of that mountain are all their vapours 
 accumulated. Accordingly, all the regions east of 
 this ridge are noted for excessive rains, heat, and 
 thunder, while the western side enjoys a mild and 
 clear sky, fanned by the w"inds, which, though 
 we call them south-west, are truly, in their nature 
 and effects, the north-west, or horeas^ of the southern 
 hemishere. They come from the antarctic regions, 
 and their dryness is itself a proof that no land is to be 
 found in this quarter, but that all is ice. 
 
 This wind, which also buffets the Andes, contri- 
 butes its opposition to the course of the winds from 
 the east. Thus, it is observed by a late historian of 
 Chili, Molina, that easterly winds are so rare, that 
 only one storm from that quarter is on record, 
 namely in 1633. The two adverse currents, when 
 they meet, must rise together into the higher regions, 
 where they are condensed, and, no doubt, changing 
 their directions, slide off, or descend again into the 
 middle or lower regions. 
 
 The sun, recrossing the line, and advancing to the 
 zenith of Cuba and the Gulph of Mexico, creates a 
 suction in the atmosphere of North America, Avhich 
 draws the trade wind to that side ; and this is effected 
 the more easily, as the attractive force of the South 
 American focus is for that time suspended. Hence, 
 after the solstice, the easterly winds advance as far as 
 30° or 32% north, to the borders of Georgia, and 
 almost of the Carolinas ; and hence the general ten- 
 j dency, as related above, of the secondary winds to- 
 
208 
 
 wards the frigid zone. And thus it it manifest, that 
 the sun is the chief, if not the sole regulator of the 
 winds. Its influence may be traced in their greatest 
 irregularities, and the singular succession of the 
 American seasons, dejfived wholly from the winds, is 
 only a new example of the sun's power. 
 
 It is very strange, that where the cold is so severe, 
 the winter should commence so late. With us, in 
 latitude 45°, and even 42", October is scarcely half 
 gone, before we have daily rains, fogs, and frosts, 
 for four or five months. In America, winter does 
 not properly commence, even in the northern states, 
 till the middle of December ; and there are always 
 three or four grand efforts, as it were, before the 
 northerly Avinds gain a final conquest over the south- 
 ern ones, and thus accomplish a thorough and lasting 
 change in the temperature. il I 
 
 The first of these efforts regularly takes place about 
 the autumnal equinox, in the ten days preceding or 
 following, with a strong gale, somewhere between 
 north-east and north-west, occasioned, as before- 
 mentioned, by the rushing in of the northern atmo- 
 sphere into the spaces quitted by the sun. This gale 
 may be termed the first wave of the great semi-annual 
 tide of the aerial ocean, and it brings along with it 
 the rain it had taken up from the surface of the ocean 
 over which it swept. 
 
 The first coolness of the season arises from the 
 evaporation of these rains, which is followed by the 
 earliest frosts, beginning at the line of the Patapsco 
 
209 
 
 in the maritime country, and from the Ohio in the 
 western districts. These frosts do not show them- 
 selves in the plains south of the Potowmack and 
 Ohir ; north of these rivers, and in the mountains, 
 they ripen the maize, by opening the husk, and thus 
 exposing the grains to the sun. The equilibrium of 
 the atmosphere is soon re-established ; the west and 
 south-west blow again, and bring back all the heats 
 of summer : and hence the periodical appearance and 
 occasional violence o^ fall fcuers. 
 
 About the middle of October, when the sun is 20° 
 or 25'' south of the line, a second change takes place: 
 another gale chills us from the northern quarter, as 
 if some particular position of the sun again disturbed 
 the equilibrium of the air ; and its rays, being now 
 vertical to the eastermost coast of South America, 
 appear suddenly to bend the great stream of the trade 
 wind to spread along the coast of Brazil, the slope of 
 which is favourable to a quicker diffusion. Now en- 
 sue fresh rains, fresh evaporation, and new frosts, 
 which extend themselves as far as Georgia. Winter 
 now appears confirmed in the possession of die v/hole 
 country : the foliage begins to wither and fall ; their 
 lively green fades into violet, dull spotted red, pale 
 yellow, and lastly into rusty brown ; and these hues 
 impart to the autumnal landscape in America a magic 
 I splendour, entirely unknown in those of Europe*. 
 
 * At this season, the most curious and enchant 'ng spectacle in 
 j all the forest is the hiccory. This is a shapely and compact tree, 
 ( crowded with leaves, most of which entirely charge their hue 
 
 2 D 
 
210 
 
 The north-west and north-east become now more 
 frequent; the south-west slackens its efforts, and de- 
 clines towards the west; the air is colder, but the sky 
 is still clear. The sun is only hot at noon, and a se- 
 ries of fine days are expected near November, which 
 is called the Indian summer. In France, an interval 
 like this is termed St. Martin's summer, and in Eng- 
 land All-hallown summer* ; but it, is rare, and so 
 brief with us, at present, that w^e only know it tradi-, 
 tionallv. 
 
 A third more formidable effort is made about the 
 close of November. Rains and frosts multiply upon 
 us, the leaves fall, the north-western gales whistle 
 with a keener and stronger blast among the naked 
 branches, but fogs do not overshadow the earth as 
 with us. The sky, especially in the north, is clear. 
 November and a part of December are a series of al- 
 ternate frosts and thaws. In the middle of December 
 frosts and snows come on in Vermont, Maine, and 
 New Hampshire, and gradually extend southward to 
 the high lands of New York. In January a thaw usu- 
 ally occurs, succeeded by extreme cold. The deep- 
 
 into a very bright yellow, before they fall. When thus clothed, 
 it suggests to the eye the appearance of a gigantic flower. The 
 gradual and partial changes in the leaves exhibit all the varieties 
 of green and yellow successively, and at the same time, in the 
 same and in different leaves. — Trans. 
 
 ♦ Its American name it probably owes to its being predicted by 
 tl-ic natives to the first emigrants, who took the early frosts as the 
 signal of winter. — Trans. 
 
211 => 
 
 est snow and severest cold occur in February. The 
 progress of the season is similar, except as to the de- 
 gree of temperature, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 
 Virginia. According to Ramsay, the frost kills the 
 orang*e tree, even in February, in Carolina : because 
 the north-west is apt to revive with unusual violence, 
 after a few moist warm days. 
 
 March, w^hen the vernal equinox is at hand, is 
 usually bleak and stormy, with falls of snow from the 
 north-east or north-west. The sun's return towards 
 the northern tropic might be expected to bring back 
 hot weather, but the prevalence of north-east winds, 
 the long previous reign of the north-west, more im- 
 petuous than ever, and the coldness which the earth 
 has acquired from its influence, retards vegetation so 
 much, that the ground is as bare and desolate through- 
 out April as in March. 
 
 It is not till May, even in the latitudes 36° and 37°, 
 that the forest becomes green ; a delay the more sur- 
 prising, as the sun's rays are unsufFerably hot towards 
 the last of April, and the difference in seasons be- 
 tween Virginia and Canada is not more than ten days, 
 for the leaves are unfolded at Quebec by the 15th of 
 May, only 25 days after break'mg-up*. The change 
 is so great, that it seems as if a carpet of verdure was 
 suddenly spread out on a floor 800 miles in extent. 
 
 * For several years, at Paris, I have noticed that the horse- 
 chesnut in the Thuilleries shows its first leaves between the 24th 
 of March and the 5th of April, while the oaks in the forests dis- 
 play their foliage a month later. 
 
212 
 
 Hence it is that, as travellers have often observed, the 
 United States knows no spring ; the transition is im^ 
 mediate from severe cold to scorching heat, and the 
 incongruous assembh'ge is constantly seen, of a freez- 
 ing wind and a burning sun ; a wintry landscape and 
 a summer sky. 
 
 When, at length, vegetation receives a start, its 
 progress is extremely rapid. Blossoms are quickly 
 followed by fruit, and fruit reaches maturity much 
 more speedily than with us. When the sun ap- 
 proaches nearest to the zenith of the continent, and 
 diffuses its greatest heat, the northern blasts are com- 
 pleteb/ overcome by the southern and south-western. 
 June is accompanied Vvith the most intense heats. 
 July, more settled heats, and storms. August and 
 September produce the most unwholesome and op- 
 pressive fervours, because the air is then subject to 
 dead calms. If at this period there be three weeks of 
 drought, the heat is so great, as we are assured by 
 Belknap, Rush, and others, that spontaneous fires 
 take place in the woods and marshes*. 
 
 i 
 
 * Some substances, such as powdered charcoal, wiUi iron filings 
 and sulphur, Unseed oil, lamp-black, and the !ike, are liable, in 
 certain dgrees of heat and moisture, to spontaneous combustion. 
 If such substances occur in swamps, they are doubtless liable to 
 be self-kindled. The firc<i in the forests of America are not spon- 
 taneous, or, if they were, they argue not excess of heat. When 
 kindled by accident, their continuance and diffusion imply dry- 
 ness ; but, for obvious reasons, they would rage more in dfy cold, 
 than in dry hot weather. — ^Trans. ^ 
 
213 
 
 This spontaneous ignition is incomprehenaible to 
 me, and, till demonstrated by facts, I shall be dis- 
 posed to attribute these fires to lightning, or to tlie 
 nesrlisrence of woodmen or travellers. 
 
 At length the autumnal equinox retiurns,-jand the 
 series of phenomena already described is repeated, 
 with certain variations indeed, but with perceptible 
 uniformity. Time is sure to briag back the north- 
 east and north-west winds, whence the air chiefly de- 
 rives its coldness. Afterwards, it revives the summer 
 gales of the south and south-west, the great dispen- 
 sers of tempests and heat. The transition is invari- 
 able, from heat to cold, by means of westerly winds, 
 in autumn, which is the evening of the year, and 
 from cold to heat by easterly winds, in spring, which 
 is the morning of the great annual day. Thus 
 these winds successively dispense four months of heat, 
 live or six of cold and storm, and only two or three 
 of temperate weather. 
 
 An opinion has, of late years, gained ground in the 
 United States, that partial changes have taken place 
 in the climate of the country, which have shown them- 
 selves in proportion as the land has been cleared. 
 " Throughout Canada," says Liancourt, " it is ob- 
 served, that the summer heats are longer and more 
 fervent, and the winter cold more temperate and tran- 
 sitory, than they used to be." The same is men- 
 tioned by Kalm, as early as 1749. 
 
 In 1690 Lahontan writes, " I am leaving Quebec, 
 and I set sail on the 20th of November, a thing never 
 
214 
 
 heard of before." I have already related that, a cen- 
 tury ago, marine insurances were always conditioned 
 for sailing from the river St Laurence on the lUh of 
 November, but now the term is extended to Christ- 
 mas day. 
 
 Williams, the historian of Vermont, quotes several 
 facts in proof of a material change. " When our an- 
 cestors," says he, " came to New England, the wea- 
 ther and seasons were uniform and regular ; the win- 
 ter set in about the end of November, and continued 
 till the middle of February. During this period, a 
 cold, dry, and clear atmosphere prevailed, with 
 scarcely any interruption. Winter ended with Fe- 
 bruary, and spring came suddenly upon us, ^^ ithout 
 those fluctuations from cold to heat, and from heat to 
 cold, which we experience at present. Summer was 
 extremely hot while it lasted, but it was generally 
 limited to six weeks. Autumn and September be- 
 gan together, and the harvest was stored before the 
 end of that month. The scene has greatly changed 
 since that time, in the cultivated part of the country : 
 the seasons are different, the weather more variable, 
 the winter become shorter, and interrupted by great 
 and sudden thaws. Spring is a scene of continual 
 vicissitude, and these changes of temperature are ex- 
 tremely hurtful to vegetation. Summer is not so hot, 
 but ir lasts longer. Autumn is most tardy in be- 
 ginning and ending, and the harvest is scarcely 
 finished before the second week in November : nor 
 does winter become settled and severe before the end 
 
215 
 
 of December." Such is the picture of the northern 
 states. 
 
 The same alterations have been traced by Dr. 
 Rush* in the climate of Pennsylvania. He believes, 
 from the accounts transmitted down from the early 
 colonists, that a material change has taken place in 
 this respect : that the springs are colder, and the 
 autumns milder, than formerly, so that cattle are 
 housed a month later than they used to be : rivers 
 freeze later in the year, and are earlier in their break- 
 ing up, &:c. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson has likewise noticed a change in the 
 climate of Virginia. He says, that even in the me- 
 mory of the middle aged, both the heats and colds 
 have greatly moderated. Snows are neither so heavy 
 nor so frequent. 
 
 I have collected similar testimonies, in the whole 
 course of my journies, in the western as well as 
 through the maritime country. On the Ohio, at 
 Gallipolis, Washington (Kentucky), Frankfort, Lex- 
 ington, Cincinnati, Louisville, Niagara, Albany, 
 every where the same changes have been mentioned 
 and insisted on. Longer summers, later autumns, 
 shorter winters, lighter and less lasting snows, and 
 colds less violent, were talked of by every body ; and 
 these changes have been always described, in the 
 newly settled districts, not as gradual and slow, butj 
 
 * See various papers by him in the American Museum, vols 
 VI and VII, and a memoir on the climate of New York, in vol. 
 VII, to the same purpose. 
 
216 
 
 as quick and sudden, in proportion to the extent of 
 cultivation. 
 
 There seems, therefore, no room to doubt the truth 
 of a sensible change in the c4imate of the country. 
 Dr. Rush, indeed, seems to hesitate in his belief, 
 after noticing the severity of several late winters, and 
 thinks some errors may have arisen from the want of 
 thermometers : but these doubts must vanish before 
 so great a multitude of witnesses, and of known facts. 
 The causes of this revolution may be assigned with 
 sufficient probability. Mr. Williams' reasonings on 
 this subject are built upon plain and intelligible facts, 
 and we cannot but agree with him in ascribing this 
 change to the clearing of the ground. 
 
 He assures us, that in every district where the trees 
 are felled, the air and the earth experience great 
 changes in their temperature, in the course of two or 
 three years. The settler has scarcely removed a few 
 acres of forest, before the ground, exposed to the 
 sun's rays, acquires, for a foot deep, a heat 10 or 12 
 degrees greater than the ground still covered with 
 trees. 
 
 He forms this estimate from some experiments 
 expressly made for the purpose. Two thermometers, 
 sunk a foot deep into the earth, one in an open field, 
 and the other in the adjoining forest, even before the 
 leaves were out, gave the following results : 
 
217 
 
 Date of obser- 
 
 Heat in the 
 
 In the forest 
 
 Difference 
 
 vation 
 
 field 
 
 
 
 May 23 
 
 52" 
 
 46° 
 
 6° 
 
 28 
 
 57 
 
 48 
 
 9 
 
 June 15 
 
 64 
 
 51 
 
 13 
 
 27 
 
 62 
 
 51 
 
 11 
 
 July 16 
 
 62 
 
 51 
 
 11 
 
 30 
 
 65 
 
 55 
 
 10 
 
 Aug. 15 
 
 68 
 
 58 
 
 10 
 
 31 
 
 59^ 
 
 55 
 
 4i 
 
 Sept. 15 
 
 59^ 
 
 55 
 
 41 
 
 Oct. 1 
 
 59^ 
 
 55 
 
 4i 
 
 15 
 
 49 
 
 49 
 
 
 
 Nov. 1 
 
 43 
 
 43 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 431 
 
 431 
 
 
 
 From these observations it appears, that in winter 
 
 the earth, whether naked or shaded, has the same 
 
 temperature, but in summer there is a difference 
 
 greater as the temperature of the air is higher. This 
 
 agrees with the statements of Umphraville, who says, 
 
 I that at Hudson's Bay tlie ground thaws to the depth 
 
 ' of four feet in open places, but only two feet in the 
 
 j woods. So Belknap informs us, that in New Hamp- 
 
 I shire the snow vanishes from the open grounds in 
 
 1 April, the noon-day sun, unobstructed, being then 
 
 sufficiently powerful to melt it, but continues still 
 
 1 under trees, though leafless, the branches and trunks 
 
 I affording some shade : and this corroborates the repre- 
 
 2 E 
 
218 
 
 sentatlons of Mr. Williams, as to the duration and| 
 severity of ancient winters, and their deeper snows. 
 
 Mr. Williams proceeds to observe, that the 10 de- 
 grees of heat added to the open ground must sensibly 
 affect the atmosphere ; and we may add, that the air 
 thus heated must rise upward, and make room for a 
 side wind from the woods, which, being heated and 
 raised in its turn, must diffuse a warm air far beyond 
 the precincts of the field. 
 
 *' Clearing the ground augments the evaporation, 
 and thus dries the surface, as is daily noticed in all 
 parts of the United States, where brooks are conti- 
 nually drying up, and swamps changing into dry 
 ground," which is a new reason for the encrease of 
 heat in the general atmosphere. 
 
 " Clearing the ground evidently diminishes the 
 quantity and duration of the snows. Within a century, 
 snow covercdNewEngland for three months together, 
 that is, from the beginning of December to the be- 
 ginning of March. So they do still in the uncleared 
 grounds, while in the cultivated parts they are neither 
 so deep nor so permanent. 
 
 " There is a striking change in the winds. The 
 western winds decline daily, while those from the 
 eastward are continually increasing, and extend fur- 
 ther than formerly. Fifty years ago they scarcely 
 reached forty m.iles from the sea shore, whereas they 
 are now felt, in spring, twenty miles further, nay 
 even at the foot of the inland mountains, which are 
 
219 
 
 seventy or eighty miles from the sea. It is plain too 
 that they extend exactly in proportion as the land is 
 divested of wood." This follows from the open 
 ground being more heated, and thus the atmosphere 
 above more easily admitting the air of the Atlantic. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson describes the same thing as taking 
 place in Virginia. " The eastern and south-eastern 
 breezes come on generally in the afternoon. They 
 have advanced into the country very perceptibly with- 
 in the memory of many persons now living. They 
 formerly did not penetrate far beyond Williamsburg, 
 but are now frequent at Richmond, and now and 
 then reach the mountains. They deposit most of 
 their moisture before they get thus far. As the lands 
 become more cleared, it is probable they will extend 
 still farther westward." 
 
 This extensive change of climate must, therefore, 
 be ascribed to two causes. First, to the clearing of 
 the ground, and thus producing a mass of warm air, 
 V* hich is constantly increasing. Secondly, to the ac- 
 cess of warm winds, through these openings, by 
 which the country is dried more rapidly, and the at- 
 mosphere more heated. 
 
 The same thing now happens in America, which 
 formerly took place in Europe, and probably in Asia, 
 and every where in the old world, history represent- 
 ing the climate of all countries as colder formerly than 
 at present. Horace and Juvenal mention tlie annual 
 freezing of the Tyber^ which is now a stranger to ice. 
 Ovid's picture of the Thracian Bosphorus has no re- 
 
220 
 
 semblance to its present condition, Dacia, Pannonia,- 
 the Tauric Chersonese, and even Macedon, are des- 
 cribed as in a state similar to Moscow in our times ; 
 yet now the olive thrives in these countries, and the 
 vine is common. France, in the days of Caesar and 
 Julian, was distinguished for its frozen rivers, where 
 ice served as bridges in the vrinter, but this is now 
 rare, and when it happens is of short duration*. 
 
 I cannot, however, believe with Mr. Williams, 
 that the colds have much diminished, in degree, in 
 the course of the last century. The cold of 163S 
 was, according to him, greater than that of 1782, was 
 attended with similar circumstances, and was the 
 greatest ever known ; but this estimate is merely con- 
 jectural, and his reasonings cannot supply the want 
 of thermometrical observations at the former of these 
 periods. Thermometers, indeed, were unknown in 
 America till about the year 1740. This conjecture 
 is the less plausible, if we admit, what I think I have 
 proved, that the north-west wind is the great source f 
 of cold in North America, since this wind has under- *^ 
 gone no alteration in its propertiesf. The experi- 
 
 * If any change of seasons or wind has been experrenced in 
 France, within the last ten years, we may venture to ascribe it 
 to the great destruction of the forests, which the revolutionary 
 times occasioned, and which has disturbed the equipoise and 
 changed the course of the aerial currents. 
 
 t Though the state of the countries beyond the lakes is unal- 
 tered, yet this wind cannot fail to be warmed by blowing over dry 
 and open fields on this side of them. If the summer winds cai> 
 
221 
 
 ments of Dr. Ramsay afFord analogies that will justify 
 us ill dissenting from this theory. This writer, on 
 comparing the observations of Dr. Chalmers, made 
 between 1750 and 1760, with his own, made from 
 1790 to 1794, found a difference of only half a degree 
 in the heat, a difference so small, that it may reason- 
 ably be ascribed to a difference in the instruments : 
 but if the heat has not encreased, we are obliged to 
 infer, that the cold has not diminished. What ap- 
 pears to be demonstrated, on this head, is, that win- 
 ter is shorter, the summer longer, and the autumn 
 later, than they formerly were, but that the cold, as 
 the last ten years sufficiently evince, is as violent as 
 ever. 
 
 Mr. Mackenzie, who admits these changes, sup- 
 poses the cause to be inherent in the globe itself, be- 
 cause he has witnessed them in places where the 
 ground remains in its primitive state. But if these 
 places, which he does not mention, be in Canada, 
 they tend only to confirm my supposition, since the 
 removal of forests, in certain mountains and slopes 
 of Genessee and Kentucky, would unavoidably intro- 
 duce considerable streams of mild air into Upper and 
 Lower Canada, from the south-west. These aerial 
 currents have never yet been sufficiently attended to, 
 
 I derive any warmth from, or impart any to, cleared ground, the 
 j north-west, in blowing over these spaces, must be somewhat in- 
 j fluenced, and must arrive on the borders of the Chesapeake some- 
 j what differently modified from what it would be, were all the 
 j northern states covered with forest. — Trans. 
 
222 
 
 but experience will prove, that their influence is very 
 extensive over the general and local temperature*. 
 It is quite possible, however, though nobody cer- 
 tainly knows, that other causes may produce the ap- 
 pearances we witness. 
 
 It still remains a question, whether these changes 
 are real improvements in the climate of America ; and 
 this point is almost settled by Mr. Williams, in the 
 comparison he draws between ancient and present 
 times, though in a manner unfavourable to the latter. 
 The experience of physicians unfortunately confirms 
 his conclusions. Dr. Rush, whose enquiries have 
 been extensive and exact, informs us, that bilious 
 fevers have every where followed the cutting down of 
 the woods, the clearing of lands, and the drying of 
 swamps. That the culture of several years is re- 
 quired to mitigate or extirpate them. That pleuri*! 
 sies and other inflammatory diseases, which were 
 formerly almost the only ones known, have grown 
 much less common, which proves an evident alteration 
 in the purity of the air. 
 
 These ideas on the influence of woods, and of 
 ground newly cultivated, are familiarly known ; but 
 a more particular detail of the evils connected with the 
 American climate may be of some use in pointing 
 out the means of prevention, and I shall now there- 
 fore proceed to give it. 
 
 * It is to these that the thunder and hail storms arc owing, b/ 
 which certain districts are infested, while the country a mile or 
 two off is exempted from them. 
 
223 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Of the reigning Diseases in the United States^ 
 
 EXCLUSIVE of maladies common to all 
 countries, there appears to me to be four diseases, 
 whose prevalence entitle them to be considered as the 
 direct offspring of the soil and climate of this country. 
 The first of these are coughs, catarrhs, and all these 
 complaints arising from obstructed perspiration. 
 Colds may be reckoned the endemic of the United 
 States. They are rife at all seasons, though most so 
 in winter, and about the vernal equinox. They are 
 evidently produced by the sudden changes in the tem- 
 perature, so characteristic of the climate. Women are 
 more subject to colds than men, plainly because their 
 recluse and sedentary life makes their constitutions 
 more delicate, and their dress is thin and light. The 
 French fashions have already reached America. 
 Even in the fury, of their revolution, nothing was 
 current with this people, but what Vv^as stamped by 
 the practice and example of England. I found the 
 
224 
 
 Parisian dress of 1793 in full vogue at Philadelphia 
 in 1795, and diat of 1794 did not reach that city till 
 1796. Enquiring into their history, for the interme- 
 diate years, I discovered that they were obliged to 
 pass over to London, before they could meet with a 
 kind reception in America. 
 
 In the maritime towns, where the emulation of 
 European modes is more eager and servile, colds fre- 
 quently arise from overheated rooms, balls, tea parties, 
 and feather beds*. Habitual or repeated coughs are 
 sufficiently weakening to the lungs, and these are the 
 necessary consequences of repeated colds. People of 
 fashion will sometimes have four or five severe colds 
 in a winter, for the rich are particularly subject to 
 them. Hence it is that, in a few years, the lungs 
 become incurably distempered, and the miserable vic- 
 tim is carried off by a rapid or lingering consumption. 
 
 All travellers in America speak of the prevalence 
 of this disease, which is chiefly fatal to young married 
 women, and females in the bloom of youth. It pre- 
 vails least in the southern and western states, the 
 reason of which is truly assigned by Dr. Currie of 
 Liverpoolf. He tells us, that in Carolina and Vir- 
 ginia the warmth of the air gives a determination to 
 the skin, and carries off through its pores all morbific 
 humours, and the crudities of indigestion, themselves 
 the reciprocal causes and effects of colds : whereas, 
 
 • Among the German colonists the fashion is to sleep on a 
 a feather bed, and under a down one. — Trans. 
 t American Museum, vol. V. 
 
225 
 
 in the middle and northern states, the cold moist at- 
 mosphere shuts up the pores of the skin, and im- 
 prisons in the body all those evil humours, which, 
 in searching for an issue, are sure to fasten on the 
 weakest parts or organs*. 
 
 There is reason to believe that the taking cold is 
 facilitated by the use of very hot tea, which the peo- 
 ple are accustomed to drink. I observed, not only 
 in them, but myself, that the moisture it excites on 
 the skill renders it more susceptible of cold, and that 
 
 * My own experience, on my return from Egypt, confirms 
 these remarks. At Cairo, I drank five or six dishes of coffee 
 daily, without inconvenience, but at Paris, where I passed a se- 
 dentary life, I could not drink a single dish fasting, by the month 
 of October, without nervous and feverish sensations ; I may like- 
 wise add, that during three years which I spent ii;i Syria and 
 Egypt, I had no disease but the influenza once, in 1783, whereas, 
 in the United States, during a similar period of three years, I was 
 twice severely attacked with malignant fever, I had five or six 
 violent colds, and a rheumatic affection, that has proved incu- 
 rable. Yet in both countries I equally conformed to the regimen 
 of the natives. — V. A conformity to the American regi- 
 
 men was the most effectual method of shortening and destroying 
 life that our author could have adopted. An infinite proportion 
 of the diseases which exist in the world are owing to absurd 
 modes and vicious habits, and the dress and diet of Europe arc 
 assidiously copied in America, where it is far more injurious, 
 from the nature of the climate. The great curse of the couiit 
 try, and the source of ninety-nine hundredths of the maladies 
 which I'avage it, is the abuse of spirituous liquors. If the influ- 
 ence of evil moral and pernicious physical habits were subtract- 
 ed from the causes of disease, the climate would be next to no- 
 thing. — Trans. 
 
 2 F 
 
226 
 
 I have often caught cold on going out after a break- 
 fast of tea, in cool weather*. I was assured that, in 
 my case, these ill effects were owing to my not being 
 accustomed to it, but the effects, though less conspi- 
 cuous in those whom habit has inured to it, cannot 
 be less real. Indeed, the whole system of American 
 diet is directly hostile to health, and productive of 
 habitual indigestions, Avhich arc extremely favourable 
 to taking cold. Since pulmonary affections are de- 
 rived chiefly from colds, and these proceed from the 
 sudden and violent changes of the temperature, 
 phthisis may be considered as the characteristic of 
 this climate. 
 
 2. Travellers equally agree as to the prevalence of 
 defluxions on the gums, and of the early decay of 
 teeth. You will scarcely find, among ten persons 
 under thirty, one whose teeth are entirely sound ; and 
 it is a cause of particular regret, that young and beau- 
 tiful women, between fifteen and twenty, have gene- 
 rally their teeth disfigured with black spots, and the 
 greater part of them gone. There are many opinions 
 as to the cause of this general ruin. Some physicians 
 ascribe it to the use of salt meat, which is, indeed, 
 
 * Volney's case is certainly a singular one. Among the causes 
 of co/f/s, this would not have readily occurred to common obser- 
 vers. The remark, though probably fallacious in all cases (since 
 hot drink will hardly produce immediate perspiration, except in 
 very hot weather, when it can do no harm in thin way), is far 
 more applicable to the English, with whom tea, boiling hot, is far 
 more common and general than with any other people. — Tkaks. 
 
227 
 
 universal, some to the use of tea, and the excessive 
 use of sweet things. Dr. Kalm, comparing the diet 
 of different nations and classes of society, seems to 
 have lighted on the true cause. He thinks tea inju- 
 rious to the teeth, not by its own intrinsic properties, 
 but merely as a hot liquor. Experience, indeed, has 
 long since informed us, that every hot liquor pro- 
 duces a sensibility in the teeth, which shows itself 
 afterwards when coming into contact with any thing 
 cold. The enamel, or exterior hard coat, becomes 
 soft, and hastens to dissolution. Hence the general 
 complaint of bad teeth in the north of Europe, for in 
 all cold countries hot liquors impart agreeable sensa- 
 tions to the whole frame, while cold drinks are most 
 agreeable in hot countries ; and it is remarkable that 
 in the latter, as in Africa, Arabia, and India, the 
 teeth are generally fair and sound. 
 
 This conclusion acquires some force from a fact 
 observed, within the last twenty years, in the United 
 States. Before that time, bad teeth were never found 
 in an Indian, and the food of these tribes is commonly 
 cold. Some few individuals, particularly women, of 
 the Oneida, Seneca, and Tuscorora tribes, having 
 adopted the use of tea, their teeth began, in the course 
 of three years, visibly to decay. Bougainville also 
 tells us, that the wretched savages of Terra del Fuego 
 have all bad teeth, and that they live almost wholly 
 on shell-fish, roasted and eaten burning hot^. 
 
 * Volney seems to have adopted erroneous ideas as to the use 
 of tea in America. This, or any other foreign infusion, is far 
 
228 
 
 Salt meat may, however, be admitted as an aiixi- 
 Ihiry cause : it is certain that the scurvy, a disease 
 particularly hostile to the teeth and gums, is the conse- 
 quence of the excessive use of salted meat. A tainted 
 brciith is one of the symptoms and concomitants of 
 scurvy as well as of bad teeth ; hence ^ve may conclude, 
 that suit meal, the digestion and imperfect ch^le of 
 which conveys impure exhalations to the lungs, is the 
 primary cause of caries, and that hot liquors coniribute 
 to the evil, directly by their influence on the teeth, 
 and indirectly by debilitating and vitiating the diges- 
 tive organs. This effect cannot be attributed to fresh 
 meat, since the Tartars, the Indians of America, and 
 all carnivorous animals enjoy white and sound teeth. 
 The blame cannot belong to the use of sugar and 
 other sweets, because the Africans and Hindoos, who 
 delight in the sugar cane and in sacharine fruits, have 
 good teeth, and because they are rather purified and 
 cleansed by those acids, which are formed by heat, 
 and which abound in hot climates. If these conclu- 
 sions be just, how much is it incumbent on parents 
 and physicians, in every country, to prohibit or dis- 
 countenance the use of hot liquors and salt meats, 
 
 from being so general here as in Europe. Milk, either raw or 
 boiled, is the usual drink, as a mcul, in almost all country places ; 
 and as to the sensibility to cold being augmented by the use oi hot 
 liquids, this is a questionable point, since well water is in winter 
 warm to the teeth as well as to the other organs of sensation, 
 and painfully cold in summer, though the temperature is the 
 same. — Trans. 
 
229 
 
 especially in the young ! Were this caution properly 
 attended to, defluxions on the gums, arising from vi^ 
 cissitudes of temperature, and which are the second- 
 ary causes of the ruin of teeth, would seldom occur. 
 
 3. Autumnal intermittents prevail in this country 
 to a degree scarcely credible, especially in newly 
 cleared grounds, in the neighbourhood of rivers, 
 pools, and marshes. In the autumn of 1796, in a 
 journey of seven hundred miles, I scarcely found 
 twenty houses free from agues and fevers. All the 
 banks of the Ohio, a great part of Kentucky, the 
 shores of Lake Erie, the Genessee country, and its 
 lakes and rivers, are annually infested by them. 
 
 In a journey of 250 miles, from Cincinnati to De- 
 troit, begun on the 8th of September, in a company 
 of twenty-five persons, we did not encamp one night 
 without one at least of the party being seized with a 
 periodical fever. At Greenville, the head quarters 
 of the army that had just conquered the country, 
 three hundred persons, from among three hundred 
 and seventy, were sick of fevers. On arriving at De- 
 troit only three of our party w^ere in health, and on 
 the ensuing day, our commander major Swan and 
 myself were both seized with a malignant fever. 
 This fever annually visits the garrison at Miami 
 I Fort, where it has more than once assumed the form 
 of yellow fever. - 
 
 These periodical fevers are not immediately fatal, 
 but they sensibly enfeeble the constitution and shorten 
 life. Many others beside myself have observed, 
 
 i\ 
 
230 
 
 that in the southern states a person is as old at fifty, 
 as in Europe at sixty-five or seventy ; and I have 
 heard many Englishmen declare, that their friends, 
 after a few years residence in the southern or even 
 middle states, appeared as old again as they would 
 have done in their native country. If these fevers 
 seize their victim at the end of October, they are 
 likely to continue all winter, and reduce him to a 
 state of wretched languor and debility. Canada, and 
 the adjacent cold countries are little subject to them. 
 They prevail most in the low and level country, and 
 more near the sea than among the hills. Hence we 
 might suppose that a high situation would be gene- 
 rally preferred by settlers, but health is never allowed 
 to enter into competition with profit, and the m,ore 
 fertile plains and hollows are therefore chosen, though 
 at the expence of health, and the hazard of life. I 
 have often attempted to reason with the farmer, on 
 his own thrifty principles, thus : " The lowlands 
 yield you forty bushels of Indian corn, or twenty 
 bushels of wheat, an acre, whereas, you say, you can 
 get but half that produce from the sides of the Ken- 
 tucky and Virginian mountains. True : but in the 
 plain you are sick half the year, and in the hills you 
 are hale and strong to labour all the year round. So 
 things are just equal, unless you remember that you 
 are cheerful and alert in one case, and your Poor 
 Richard says, that health is better than wealth ; but 
 in the valley you are sick, miserable, and spiritless 
 the whole year." 
 
231 
 
 <' That is true," said a country clergyman in reply r 
 *' but you omit one important circumstance : that of 
 having nothing to do, in the lowlands, for half the 
 year." 
 
 My friend was in the right, for I have often heard 
 it observed, that the maritime districts of Virginia, 
 though extremely sickly, are still preferred by num- 
 bers to the mountainous and wholesome regions, be- 
 cause fish and oysters abound there, and a subsist- 
 ence costs little or nothing*. 
 
 The favourite preventative of fevers in America is 
 what is called bitters, of which the basis is some kind 
 of wine or spirit, and this potion, whatever the reader 
 may believe, is generally efficacious. I have known 
 many families, among Virginian and Pennsylvanian 
 farmers, in which those who drank beer or water were 
 liable to agues, while the rest, who used spirituous 
 liquors, perhaps to excess, were entirely exempt 
 from them. 
 
 This opinion is likewise adopted in Holland, where 
 tobacco and strong liquors are generally deemed an- 
 tidotes to the unwholesome damps of the soil and 
 climate. I have known two instances in which the 
 draining and drying up of a small pool and rivulet has 
 
 * The true state of this case is, that men are every vv'here 
 reckless of health. In the choice of an abode, and their con- 
 tinuance in it, as well as in all other things, they do not regulate 
 their conduct by any such considerations. Habit reconciles us to 
 every thing, and a stupid confidence in our own good fortune 
 possesses us. — Trans. 
 
232 
 
 completely freed a family from the annual visits of 
 intermittent fevers. 
 
 During my abode in Corsica, in 17f)2, several 
 facts of no small importance occurred, which were 
 connected with this subject. Several posts in that 
 island are annually annoyed with fevers : among 
 others, the post of San Fiorenza, which is situated 
 on the borders of a pestilential bog, of about forty- 
 five acres. Here, at the end of summer, and for a 
 few weeks in autumn, these fevers assume a malig- 
 nant cast, in consequence of the copious putrid exha- 
 lations set loose by the intense heat of the sun. The 
 whole garrison would entirely perish, if they were 
 not relieved every two or three weeks. The French 
 physicians, after the trial of many remedies, at length 
 observed, that only two posts in the whole island 
 were entirely exempted from this pest. These were 
 Vivario and Vitzavona, and their peculiar salubrity 
 was discovered, as is usual in such cases, only by 
 chance. A Swiss officer, who fell dangerously sick 
 at San Fiorenza, desired to be removed to his own 
 regiment, a part of which happened to be stationed 
 at Vivario, and here, in a fortnight, he was restored 
 to perfect health. This experiment being made on 
 some other sick soldiers, it was crowned with such 
 success, that thenceforth it became the custom to send 
 thither, as to an hospital, all desperate cases of fever, 
 and the disease is always found to yield to the sana- 
 tive properties of the air, in the course of never more 
 than eleven days. 
 
233 
 
 Now these two posts have a situation widely dif- 
 ferent from all the others. They are remote from 
 any stagnant water, and hang like eagles' nests, on 
 the sides of the ridge which divides the whole island 
 into two parts. They are about 6900 feet above the 
 sea, and the atmosphere around them more nearly 
 resembles that of Norway or the middle Alps, than 
 that of the rest of the island. The temperature never 
 rises to 70 degrees but in the three summer months. 
 For three or four months they are buried in snow, by 
 which all communication with the neighbouring dis- 
 tricts is sometimes cut off, for eight or ten weeks to- 
 gether. The wind is always blowing, and generally 
 hard, as they occupy two ends of a narrow pass across 
 the rocky summit of the mountains, which in other 
 places is almost impassable. 
 
 Vitzavona, on the western side, is somewhat 
 damper, and therefore less healthy. Till 1793, these 
 posts were garrisoned by Grisons, fifteen or twenty 
 soldiers being allotted to each, because the air and 
 situation, though dreary and desolate, vrere such as 
 they had been accustomed to. Their diet, especially in 
 M inter, was salt meat, sour crout, and a poor kind of 
 beer or wine, and generally biscuit. There was 
 scarcely room about the fort to walk, and in v, inter 
 they were often imprisoned within doors a fortnight 
 together, by the storms that raged without. Their 
 life, indeed, was more like that of men on shipboard 
 than on land. I have myself visited these lofty 
 abodes, and speak of them, therefore, from my own 
 
 2 G 
 
234 
 
 knowledge. The malady most incident to the garri- 
 son is pleurisy. 
 
 Their health cannot be ascribed to their diet, be- 
 cause, in the low country, this food would generate 
 ague and scurvy. It can only be attributed to the 
 air, which, at this height, is light, pure, and cool, 
 while the atmosphere of the coast is loaded with heat, 
 damp, and every pernicious exhalation. 
 
 Hence the simple mode of cure is to breathe a 
 pure and elastic air. This is generally, though not 
 always, found in lofty situations, in our climates ; for 
 there are places in France high and airy, but still un- 
 wholesome, in consequence of lying to the leeward 
 of pools or marshes : and this is still more common 
 in hot countries. There are heights in Corsica and 
 Italy wholly uninhabitable, because, though far re- 
 mote from damp and boggy places, they lie in the 
 course of the winds that usually blow from them. 
 Such is the case in Bengal, where there are woody 
 eminences, infested, in spite of their flattering ap- 
 pearances, with what is there termed the hill fencer. 
 It will hardly be supposed, with such a name, that it 
 is no more than the malady of low lands and bogs ; 
 it is however the same, produced not only by the 
 damp^ that gather, during the monsoons, under these 
 immense woods, but by the vapours which rise from 
 the subject plains, and are wafted hither and entangled 
 among these summits. To render lofty situations 
 healthy, they must be dry, cool, and inaccessible to 
 noxious winds. 
 
235 
 
 The want of such a natural atmosphere may perhaps 
 be supplied by some process of art, by which it may 
 be manufactured, and by which noxious vapours may 
 be neutralized. Chemistry has made many disco- 
 veries, in this respect, of late years, and more may 
 be expected from the zeal with which that science 
 continues to be prosecuted. It is found that the 
 common air contains, as one of its ingredients, a vital 
 or respirable fluid called oxygene, and that air is pure 
 and healthful, according to the relative quantity of 
 this ingredient. Lavoisier ascertained that the pro- 
 portion in common air is about one ^fourth ; Ber- 
 thollet made it somewhat less : but they may both 
 have been exact in their experiments, as air, in dif- 
 ferent situations, may well be supposed to differ in 
 this particular. It probably varies in different coun- 
 tries, and to ascertain these differences, at different 
 places, in different climates, and at different heights 
 above the surface of the earth, would probably be 
 highly useful. The cold dry air of Siberia might be 
 compared with the sultry moisture of Porto Bello and 
 Guiana, or the dry heat of Zaara and Kedjas, and 
 balloons might be of use in examining the different 
 strata of the atmosphere. At present it seems cer- 
 tain, that, in the temperate zone, the air of high places 
 is purer, because it contains more oxygen, and fewer 
 terrestrial exhalations. At Vivario and Vitzavona, 
 indeed, the specific gravity of the air is somewhat less 
 than that of oxygen, but it must necessarily accumu- 
 
236 
 
 late there, ^\ hen driven by the vapours from the sultry 
 coast. 
 
 It has hitely appeared, that oxygenated muriatic acid 
 gas will separate common air from its infectious and 
 noxious properties or vapours, and were this alone suf- 
 ficient for the preservation of health, we should be for- 
 tunate in possessing such simple means : but much re- 
 mains to be known concerning the various kinds of 
 poisonous fluids that float in the atmosphere. Some of 
 these are so subtle, that no instrument has hitherto 
 diluted or seized them. Considering their effects on 
 the human constitution, they may be deemed poisons, 
 which act sometimes on the nervous and sometimes 
 on the sanguineous fluid, producing a fermentation in 
 the mass, in the manner of leaven. Different known 
 gasses, like the oxygenated muriatic, act upon life 
 silently and suddenly, not merely through the lungs, 
 but tlirough the pores of the skin, and many unknown 
 gasses may possess the same power*. 
 
 To the action of such fluids must be traced those 
 epidemics which prevail in certain countries, and in 
 certain states of the weather. Fevers accompanied 
 with shivering, and with alternate increase and de- 
 crease, have, in their periodical returns, something 
 analogous to the great functions of hunger and sleep, 
 and may therefore suggest a belief, that the source of 
 
 * In what immediately follows, I have been puzzled to extract 
 a clear and distinct meaning from Volney's obscure and verbose 
 phraseology. — Trans. 
 
237 
 
 the disease is rather in the nervous system, than in 
 the stomach or blood. The sudden appearance of 
 fever, on exposure to the sun, to wet, or to extremes 
 of cold and heat, may be owing to the action of some 
 gazeous principle on the fluid which pervades the 
 nerves ; especially since these effects are chiefly ex- 
 perienced in places liable to great vicissitudes of heat 
 and cold ; since perspiration always bespeaks a con- 
 traction of the nerves, and febrile paroxysms usually 
 terminate in perspiration. My opinion will acquire 
 new strength, and we shall thus be supplied with a 
 plain and satisfactory theory of contagion, when we 
 recollect that the lungs and nostrils bring a great 
 body of nerves into contact with the external respira- 
 ble air, and that internal medicines are much less be- 
 neficial in those cases than a change of residence, 
 like that from the coast of Corsica to Vitzavona and 
 Vivario. 
 
 4. OF THE YELLOW FEVER. 
 
 The yellow fever prevails more and more in the 
 United States*, and its importance will justify me in 
 discussing it at some length. Having received a 
 medical education in early life, I have been the more 
 qualified to reason with physicians upon this disorder, 
 
 * The encrease of yellow fever is questionable. — Trans, 
 
238 
 
 and to compare the facts that relate to it, though I 
 hope I have clone this with a diffidence proportioned 
 to my imperfect knowledge of this science. Without 
 some such smattering, I should not have meddled 
 with this subject, for it is easier to discuss the topics 
 of the mathematical sciences without any direct know- 
 ledge of them, since their principles are determinate 
 and precise, than of medicine, so irregular and com- 
 plex, so liable to the varying influence of circum- 
 stances, and which requires so much perseverance, 
 industry, and sagacity. 
 
 The silly and dogmatic part of mankind are con- 
 stantly exclaiming, that all is chance and guess-work 
 in medicine, while they, at the same time, acknow- 
 ledge themselves profoundly ignorant of the subject, 
 and whenever the slightest ailment betides them, 
 they are eager to call in some neighbouring Galen, 
 or, if none be at hand, they implicitly trust to the 
 skill of some old woman, m hom experience has made 
 a physician, or some empiric, in whom impudence 
 or plausibility supply the place of experience. But 
 this is a digression, from which it is time to return. 
 
 This disease owes its name to the deep lemon co- 
 lour, which, in the dissolution of the humours, first 
 shows itself in the eye, and afterwards si^reads itself 
 all over the body. The French call it the Siam fever 
 or disease, either because it is supposed to have ori- 
 ginally come from Siam, or because the hue of the, 
 patient resembles the complexion of the Siamese. 
 
239 
 
 The Spaniards term it the black vomit, from one of 
 its most usual and most dreadful symptoms. Its or- 
 dinary history is this : 
 
 Some days preceding the attack, there is a general 
 languor and lassitude, dull pains, drowsiness, and 
 sometimes stupor. These are followed by intense 
 head-ache in the brows, by acute pain in the back, 
 arms, and legs, and alternate heat and cold. The 
 skin is dry, parched, and has frequently spots, that 
 are at first reddish, and then violet coloured. The 
 eyes are dead, ghastly, and blood-shotten. Respira- 
 tion is difficult, accompanied with frequent sighs, and 
 the air from the lungs is burning hot. The pulse 
 varies with the constitution of the patient, and accord- 
 ing to other circumstances ; in general it is hard, 
 quick, and irregular, but the danger is greatest when 
 it resembles the natural or ordinary state. Fainting 
 and deafness, at the commencement of the malady, 
 are very formidable symptoms. A tormenting thirst, 
 with an inflamed tongue, which afterwards becomes 
 black and furred, and at length fetid, are all signs of 
 this disease. The sick complain of burning heat in 
 the stomach. The vomitings from slimy change to 
 the most corrosive acid, sometimes unaccompanied 
 with bile, but oftener attended with that fluid, which 
 is of a yellowish green colour, and end in a blackish 
 matter, like dregs of ink, or coffee grounds, with a 
 smell of rotten eggs, and so acrid that the throat is 
 scalded by it. Sometimes constipation takes place, 
 and sometimes a blackish diarrhoea. 
 
240 
 
 The disease has now passed through the inflamma- 
 tory stage, and the fluids all tend to dissolution. The 
 fever visibly abates : but this arises from the rapid 
 decline of the vital energy ; the pulse becomes weak 
 and tremulous ; the victim is restless, and sometimes 
 delirious : Dire is the tossi?ig ; deep the groans. Life 
 gradually sinks under the continued and excessive 
 vomiting and stools : and the most fearful presage is 
 an inclination to lie on the back, draw up the knees, 
 and slide down to the foot of the bed. The eyes and 
 the whole body become yellow, and the dissolution of 
 the fluids is complete. If the lancet has been previ- 
 ously used, the orifice bleeds afresh. The solids are 
 now attacked by spacelus and gangrene, and death 
 hastens to close the scene. 
 
 This disease has been long known in the hot and 
 damp regions of South America, and the West Indian 
 isles. Cases have always been common at Cartha- 
 gena, Porto Bello, and Vera Cruz, upon the conti- 
 nent ; and in the isles of Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. 
 Domingo, and Martinique. Louisiana, and the 
 southern coasts of the United States, where heat and 
 moisture combine their pestilential influence, were 
 never strangers to it. New Orleans, Pensacola, Sa- 
 vannah, Charleston, and Norfolk Mere seldom free 
 from it for five years together. The Potowmack ap- 
 pears to have been its boundary, for in the earlier 
 part of the last century there are only two periods 
 mentioned, 1740 and 1762, in which it appeared 
 north of that river, the first time at New York, and 
 
241 
 
 the second time at Philadelphia* ; but since the year 
 1790 its visits have been so frequent, that it may be 
 now considered as congenial to the northern as well 
 as to the southern states. Some scattered cases oc- 
 curred at New York in 1790. It prevailed next 
 year with more steadiness ; and traces were observed 
 of it in 1792. In 1793 it appeared at Philadelphia 
 as a pestilence, and it re-appeared, though slightly, 
 in the two following years. It raged at New York 
 in 1794 and 1796, and at Philadelphia in 1797; 
 while, at the same time, it ravaged Baltimore, Nor- 
 folk, Charleston, and Newburyport. Some tokens of 
 it v/ere perceived at Sheffield and Boston. Other 
 instances are also mentioned ; one at Harrisburg, in 
 1793, another at Baltimore, and a third at Oneida, in 
 Genessee : to which may be added, several cases in 
 the Miami of Lake Erie. In 1798 it raged with 
 greater malignity than ever at New York and Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 The American physicians, this disease being new 
 to them, had to invent a cure. Unfortunately, most of 
 them imagined they had found the remedy in the doc- 
 trines of Brown, who was extremely popular among 
 the faculty of the United States. The simplicity of 
 this system, which explains every thing by two states 
 of direct and indirect debility, and the subtraction 
 or addition of stimuli, direct and indirect, captivated 
 
 * It raged at the beginning of the century, at Philadelphia.^- 
 Trans. 
 
 2 H 
 
242 
 
 tlie more, because it was dogmatical, and superseded 
 the tedious aids of observation and experience. Kence 
 the ardent fancy of youth, and the indolent temper of 
 all ages, embraced it with eagerness. Reasoning 
 from these principles, they have constantly adminis- 
 t<°red tonics at the beeiiining of the fever, deeming it 
 necessary to raise the languid powers, \\ hen the true 
 object should have been to slacken and depress the 
 overstrained fibres. They likewise made use of the 
 most drastic purgatives, with a view to expel the 
 morbid humours, before these humours were duly 
 and suliicienUy concocted and matured. 
 
 This treatment particularly prevailed at Philadel- 
 phia, in the fatal year of 1793. It was there the 
 fashion to give twenty or twenty-five grains of jalap, 
 ten or fifteen of calomel, or even gamboge, and all 
 these, in repeated doses. For drink they prescribed 
 camomile, mint, or cinnamon tea, and Madeira wine, 
 sometimes to the amount of a bottle a day. Brandy 
 is well known to form an ingredient of the purest 
 Madeira. Besides, in the midst of summer, with the 
 thermometer at 87 degrees, the sick were kept in 
 close chambers, they lay on feather beds, with two 
 or three blankets above them, and sometimes even 
 with a fire in their rooms : all this for the purpose of 
 forcing perspiration, which the inflammatory condi- 
 tion of the system pertinaciously refused. 
 
 Of this treatment the obvious consequences took 
 place in a vast and rapid mortality : not two out of 
 fifty of tlie sick recovered. They all showed symp- 
 
243 
 
 toms of gangrenous suffocation, naturally flowijig 
 from a cherished inflammation. Terror overpowered 
 every mind ; the malady was regarded as pestilential, 
 and all possibility of recovery from its attacks as 
 hopeless. Some physicians, whose influence was 
 considerable, sanctioned this opiiiion by their publi- 
 cations. The sick were deserted by their nearest 
 relatives, and the desolate houses Avere full of noisome 
 effluvia from the dead they contained. The govern- 
 ment, at length, interposed for the removal and in- 
 terment of the dead, and for conveying the sick 
 to an hospital. Houses were marked with chalk, as 
 in a time of proscription, and the terrified inhabitants 
 fled for safety to the neighbouring villages, or en- 
 camped in the open fields, as if their city were in 
 possession of an enemy. 
 
 At this sad moment, chance conducted hither, from 
 the conflagrations of St. Domingo, Dr. Deveze, a 
 French surgeon, of considerable eminence in that 
 island. He happened to be called to a patient, and 
 employing the remedies usual in the French islands, 
 his great success soon attracted the notice of govern- 
 ment, and he was placed at the head of the hospital 
 at Bush-hill. His account of his method of treating 
 the disease, published the ensuing year, is equally 
 creditable to his skill and humanity, as it propagated 
 new views upon the su1)ject throughout the country. 
 By this treatise it appears, that he divides the disor- 
 der into three stages, distinct from each other, though 
 
244 
 
 they sometimes succeed each other so rapidly, that 
 there is hardly time ta note the progress. 
 
 The first is a state of extreme inflammation, com- 
 bined with tension of the brain and spasms of the 
 nerves, and requiring not tonics, but laxatives and 
 sedatives. 
 
 The second is a state in which the fluids are dis- 
 solved, by the previous preternatural heat. These 
 fluids are to be evacuated as soon as possible, since 
 they are become noxious to the body that contains 
 them ; and here Art should stand by, watchful to aid 
 and promote the crisis, but rather following Nature 
 than stepping before her. 
 
 The third period is that of re-composition and con- 
 valescence, in which Art has only to prescribe the 
 regimen, and inculcate caution and forbearance on the 
 patient's appetites. 
 
 Agreeably to these notions, he began by drawing 
 away some blood, if the patient were plethoric. He 
 ordered diluents, acidulous aromatic drinks, and 
 found great benefits to flow from liquids impregnated 
 with carbonic acid. He adapted the drink to the 
 patient's stomach, and took care to guard his imagi- 
 nation against the chimera of contagion, the reality 
 of which he always persisted in denying. He libe- 
 rally admitted fresh air, and took no pains to provoke 
 sweating, which he thinks is rarely employed by 
 Nature as the means of determining a crisis. 
 
 When he had, by these means, abated the fever, 
 he proceeded, in the second stage of the disease, to 
 
245 
 
 watch the approaching crisis, and to mark the form 
 or organ to which it showed a determination. These 
 efforts niost commonly produced extensive suppura- 
 tions, which he aided, by externally applying vesica- 
 tories and cataplasms, by the internal use of aromatic 
 beverages, and even by weak Avines, mixed with su- 
 gar and water ; by gentle purgatives, and, lastly, by 
 the bark. Opium, in such high credit with the phy- 
 sicians of the country, he considered as hurtful and 
 improper. 
 
 We may naturally suppose, that a solitary stranger 
 could not fail to meet with many obstacles ; but 
 truth and reason always make their way sure at last. 
 The sick naturally preferred the man who performed 
 the most cures, and his practice was finally adopted 
 by man}" of the faculty. 
 
 Whether the change be owing to this excellent and 
 seasonable publication, or to the natural progress 
 of observation and experience, it is certain, that fa- 
 vourable changes began to take place, in the treat- 
 ment of this disease, from this period. In 1794, 
 several physicians of New York made use, as a pur- 
 gative, of Glauber's and other salts, in conjunction 
 with diluents. Madeira wine and other tonics 
 were no longer lavishly used. They used the lancet 
 with great caution. The warm bath and fomenta-. 
 tions v.ith vinegar were employed as sudorifics, and 
 these v/ere sometimes beneficial. From this moment 
 a salutary schism broke out in the colleges ; old ha- 
 
246 
 
 bits were shaken, and new paths chalked out for the 
 spirit of curiosity and enterprise. 
 
 This schism has been particularly violent on the 
 question of the origin of this disease. Some main- 
 tain that it is always imported from abroad, especially 
 from the West Indies ; and rely much, for support 
 to this opinion, on the unfrequency of this disease, 
 anterior to the peace of 1783. Its subsequent preva- 
 lence they impute to the increased commercial inter- 
 course \\ith the West Indies and Spanish America, 
 and e^en attempt to trace its admission to particular 
 vessels, by which a contagious matter, not less viru- 
 lent than that of the plague, has been indisputably 
 imported. 
 
 The other party affirm, on the contrary, that this 
 disease is capable of being generated within the 
 country, by a concurrence of certain incidents of time 
 and place. So far from admitting the historical argu- 
 ments of their Opponents, derived from the case of 
 particular vessels, they clearly prove, that the ships 
 accused were first infected with the malady after their 
 arrival at New York or Philadelphia, and in conse- 
 quence of lying near the places where the disease was 
 peculiarly malignant. They even prove that those 
 of the crew w'ho were first seized were such as had 
 greatest and earliest communication with the shore*. 
 
 * J'hus the people of Philadelphia generally believed, for a 
 lime, tiiat their pestilence of 1793 came from Grenada to them, 
 but originally from Bulam, in Africa, in the ship Ilankey. A 
 physician of that island, Dr. Chisholm, supported the tale of im- 
 
247 
 
 From an extensive and judicious view of all cir- 
 cumstances, these physicians have deduced and ascer- 
 tained the following points in the history of this 
 disease : 
 
 1. Tliat it is to be found in large populous cities, 
 more than in small towns, villages, or country places. 
 
 2. That in such cities, as New York, Philadelphia, 
 Baltimore, it prefers those parts that are low, and 
 abounding in filth or stagnant water ; streets narrow 
 and close, unpaved and dirty ; and especially the 
 wharves, and the nooks and alleys adjacent, which 
 are covered with filth, and which is left dry and ex- 
 posed to the sun by the ebbing of die tide. Mr. R. 
 Bayley has calculated, that at least twenty-four loads 
 of every kind of filth, including even the carcases of 
 dogs, cats, and horses, were thrown, in one year, into 
 the dock between Wlijtehall and the Cofiee-house 
 slip. Hence it was, that, in July, it produced so 
 powerful a stench, especially in the evening, as to 
 excite in those who resided in the neighbourhood 
 nausea and vomiting. 
 
 portation by the Hankey, in a pamphlet. Three years after, 
 Noah Webster and Dr. E. H. Smith, of New York, published a 
 journal of the voyage of the Hankey, drawn up by a respectable 
 eye-witness, which contains so candid and convincing- a statement, 
 that no reader can hesitate to believe that Dr. Chisholm was com- 
 pletely deceived. Dr. Bayley, likewise, in a judicious report to 
 the governor of New York, proves that the stories current res- 
 pecting the importation of the fever in the Antoinette and Patty 
 were entirely groundless. See Medical Repository, vol. I, pages 
 459 and 121. 
 
I 
 
 248 
 
 3. That it prevails only in July, August, and Sep- 
 tember, during which the great heats of the climate, 
 which rise customarily to 86 or 88 degrees, produce 
 a fermentation in these heaps of animal and vegetable 
 matter, and extract from them gazeous fluids, equally 
 noisome to the senses and hurtful to health. The epi- 
 demic is encreased by damp weather, by south-east 
 and even by north-east winds, and is not abated by the 
 plentiful rains of the south-west. That the disease 
 was most apt to prevail when the summer was dryest 
 and most calm, probably because in such state of the 
 air the noxious vapours act more powerfully on the 
 lungs, and through that medium on the whole system. 
 
 It appears, lastly, that those most liable to this 
 disease are the poor, squalid inhabitants of low, wet, 
 and neglected suburbs ; workmen most exposed to 
 the heat of fires, as smiths ; and those addicted to 
 spirituous liquors, a fit of drunknencss being not un- 
 frequently succeeded by yellow fever ; persons of 
 sanguine, robust habits, adults, strangers from nor- 
 thern climates, blacks, and men enfeebled by vice and 
 luxury : that, on the contrary, those are most exempt 
 from it who are spare and temperate, cleanly in their 
 habits, in easy circumstances, residing in clean, airy 
 streets, and strangers from hot climates. 
 
 They have likewise proved, that even in the West 
 Indies, Grenada, Martinique, St. Domingo, and Ja- 
 maica, which have sometimes been deemed the pecu- 
 liar seats of the disorder, the same circumstances 
 were necessary to concur to produce the evil ; that 
 
249 
 
 both in seasons, places, and constitutions, a direct 
 analogy prevailed among the fevers of different coun- 
 tries ; that islands like St. Kitts, St. Vincents, To- 
 bago and Barbadoes, which are lofty and dry, are ex- 
 tremely healthy ; whereas in Grenada it only appeared 
 at St. Georges, and in Martinique at Fort Royal, in 
 places near the shore, and in the neighbourhood of 
 marshes, where vessels were crowded together in a 
 very dry season ; and finally, that if the disease came 
 from abroad, into New York and Philadelphia, it 
 would have been regularly imported from Norfolk 
 and Charleston, with which they have always an 
 extensive and unguarded intercourse, and where the 
 combination of the above unfavourable circumstances 
 make it almost annually endemic*. 
 
 * The argument drawn from the rare appearance of the fevev 
 in former times operates both ways, for as there is no essential or 
 apparent difference in the internal condition of New York and 
 Philadelphia, between former times and the present ; or, if there 
 be any difference, it is in favour of the wholesomeness of their 
 present condition ; so there is no material difference, or that dif- 
 ference is in our favour, between the commercial intercourse of 
 these cities with the tropical islands and cities now and formerly. 
 Why, exclaims one, did not the equal or greater filth and impurity 
 of our towns generate the fever before 1790 ? and Avhy, may ano- 
 ther exclaim, did not our intercourse with the West Indies import 
 that disease sooner? an intercourse more incautious and un- 
 guarded than at present. The rage for explaining every thing, 
 and the dogmatic spirit that imagines the causes of every thing 
 within our reach, is as prevalent now as in the darkest ages of the 
 world.— .Trans. 
 
 2 I 
 
250 
 
 These conclusions are established in numerous 
 tracts, published from 1794 to 1798, the year in 
 which I left the country for Europe*. 
 
 After reading these works attentively, we cannot 
 fail to be struck with the harmony and conformity 
 between the prevalence of the yellow fever and the 
 circumstances just mentioned. We every where 
 find the disease appearing and advancing in obedi- 
 ence to these circumstances, and its virulence always 
 bearing an exact proportion to the heat of the at- 
 mosphere, combined with dryness, or with temporary 
 moisture ; to the extent and vicinity of pools and 
 bogs, and especially to the quantity of animal or ve- 
 getable matter, in a state of putrid fermentation. If 
 there be heat, without marshes or animal putrefac- 
 tion, fevers are generated of the inflammatory kind, 
 unattended with peculiar malignity ; if there be 
 marshes without animal matters, the exhalations pro- 
 duce putrid sore throat, cholera morbus, and dysen- 
 teries ; if animal putrefaction be connected with these 
 circumstances, the nervous system appears to be 
 
 * See the Report of the Physicians to the Governor of Pennsyl- 
 vania; of R. Bayley to the Governor of New York; on the Yel- 
 low Fever of New York, by V. Seaman ; Dr. Rush's Enquiries 
 and Observations ; Dr. G. Davidson on the Yellow Fever at 
 Martinico, in 1796 ; Origin of the Fever of Grenada in 1793 and 
 1794, by E. H. Smith; on the Bilious Malignant Fever, by S. 
 Brown ; on the Fever and Dysentery of SheHield, by Dr. Buel ; 
 and the valuable Collection of Letters, on the Fevers of various 
 places, published by Noah Webster. 
 
251 
 
 affected with a kind of poison. Fevers may be thus 
 measured, as to their maHgnity, by the degrees of the 
 thermometer, combined with the force of pvitrid ex- 
 halations, so that, in the course of the same season, 
 we may count up all their degrees, from mere synocha 
 to the consummation of every malignant operation in 
 the plague. Hence it is evident that every country, 
 which contains and unites these enemies to life, may 
 engender, in its own bosom, all these diseases. 
 
 I imagined, very early, that the heat necessary to 
 produce malignant fevers, in Syria and Egypt, was 
 about 86 degrees ; and it was with no small satisfac- 
 tion I afterwards found the same opinion, suggested 
 by similar facts, in Dr. Davidson of Martinico, who 
 thinks that, beginning at this degree of 86, the malig- 
 nant and coiitagious properties of fevers keep pace 
 with the encrease of temperature, till they terminate 
 in the plague. 
 
 These notions on the origin and causes of the yel- 
 low fever are now so prevalent in America, that a 
 great majority of their physicians concur in believing 
 it to oriG:inate within the countrv. The collesre of 
 Philadelphia is the only learned body that continues 
 to maintain its foreign origin ; and this opinion, 
 which was the earliest, will never want numerous 
 partisans, from the following powerful considerations : 
 
 Because it is flattering to national vanity, and, we 
 may add, timidity. 
 
 Because it favours the schemes of land-jobbers, 
 and removes the obstacle and discouragement to emi- 
 
252 
 
 gration, raised by the opposite opinion. The case, 
 indeed, is pretty much the same, if its importation be 
 so very easy ; but this inference is not easily digested 
 by the party, and many Americans are irritated by 
 being placed in so irksome a dilemma. 
 
 Because the physicians who most strenuously main- 
 tain this opinion have their vanity engaged in the 
 support of it, and are only made more positive by 
 contradiction ; because they have prevailed upon the 
 government to burthen commerce with heavy and 
 vexatious restraints and impositions, and they would 
 incur a great deal of odium, should ihey be brought 
 to acknowledge the nullity and folly of these mea- 
 sures. I am, however, by no means an enemy to 
 the establishment of lazarettoes and health-offices ; 
 I think them wise and useful, especially if the Ame- 
 rican trade extend itself much in the Mediterranean 
 and the Levant. 
 
 Because the contagion and malignity which the 
 doctrine of importation implies, affords an excuse to 
 those whose patients seldom recover*. 
 
 When I concur with those who believe in the do- 
 mestic generation of the yellow fever, I am far from 
 
 * Here Volney inserts a note too personal and frivolous tb de- 
 serve introduction. The vanity and dogmatism displayed in the 
 above enumeration of motives is highly censurable. Volney, and 
 all violent controversialists, have not minds large enough to see 
 the real complexity and obscurity of this question, or to admit 
 the possibility of opposite opinions being adopted or defended with 
 disinterested motives.— Trans. 
 
253 
 
 questioning the motives of those who think ^differ- 
 ently*, but I regard this doctrine as danger^s and 
 hazardous, inasmuch as it has urged the government 
 to encroachments upon personal security and liberty, 
 and renders men indifferent to those domestic and in- 
 ternal measures and precautions, which are enjoined 
 by the true nature of the malady. 
 
 As to the question of contagion, I cannot entirely 
 concur with either party. There are too many facts 
 to allow us to believe in its universally contagious 
 nature ; and if the source of the disease be found in 
 moist and putrid exhalations, surely the effluvia from 
 a diseased body must be efficacious in the same way. 
 It appears accordingly, that at Philadelphia, in 1797, 
 many families contracted the disease, on their return 
 to town, in cold weather, by repossessing their houses, 
 in which persons had died, v/ithout cleaning and 
 purifying them. At Norfolk it was generally re- 
 marked, that those who left the city were, on their 
 occasional returns to it, more liable to this disorder, 
 than such as constantly remained in town : a case 
 corresponding with that of strangers, especially from 
 the north, who were always found, at New York and 
 Philadelphia, to be particularly liable to infection. 
 
 Speculative reasoners endeavour to account for this 
 by saying, that strangers were made more susceptible 
 of fever by the greater quantity of oxygene infused 
 into their blood by the pure air of the country, or of 
 
 * This is strange, after wiiat has just before been said. — Trans, 
 
254 
 
 Europe. But this oxygenation is merely conjectural; 
 and from all the notions we have formed of this fluid, 
 its presence and abundance must be more conducive 
 to health than to sickness ; and the opinion main- 
 tained by these theorists, that oxygene abounds most 
 in low situations, is directly contrary to the discove- 
 ries of F.uropean chemists. The fluids which their 
 experiments have disengaged from marshes and pu- 
 trescent substances are carbone, hydrogen, and azote, 
 and not oxygene. 
 
 The two first of these gasses, when confined, are 
 productive of remittent and intermittent fevers, and 
 when compounded with the third, or azote, tend to 
 generate malignant or putrid fevers. 
 
 Future enquiries may unfold the nature of all these 
 morbific fluids. At present, the best modes of des- 
 troying their effects seem to be : first, the use of 
 diluents and refrigerants to abate inflammation, which 
 is the first stage of the disease : perhaps a bath of 55 
 or 66 degrees, employed at the first approach of the 
 disease, and continued for many hours, jnight be 
 useful. Adepts in medicine must be left to judge 
 of the benefits of very cold baths, by m hich some 
 American physicians have given relief: but all de- 
 pends upon the moment of their application, since its 
 effects in one stage of the disease would be widely 
 different at another stage. The great point is to pre- 
 vent inflammation from advancing till it decompose 
 the fluids, for in such a case the disease must run 
 through all its stages. The first moments, therefore, 
 
255 
 
 are precious, and in them blood may be taken, in 
 small quantities, with benefit. A potent antidote is 
 abstinence, with aqueous drinks, begun as soon as 
 lassitude is perceived, with loss of appetite : this ab- 
 stinence must be persisted in till hunger naturally 
 returns, and both mind and body are restored to their 
 usual activity*. 
 
 With respect to the general preservatives from this 
 epidemic, they must be adopted by the general go- 
 vernment, and must consist : 
 
 1. In regulating the commercial intercourse of the 
 country, with a strict regard to foreign diseases. 
 Ships from the Mediterranean must be carefully at- 
 tended to. 
 
 2. In restraining the conduct of individuals, in the 
 exercise of the right of property. This right, at pre- 
 sent, is much abused, by filling up pits and low places 
 with offensive and filthy matters. The Americans 
 boast, with little reason, of their cleanliness, for the 
 quays of New York and Philadelphia, and some of 
 their suburbs, surpass, in public and private nasti- 
 ness, any thing I ever saw in Turkey, where the at- 
 mosphere is salubriously dryf. 
 
 3. Measures should be taken for paving the streets, 
 lanes, and alleys of cities. It has long been observed 
 
 * See an excellent treatise on the Effect of Abstinence, on the 
 Approach of Acute Diseases, by E. Millar, M. D. New York 
 Medical Repository, vol. I. 
 
 t If this declaration be true, the police of these cities ought to 
 trcmble.~TRANs. 
 
256 
 
 in Europe, that all great epidemics have disappeared 
 in London, Paris, Lyons, and other populous cities, 
 since the public ways have been generally paved. 
 
 4. All stagnant water, and every putrescent mat- 
 ter, should be carefully prevented or removed. Among 
 the rest, burying-grounds should be removed from 
 the hearts of cities. Philadelphia has four vast ceme- 
 teries, in the finest and most populous quarters of 
 the city, of the smell of which I was, in summer, 
 quite sensible, but it has not one walk planted with 
 trees. 
 
 5. The privies should be walled and paved. In 
 their present state, their contents escape into the 
 wells, by filtration through a sandy stratum. On 
 the melting of the snow, and in summer droughts, 
 the water rises to the same level in both, for both are 
 equally ivithout ivalls. This contamination of the 
 well water is so evident, that, in Front street, water 
 kept in decanters for three days, in the month of 
 May, became thick, and acquired a noisome smell*. 
 
 Lastly, it is an important duty of the government 
 to enlighten their people as to the consequences of 
 
 * Since Volney's visit great alterations have taken place. The 
 introduction of the Italian poplar has turned some of the hottest 
 and most open streets into shady avenues, and pure Schuylkill 
 water is diffused throughout the whole city. The use of this- 
 wholesome element has made the noxious properties of the well 
 water particularly conspicuous. The latter now produces nausea 
 in those who formerly drank it without sensible inconvenience. 
 The same improvements have taken place at New York and 
 Wilmington. — Trans. 
 
257 
 
 that pernicious diet, which they have borrowed from 
 their ancestors, the Germans and English. We may 
 venture to affirm, that if a premium were offered for 
 a regimen most destructive to the teeth, the stomach, 
 and the health in general, none could be devised more 
 efficacious for these ends than that in use among this 
 people. 
 
 At breakfast they deluge the stomach with a pint 
 of hot water, slightly impregnated with tea, or slightly 
 tinctured, or rather coloured, Avith coffee ; and they 
 swallow, almost without mastication, hot bread, half 
 baked, soaked in melted butter, with the grossest 
 cheese, and salt or hung beef, pickled pork or fish, 
 all which can with difficulty be dissolved. 
 
 At dinner they devour boiled pastes, called, ab- 
 surdly, puddings, garnished with the most luscious 
 sauces. Their turnips and other vegetables are 
 floated in lard or butter. Their pastry is nothing but 
 a greasy paste, imperfectly baked. To digest these 
 various substances, they take tea, immediately after 
 dinner^ so strong that it is bitter to the taste, as well 
 as utterly destructive of the nervous system. Supper 
 presently follows, witli salt meat and shell fish in its 
 train. Thus passes the whole day, in heaping one 
 indigestive mass upon another. To brace the ex- 
 hausted stomach, wine, rum, gin, malt spirits, or 
 beer, are used with dreadful prodigality. 
 
 These modes of diet are not unsuitable to the Tar- 
 tarian tribes, from whom the people of the west of 
 Europe were originally descended, yet they employ 
 
 2 K 
 
^ 258 
 
 none of these pernicious stimulants. Their wander- 
 ing and equestrian life makes them capable of digest- 
 ing any thing ; but when nations change their climate, 
 or sink into the wealth, refinement, and ease of a sta- 
 tionary people, the whole mass undergoes material 
 alterations. The ploughmen of Germany or Eng- 
 land may copy their hardy ancestors without much 
 inconvenience ; but not so those that dwell in cities, 
 and pass their time in a slothful or sedentary manner, 
 and still less those who change the chills and damps 
 of their native climate for a torrid region like Georgia 
 or the Carolinas. Habit itself, though almost omni- 
 potent, cannot reconcile this system to so repugnant 
 a climate. Hence it is, that the English are the least 
 able to contend with the evils of tropical climates, of 
 any people of Europe, and their American descend- 
 ants must abjure the example, or they will incur the 
 same inconveniences. 
 
 Regimen has so much influence on health, and is 
 of such moment in the yellow fever, that this malady 
 never appeared within the precincts of the Philadel- 
 phia prison, a circumstance no doubt owing to the 
 rigid temperance observed in this institution, by 
 which the stomach is never overloaded, nor the fluids 
 depraved, and to the exclusion of spirituous liquors, 
 for drunknenness is a vice as prevalent in the United 
 States as among the savages themselves. 
 
 I am far from imagining that the manners of a 
 nation, in these respects, can be easily or speedily 
 changed. I know too well the infatuation of man- 
 
259 
 
 kind, and the obstinacy of general and long-estab- 
 lished habits ; but I cannot help thinking, that if half 
 the pains were taken by governments to enlighten 
 their subjects as are taken to mislead them, a refor- 
 mation might be wrought, such as the contemners of 
 mankind have no conception of at present. 
 
 The ignorance and folly of mankind are cherished, 
 instead of being combated, by their rulers ; and hence 
 the inveteracy of popular ignorance and folly ; but if 
 the present generation be unequal to the task of their 
 own reformation, they might, at least, through ten- 
 derness for their offspring, adopt a plan of education 
 by which posterity might be rescued from the evils of 
 which their parents have so much reason to complain*. 
 
 The great and general cause of yellow fever, since 
 the year 1790, I shall venture to affirm to be the sud- 
 den increase in the population of the maritime cities, 
 in consequence of the French war, and the insurrec- 
 tions in the islands. The vast influx of floating pro- 
 
 * In this case, the rulers are just as much depraved as the sub- 
 jects, and we can have little hopes of the child, when the parent 
 glories in his sottishness, and thinks the happiness and dignity of 
 manhood connected with the quantity he drinks. The whole pur- 
 pose of government is vulgarly supposed to consist in repelling ex- 
 ternal enemies, and restraining the fraud or violence of individuals 
 when immediately directed against the person or property of each 
 other. The first end is effected by a revenue, to create or aug- 
 ment which the introduction and diffusion of inflammatory liquors 
 are studiously promoted. The health or morals of the people, so 
 far as these arise from the regulation of the passions and discip- 
 line of the manners, form no part of a politician's views. — Trans. 
 
260 
 
 pcrty, and of fugitives, into their cities, occasioned 
 the hasty erection of numerous buildings, on ground 
 not properly prepared for them. Trade has diffused 
 riches before unknown among the people, and the la- 
 bourer, whose wages have increased to a dollar atid a 
 half and two dollars a day, and the farmer, whose flour 
 has brought him twelve or fourteen dollars a barrel, 
 have indulged themselves in new luxuries, among J | 
 wiiich wine and brandy are the chief. Hence, at a 
 time when the seeds of inflammation and putrescence 
 had acquired new force, the bodies of men were par- 
 ticularly open to their influence, by means of the care- 
 lessness, uncleanliness, and excess, which every 
 where prevailed*. 
 
 Such are the outlines of a picture of the soil and 
 
 * In finding out this cause, Volney's usual sagacity seems to 
 have deserted him. As to the encrease of buildings, in Philadel- 
 phia ; where the pestilence has been most malignant, it has 
 always begun and raged in the most ancient quarters. The 
 fugitives from the islands have brought with them not wealth 
 but poverty, have had no sensible effect upon population, and 
 have rather imported safety than danger from the yellow fe- 
 ver, from the influence of their example. Besides, the disease 
 has raged in old and stationary towns, not visited, or very spar- 
 ingly visited, by these fugitives. As to the influence of wealth, 
 (he disease has always made most havock among the most poor 
 and the least thrifty. The prosperity of agriculture has had no 
 sue!) influence, because the farmer and miller are not harassed 
 by the yellow fever. Public and private cleanliness has wonder- 
 fully increased since the first assaults of this disease, while the 
 violence of these assaults has rather cncreased t])an diminished. 
 — Than*. 
 
261 
 
 climate of the United States : a picture I have endea- 
 voured to make as exact as its vast extent and variety 
 would admit. I shall now leave the judgment of 
 the reader to form his own notions of the compara- 
 tive weight of evils and benefits belonging to a coun- 
 try, whose political as well as geographical situation 
 fits it for acting so magnificent a part on the stage of 
 the world. I am the less disposed to guide or influ- 
 ence the opinion of others in these points, because 
 habit and prejudice are mighty, and particularly exer- 
 'cise their power over the judgments which we form of 
 the comparative merits of countries. It has been no 
 uncommon thing with me to hear opposite opinions 
 advanced, in the same company, by travellers from 
 different parts of Europe. The Dane and the Eng- 
 lishman exclaim against the he?it of the climate, 
 which the Spaniard and Italian think temperate 
 enough. The Pole and Provencal complain of its 
 moisture, while the Dutchman is rather inclined to 
 think it too dry : each one, in these instances, being 
 secretly governed by comparisons between what he 
 sees with what he has been used to in his own coun- 
 try. Yet there is one thing in which they all agree, 
 and that is in condemning the sudden, frequent, and 
 violent changes in the temperature. 
 
 The Americans resent these censures of their cli- 
 mate almost as a personal offence. The motives of 
 this partiality are obvious. In the first place, it na- 
 turally flows from that self-love or \'anity, Avhicli is 
 incident to nations as well as to individuals ; and se- 
 
262 
 
 condly, from regard to their pecuniary interest, which 
 governs the state as well as the private citizens, and 
 which prompts them to employ all means of selling 
 land, and inviting foreign purchasers and foreign ca- 
 pitals*. 
 
 Widi such motives, it would be hard to persuade 
 them that their country is not the best in the world. 
 Yet if the adventurer endeavours to inform himself 
 among the people themselves, the southern people 
 will terrify him from fixing in the north, by dwelling 
 on their long and dreary winters, the hardships of ex- 
 cessive cold, the expence and apparatus which a 
 bleak air and churlish soil occasion in living or culti- 
 vating the earth. 
 
 The northern man, on the contrary, boasts much 
 of his health, robustness, and activity, the gifts of 
 labour, a sparing soil, and inclement skies ; and rails 
 against the pestilential bogs of the southern states, 
 their sultry and incessant heats, their tormenting in- 
 sects, the slothful and luxurious habits, and the crazy 
 constitutions of the people, their gambling, drunken- 
 ness, and tyranny over their slaves : all produced by 
 the very nature of their soil, and its luxuriant ferti- 
 
 * This is absurd in both respects, for there is a large party ia 
 the state who abhor and discourage zw/migration, and not one pri- 
 vate man in a thousand has any personal interest in the coming 
 of strangers. Volney has given an air of mystery and singula- 
 rity to a trite and universal fact, and makes no allowance in tM$ 
 place for the force of habit, which lessens the evils of a climate to 
 the native, and aggravates them to the stranger. — Trans. 
 
263 
 
 lity. The Carolinian will join with the Vermont 
 man, however, in decrying the middle states, as pos- 
 sessing all the evils, without any of the benefits of either 
 of the extremes. At Philadelphia, I have heard a Ca- 
 rolinian complain of heat, and a Canadian of cold, 
 merely because both were improvident, and took not 
 the suitable precautions against the weather. So, 
 likewise, if the stranger sets on foot enquiries in a 
 notoriously sickly district, every one will describe his 
 own farm as free from the evil, and kindly traces it 
 either to his neighbour's domain, or to some foreign 
 country. The truth is, that every nation and every 
 individual complains of his own country or district, 
 and yet, at the same time, prefers it to all others, 
 through the influence of vanity, interest, and, above 
 all, of all-powerful habit. The Copt prefers his mud, 
 the Arab his sands, the Tartar his wilderness of long 
 grass, the Huron his canopy of boundless woods, the 
 Hindoo his sunny plains, the Esquimaux and Sa- 
 moiede his bleak and naked shores : neither would 
 change his country for another. Such is the magical 
 influence of habit, the force of whose spell we can 
 only know by stepping out of our own circle, and 
 bringing ourselves into collision with others. Habit 
 forms a sort of atmosphere around us, to whose pecu- 
 liarities our senses are dead, till we go forth and breathe 
 a different air. 
 
 Those who have never stept out of their own cir- 
 cle, and yet speculate on the habits of others, are like 
 blind men discoursing about colours, and I think the 
 
264 
 
 best criterion of a rational mind, is to pronounce his 
 judgment upon sucli points with diffidence and hesi- 
 tation. 1 do not pretend to divest myself of my na- 
 tive habits, or forget my peculiar constitution, when 
 I venture to say, that the climate of Egypt, Syria, 
 France, and all the borders of the Mediterranean, is 
 far preferable, both as to salubrity and pleasantness, 
 to that of the American slates ; that were I obliged 
 to select the most favourable spot in America as the 
 place of my abode, my choice would fall upon the 
 southern point of Rhode Island, or the south-west 
 chain in Virginia, between the Roanoke and Rappa- 
 hannock. In the western country, I should prefer to 
 live, a hundred years hence, on the margin of Lake 
 Erie, for then it will not as now be infested with fevers. 
 At present, if my choice were guided by the reports of 
 travellers, it would fix upon those highlands of Flo- 
 rida and Georgia, vvhich are to windward of the near- 
 est marsh*. 
 
 * A district with a dry, gently undulating, and well cultivated 
 surface, in the middle and eastern states, has certainly the strong- 
 est physical claim to salubrity. As the greater part of New 
 England, the inland of New Jersey, and the eastern part of Penn- 
 sylvania answer to this description, they are entitled equally, and 
 in a high degree, to this praise, and as long life, with as few 
 diseases, are to be found in such districts as any where in France, 
 Spain, or Italy. A northern climate, and a social and agricultu- 
 ral state, similar to that of Norway and Scotland, is doubtless still 
 more favourable to health and longevity. — Trans. 
 
SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 On the Winds of JS/ortvay and Sweden. 
 
 The great inundations that took place in Sweden, 
 in the summer of 1800, were without any rain suffi- 
 cient to account for them. I have hence been led to 
 suspect that they were occasioned by an unusual ac- 
 cumulation of clouds on the bordering mountains, by 
 means of long continued winds ; and, in order to 
 ascertain the truth, I addressed myself to Mr. Bour- 
 going, the French ambassador at Copenhagen, who 
 is an eminent and zealous friend to useful knowledge, 
 and requested him to procure for me answers to cer- 
 tain questions which I sent him. He communicated 
 my queries to several learned men, and among the 
 rest to Messrs. Melanderhielm, Swanberg, Loevener, 
 Schoenheuter, Webbe, Grove, and Buch. Their 
 comments on these questions were politely commu- 
 nicated to the minister, and by him to me, and have 
 
 2 L 
 
266 
 
 furnished me with a body of valuable facts, which I 
 afterwards put upon paper, and transmitted to the 
 ambassador, as a token of my gratitude for his friendly 
 assistance. 
 
 As these facts have some connection with the spe- 
 culations contained in this work, I have thought pro- 
 per to insert them here. In doing so, one of my views 
 has been to draw the attention of meteorologists to 
 the laws Vv^hich govern the winds of the polar circle, 
 and to point out the analogy or correspondence be- 
 tween the north-west and north-east winds of Ame- 
 rica with those of Russia and Sweden. 
 
 From the various notes transmitted to me, and par- 
 ticularly from the brief, but exact and methodical, 
 statements of Mr. Schoenheuter, bishop of Drontheim, 
 in Norway, the following facts are clearly made out : 
 
 1- That Norway is intersected, from east to west, 
 by a mountainous chain called the Dofrefeldt or Do- 
 frine hills, v.hich divides the country into two parts, 
 northern and southern. 
 
 2. That the height of this chain, one of the highest 
 in Norway, is about 3000 feet. 
 
 3. That the influence of this chain upon the mo- 
 tions of the atmosphere is such, that these two parts 
 have scarcely ever the same wind and weather at the 
 same time. If there be rain at Aggerhus or Chris- 
 tiunsand, on one side, it is dry weather at Drontheim 
 or Nordland, on the other. The same representation 
 is made by Mr. Buch. 
 
267 
 
 4. This distinction was particularly striking in the 
 summer of 1800, when incessant rains deluged the 
 province of Droniheim, north of the hills, so that the 
 harvest was entirely ruined, while an excessive 
 drought prevailed in the southern districts of Agger- 
 hus and Berghen. In Drontheim, from the month 
 of June to the 20th of August, the wind did not devi- 
 ate one point from the north-west, for twenty days ; 
 and the thermometer, fluctuating between 46 and 50 
 degrees, never rose above 57. At Aggerhus and 
 Berghen the wind was steadily south, south-east, or 
 south-west, the mercury ranging between 63 and 72. 
 All the rainy days scarcely amounted to seven. 
 The observations made at Dronthiem and Chris- 
 tiansand, compared together, afford twenty instances 
 of rain at Drontheim, with the wirl at north-west, 
 while at Aggerhus it was fair and drj-, with a south- 
 east wind ; so that directly opposite winds blew, at 
 these different places, at the same time. According 
 to Mr. Schoenheuter, Jemteland, in Sweden, which is 
 east of Drontheim, experienced the same rains. As 
 to the prevailing wind he was not informed. 
 
 He joins with Messrs. Webb6, Grove, and Buch 
 in stating the prevailing wind on the coast of Norway 
 to be west ; that this wind is rainy, owing to the 
 neighbouring ocean, while the north-east, south-east, 
 and east are dry. The north-west and south-west 
 prevail north of the hills, while the west and east are 
 rare. On the coast of Berghen and the valley of the 
 Louken, the south-west and west, with rain, prevail. 
 
268 
 
 III the valley of the Glomen and Gulph of Aggerhus, 
 the reigning winds are the south-west, which is chiefly 
 rainy, and the south-east, which is occasionally both 
 wet and dry. 
 
 At Stockholm, Mr. Swanberg and Mr. Melander- 
 hielm inform me, that the west and south-west pre- 
 vail, and are dry ; that the wet winds are the east, 
 north-east, and, in summer, the south-east ; but that 
 Smaland and Scania have weather similar to that of 
 Aggerhus. In 1 800, June and July were very wet at 
 Stockholm ; but they add no table of the winds, 
 which probably were easterly. At that time the 
 north-west blew at Drontheim, the south or south- 
 east at Aggerhus, and the east in the Gulph of Both- 
 nia. Hence it appears that the Dofrine mountain 
 was the point of meeting or encounter between three 
 opposite winds. 
 
 I shall not enter into a minute account of the at- 
 mosphere at Stockholm, but shall content myself with 
 observing, 
 
 1. That the Swedish inundation could not proceed 
 from melting snows, for these are all dissolved be- 
 fore June and July. 
 
 2. That the Dofrine hills, though not so compact 
 as a wall of masonry, have undoubted influence on the 
 currents of the air. Though mountains may exist in 
 clusters, and want a direct junction, they may yet im- 
 pede or thwart the airy streams, especially if their in- 
 tervening vallies have different directions, as ledges 
 of rocks, though detached and unseen in the beds of 
 rivers, check and disturb the current. 
 
269 
 
 No. II. 
 
 On Florida^ and a work entitled a Concise JVatural and Moral His- 
 tory of East and West Florida, by Berimrd Romans. \2mo, J\''c'iv 
 York, 1776. 
 
 BERNARD ROMANS was an enlightened 
 physician and observer, who spent several years in 
 Florida. He divides the country into two climates ; 
 one of which he calls the northern, extending from 
 latitude 31° to 27° 40^; the southern extending to 
 the end of the peninsula, in latitude 24° . This dis- 
 tinction he chiefly founds upon the frequency of frosts 
 within one line, and their rarity beyond it. He might 
 have said, more accurately and distinctly, that water 
 freezes as far south as 27° 40', but ceases to freeze in 
 the rest of the peninsula. 
 
 The air of the country is clear and pure. Fogs 
 are unknown, except upon St. John's river, but the 
 dews are heavy. Spring and autumn are dry sea- 
 sons, but the temperature of the latter is very variable. 
 Winter sets in with wet and tempestuous weather : 
 February and March are dry and clear : from Sep- 
 tember to June, inclusive, there cannot be a finer 
 climate ; but July, August, and September are in- 
 tensely hot, though the temperature is less variable 
 than that of Carolina, and frost is much more rare. 
 
270 
 
 The noon-day sun is scorching at all seasons, and 
 the cold never injures the orange, which flourishes 
 here in the greatest perfection. St. Augustine is on 
 the frontier of the two climates*. 
 
 The eastern trade wind prevails on the Atlantic 
 side of the peninsula. On the coast of the gulph, 
 the west and north-west sea breezes difluse an agree- 
 able coolness every where in summer. All kinds of 
 fruit flourish here, without being incommoded by ex- 
 tremes of heat or cold. The rain is foretokened one 
 or two days beforehand, by excessive dews, or by the 
 total want of them. The winds fluctuate less than in 
 the country further north. During the greater part 
 of spring, throughout summer, and in the first months 
 of autumn, the wind is chiefly north-east ; at the close 
 of winter and the opening of spring, it is west and 
 north-west. 
 
 For twenty days before the autumnal equinox, and 
 seventy or eighty after it, storms and hurricanes are 
 to be expected in this quarter ; but our historian re- 
 lates, that he never heard of any violent commotion 
 at the vernal equinox. The dreadful hurricanes of 
 1769 began on the 29th October, that of 1772 on the 
 30th of August. It first blew east and south-east at 
 Mobile ; further west its course was north-north-east. 
 It did little damage at Pensacola. This tempest 
 
 * A geographical error of Volney's, this town being in latitude 
 29 <> 45'. Romans expressly placed this line about two degrees 
 southward of this town. — Trans. 
 
271 
 
 swelled all the rivers to a great height and extent ; 
 but the most remarkable circumstance attending it 
 was the mulberry-trees putting out a second crop of 
 blossoms and fruit. 
 
 The south and south-west winds occasion very 
 thick and unwholesome fogs. They also breathe 
 that suffocating air, so much complained of in July 
 and August. The south-east and north-east winds, 
 on the contrary, are cool ; they moisten the earth, and 
 fertilize the very sand with frequent showers. The 
 winds between east and north are sprightly and cool. 
 Between north and north-west they are almost cold. 
 The mercury ranges between 84 and 88 degrees in the 
 shade, where there is ample ventilation. In July and 
 August, in the shade, it reaches 94. In the sunshine 
 it mounts to 114. It never sinks below 30. The 
 weather, from October to June, inclusive, is inex- 
 pressibly delightful. The eastern side of the penin- 
 sula is more sultry than the west, or than the nor- 
 thern district, the shore of which is obnoxious to the 
 keen blasts of winter. 
 
 The extremity of Florida, on the w^estern side, is 
 very liable to storms and whirlwinds, from May to 
 August. They rise suddenly from the south-west and 
 south-south-west, and are transient. 
 
 Dr. Mackenzie has said much of the effect of the air 
 in producing mould, rust, he. but though this is ma- 
 nifest at St. Augustine, yet there is not a healthier 
 place than this in this quarter. The inhabitants en- 
 joy sound health, and reach great longevity, and in- 
 
272 
 
 valids resort hither from Cuba, as to another Mont- 
 pellier. 
 
 The northern district, which is formed by the con- 
 tinental part of Florida, resembles the southern part 
 of the peninsula, but its customary winds are some- 
 what colder. The epidemic of Mobile, in 1760, 
 arose entirely from the intemperance of the soldiers. 
 Even physicians advise the settlers to a moderate use 
 of liquor, but, unluckily, they are sure to overleap 
 the prescribed bounds, and to run into excess. 
 
 The great evil of the American climate is not the 
 degree of temperature, either high or low, nor the 
 drought, nor the wet, but it is the violent and sud- 
 den transition from one state to its opposite. So 
 great are these changes, that they sometimes amount 
 to 30 degrees in twelve hours, and this evil is much 
 greater in the north than the south. i I 
 
 The soil of Florida is generally a bed of white 
 clay, with a stratum above it of white sand. The 
 coast is naked and bare, but the inland is a forest of 
 firs. 
 
 Bernard Romans agrees with me in his notions of 
 the savages. He describes them as a sottish, filthy, 
 idle, pilfering and haughty race ; vain, irritable, vin- 
 dictive, and ferocious. The Chickasaws he singles out 
 as the worst of them all, and the Chactaws are, it 
 seems, a little better. They are honest, have some 
 notions of personal property, and are more industrious 
 than the rest. They are hospitable to excess ; but 
 are improvident, selling their all to the pedlar, and 
 
 
273 
 
 hazarding their all in gambling. Suicide and sodomy 
 are crimes by no means rare among every tribe. 
 
 In 1771, the Chickasaws could muster 250 war- 
 riors, the Chactaws 2600, and the confederate Creeks 
 3500 ; which together make up no despicable force 
 of upwards of 6000 men*. 
 
 On the soil and produce of the country, our author 
 is very full and satisfactory. He divides the land 
 into six different kinds : the pine land, hammock 
 land, savannahs, swamps, marshes, and bay, or cy- 
 press, galls. 
 
 " First, the pine land, commonly called pine bar- 
 ren, which makes up the largest body by far, the 
 peninsula being scarce any thing else ; but about a 
 hundred miles towards the north-west from St. Au- 
 gustine, and about two hundred from the sea in West 
 Florida, carry us entirely out of it. This land con- 
 sists of a grey or white sand, and in many places of 
 a red or yeilow gravel. It produces a great variety 
 of shrubs or plants. The principal produce from 
 whence it derives its name is the piniis folus lo7igissi- 
 mis ex una theca ternis, or yellow pine and pitch pine- 
 tree, which I take to be a variety of the same species, 
 both excellent and good timber. 
 
 * In the following pages, the translator has extsncled a little the 
 quotations of Volney, as B. Romans' information on the soil and 
 diseases of those provinces is very curious and authentic, and, at 
 the same time, his book is out of print, and extremely rare. — 
 Trans. 
 
 2 M 
 
274 
 
 " Also the chamcerops frond'ibus palmatis plicatis 
 stipitibus serratis, of whose fruit all animals arc very 
 fond. 
 
 " It is on this kind of land that immense stocks of 
 cattle are maintained, although the most natural grass 
 on this soil is of a very harsh nature, and the cattle 
 not at all fond of it. It is known by the name of 
 wire grass, and they only eat it while young. For 
 the procuring it young, or renewing this kind of pas- 
 ture, the woods arer frequently fired, and at different 
 seasons, in order to have a succession of young grass, 
 but the savannahs that are interspersed in this kind 
 of land furnish a more plentiful and more proper food 
 for the cattle. 
 
 " Some high pine hills are so covered with two or 
 thret varietie-s of the oak, as to make an underwood 
 to the lofty pines ; and a- species of dwarf chesnut is 
 often found here ; another species, of a larger growth, 
 is also found in the lower parts, particularly in the 
 edges of the bay or cypress galls. 
 
 " This barren and unfavourable soil, in a wet sea- 
 son, bears many things far beyond expectation, and is 
 very useful for the cultivation of peach and mulberry 
 orchards. This land might also be rendered useful 
 for many other purposes ; but either the people do 
 not chuse to go out of the old beaten track, or con- 
 tent themselves with looking elsewhere for new land, 
 improveable with less cost. The method of melior- 
 ating it is certainly obvious to the meanest capacity, 
 as it every where, at a greater or less depth, govers 
 
275 
 
 a stiff' marly kind of clay, which I am certain, was it 
 properly mixed with the land, would render it fertile ; 
 and this might be done with little expence, the clay 
 lying, in some places, within half a foot or a foot of 
 the surface : in most places it is found at the depth 
 of three, four, or five feet, consequently not very hard 
 to come at. In East Florida, in the southern parts, 
 this kind of land is very rocky, but especially from 
 the latitude 25° 50', southward to the point, where it 
 is a solid rock, of a kind of lime stone covered with 
 innumerable small, loose, and sharp stones, every 
 where. 
 
 *' In West Florida the pine land is also frequently 
 found rocky, with an iron stone, especially near where 
 the pines are found growing in a gravelly tract, which 
 is frequently the case here. 
 
 " The hammock land, so called from its appearing 
 in tufts among the lofty pines : some small spots of 
 this kind, if seen at a distance, have a very romantic 
 appearance. The large parcels of it often divide 
 swamps, creeks, or rivers from the pine land ; this is 
 indeed its most common situation. The whole of the 
 uplands, remote from the sea in the northern parts, 
 is this kind of land : its soil is various, in some places 
 a sand of divers colours, and in East Florida often a 
 white sand ; but the true hammock soil is a mixture 
 of clay and a blackish sand, and in some spots a kind 
 of ochre. In East Florida some of this is also some- 
 times found rocky ; on every kind of this land lies a 
 stratum of black mould, made by the decayed leaves. 
 
276 
 
 &c. of the wood and other plants gi'owing upon it. 
 The salts contained in this stratum render it very- 
 fruitful, and, when cleared, this is the best, nay, the 
 only fit land, for the production of indigo, potatoes, 
 and pulse : the first crops, by means of the manure 
 above-mentioned, generally are vtfry plentiful ; but 
 the salts being soon evaporated, if the soil over which 
 it lay should prove to be sand, it is not better than 
 pine land ; the other sort bears many years planting : 
 its natural produce is so various in this climate, that 
 the complete description of all would be more work 
 than one man's life-time would be sufficient for. 
 
 *' The savannahs are in this country of two very 
 difierent kinds : the one is to be found in the pine 
 lands, and, notwithstanding the black appearance of 
 the soil, they are as much a white sand as the higher 
 lands round them. True it is that clay is very often 
 much nearer to their surface than in the higher pine 
 lands ; they are a kind of sinks or drains to those 
 higher lands, and their low situation only prevents 
 the growth of pines in them. In wet \veather, the 
 roads leading through them are almost impassable. 
 On account of their producing some species of grass, 
 of a better kind than the wire grass, they are very 
 often styled meadows ; and I believe, if they could 
 be improved by draining them, without taking away 
 all their moisture, very useful grass might be raised 
 in them ; but on draining them completely, they 
 prove to be as arrant a sand as any in this country. 
 These savannahs often have spots in them more low 
 
277 
 
 than common, and filled with water : they are over- 
 grown with different species of the cratccgiis, or haw- 
 thorn, as also very often a species of shrub much 
 resembling the laurus in appearance, but as I never 
 had an opportunity of seeing it in blossom, I cannot 
 describe it, so as to ascertain the genus it belongs to. 
 In its fruit it is widely different from any of the laurel 
 kind, that have fallen under my inspection ; it is a 
 bacca, with several cells, full of an agreeable acid, 
 like the common lime from the West Indies ; it is of 
 the size of a large pigeon's ^%%t but more oblong. 
 We also find it on the low banks of rivers in Georgia, 
 and know it by the name of the Ogeechee lime. 
 
 " The other savannahs differ very widely from 
 these, and are chiefly to be found in West Florida. 
 They consist of a high ground, often with small gen- 
 tle risings in them. Some are of a vast extent, and 
 on the west of Mississippi, they are said to be many 
 days journey over. The largest within my know- 
 ledge is on the road from the Chactaw to the Chicka- 
 saw nation, and is in length near forty miles over, 
 from north to south, and from one end to the other a 
 horizon, similar to that at sea, appears. There is 
 generally a rivulet at one or other, or at each, end of 
 the savannahs, and some come to the river banks : in 
 one or two of them I have seen some very small re.- 
 mains of ancient huts, by which I judge they were 
 formerly inhabited by Indians. The soil here is very 
 fertile ; in some I have seen fossil shells in great 
 numbers, in others flint, in others again some chalk 
 
278 
 
 and marl. It is remarkable, that cattle are very fond 
 of the grasses growing here ; the Chickasaw old field, 
 as it is termed, is a clear demonstration of this, for 
 the cattle will come to it from any distance, even 
 when the grass scarcely appears ; and in all the cir- 
 cumjacent tract are abundance of both winter and 
 summer canes to be found, on which they might more 
 luxuriously feed. In these savannahs, if a well or 
 pond is dug, the water has a very strong nitrous taste. 
 I have seen some very curious plants in this kind of 
 ground, but there was no time for my examining any 
 of them, except a nondescript of the genus tagctes^ 
 of a fine crimson colour. I shall, in some measure, 
 describe and give the figure of this plant. The only 
 high growth I have seen in these savannahs arc some 
 willows and other aquatic plants, by the side of rivu- 
 lets, in or near them : some of the smaller kind of 
 oaks, and a few small junipers^ are also to be seen in 
 those places ; the fragaria^ or strawberry, is very 
 common in them. 
 
 *' Swamps are also found of two kinds, river and 
 inland swamps. Those on the rivers are justly es- 
 teemed the most valuable, and the more so if they are 
 in the tide way, because then the river water may be at 
 pleasure let on or kept out, with much less labour and 
 expence than in the other kinds. These lands are 
 the sources of riches in these provinces, because, 
 where they lie between the sandy pine barrens, they 
 produce that valuable staple rice, and on the Missis- 
 sippi, where much of this river land is situated' a 
 
279 
 
 great deal higher than the common run of it in Caro- 
 Hna and other similar countries, this soil is the best 
 adapted for corn and indigo yet known. Some of 
 these grounds are clay, others sand, and others again 
 partake of both ; when used for rice it matters not 
 which of these soils they are made up of ;, but, I be- 
 lieve, were the sandy ones to be quite drained, they 
 would prove barren enough. The use ofwatet- on rice 
 is more to suppress the growth of noxious weeds a?id 
 grass, which would otherwise stifle the grain, than 
 for promoting the growth of the rice itself; for none 
 of the grasses can stand the water, but rice does, as 
 long as it is not totally immersed. Therefore it is, 
 that after weeding, the planter, if he has it convenient, 
 lets on water to about half the height of his grain. 
 By swamps then, in general, is to be understood any 
 low ground subject to inundations, distinguished from 
 marshes in having a large growth of timber, and much 
 underwood, canes, reeds, wythes, vines, briars, and 
 such like, so matted together, that they are, in a great 
 measure, impenetrable to man or beast. The pro- 
 duce of these swamps, if sandy, is more generally the 
 cypress tree, which is here of three species : two of 
 these grow in this kind of land ; the common sort 
 grows to an enormous size, but none so large as what 
 are seen on or near the banks of the Mississippi ; the 
 other kind, vulgarly miscalled white cedar, is in great 
 quantities near Pensacola, particularly in the swamps 
 of Chester river : this likewise grows to a tree, which 
 may be ranked among those of the first magnitude. 
 
280 
 
 *' The back or inland swamps answer in situation 
 to ^\■hat are called the meadows or savannahs, among 
 the pine lands : their soil being rich, occasions them 
 to bear trees. The true back swamps, that are in 
 wet seasons full of standing water, bear scarcely any 
 other tree, than a variety of that species of nyssa, dis- 
 tinguished by botanists by the name of nyssa foliis 
 latis acuminatis non dectatis fructii aleagni minore^ pe- 
 diaiculis multiflore, vulgarly called bottle arsed tupelo. 
 The continuance of water on this kind of ground is 
 the reason why scarce any undergrowth is found here. 
 There are swamps also called back swamps, but they 
 are cither at the head of some stream, or have more 
 or less water running through them ; these are gene- 
 rally easy to drain. I would have confined my des- 
 cription of back swamps to the first or standing ones, 
 and ranked the last, which I think might properly be 
 done, among the river swamps, but I was apprehen- 
 sive that it might have displeased some person, who 
 entertains the more established opinion. These last 
 described often are found mere cypress swamps ; in 
 that case they are almost impassable, by reason of 
 the cypress spurs, even when dry, and for horses 
 they are extremely dangerous, as they often get 
 staked on those spurs. This vegetable monster I 
 do not remember to have seen mentioned any where. 
 When this kind of swamp is not overgrown with cy- 
 press alone, its product is the same as that of the 
 river swamps above-mentioned, and in that case the 
 
281 
 
 soil is certainly good; these last, when properly 
 drained, are the best land for the cultivation of hemp. 
 " The marshes are next to be considered. They 
 are of four kinds, two in the salt, and two in the fresh 
 water. They are either soft or hard ; the soft marshes, 
 consisting of a very wet clay or mud, are as yet of no 
 use, without a very great expence to drain them ; the 
 hard ones are made up of a kind of marly clay, which 
 in dry seasons is almost burned up. True it is, they 
 afford a pasture sufficient to keep any graminiverous 
 animals in good order; but their milk and flesh, 
 in seasons when the cattle near the sea side can- 
 not find any other food, 'and conseqeuntly feed on 
 this alone, have so horrible a taste, that no stranger 
 to the country can make use of them. Hard marshes, 
 in general, are such whose soil has too much solidity 
 for water to disunite its particles, by penetrating 
 them ; the soft marshes are those whose spungy nature 
 allows the water easily to penetrate them. I have 
 seen of both kinds on Turtle river, about twenty 
 miles up, in which, at about eight or ten feet below 
 the surface, there are numbers of cypress and other 
 stumps remaining, but chiefly cypress, and many of 
 the fallen trees crossing each other : this is only to 
 be seen at low water, and to the height above-named. 
 These trees are covered with a rich, nitrous, muddy 
 soil ; but I beg leave to expect, that better naturalists 
 may explain this extraordinary appearance : I be- 
 
 2 N 
 
282 
 
 lieve them ruins of ancient forests, on which the sea 
 has encroached*^. 
 
 " The marshes on fresh water are in every respect 
 similar to those on the salt, except that they are not 
 impregnated with the saline particles, of which the 
 first are very replete ; therefore the hard ones, with 
 little trouble, are adapted to cultivation ; the soft 
 ones cost a considerable deal more of expence, to 
 render them fit to answer this purpose, but when so 
 drained as to answer this end, they certainly are by 
 no means inferior to any land in this country. In the 
 lower part of these marshes grows a kind of hitherto 
 undescribed grain^ of which the western Indians make 
 a great use for bread. I never could see it in blos- 
 som, therefore cannot describe it. It is known by 
 the name of imld oats. 
 
 " This kind of land produces rice very willingly, 
 but, if sufficiently made dry, always proves the best 
 for corn, indigo, and hemp. I have seen at Mr. 
 Brewington's plantation, about three miles below Sa- 
 vannah, in Georgia, very good corn and rice together, 
 with the two kinds of melons, and cucumbers in 
 great perfection, on this species of soil. 
 
 " I shall next describe the bay and cypress galls. 
 These intersect the pine lands, and are seldom of any 
 breadth ; the bay galls are properly water courses, 
 
 " * The whole appearance of this river seems (o indicate such 
 an ancient and unrecorded hurricane, on this part of the coast. 
 
283 
 
 covered with a spungy earth mixed with a kind of 
 matted vegetable fibres. They are so very unstable 
 as to shake for a great extent round a person, who, 
 standing on some part thereof, moves himself slightly 
 up and down ; they often prove fatal to cattle ; and 
 sometimes I have been detained for above an hour at 
 the narrowest passes of them, they being so danger- 
 ous to cross, that frequently a horse plunges in, so as 
 to leave only his head in sight. Their natural pro- 
 duce is a stately tree, called loblolly bay*, and many 
 different vines, briars, thorny withs, and on their 
 edges a species of red or summer cane, which toge- 
 ther combine to make this ground impenetrable, as 
 if nature had thus intended to prevent the destruction 
 of cattle in these dismal bogs, which would be parti- 
 cularly fatal to many of them in spring, when the 
 early produce of grass and green leaves in these galls 
 might entice them into this danger, was not such a 
 natural obstacle in their way. As these have gene- 
 rally vent, they are sometimes drained, and rice 
 planted therein, which, for one or two years, thrives 
 there tolerably ; but this ground is so replete with 
 vitriolic principles, that the water standing in them is 
 impregnated with acid, insomuch that I have tasted 
 it sour enough to have persuaded a person, unac- 
 quainted with this circumstance, that it was an equal 
 portion of vinegar and water mixed together, there- 
 fore it requires to lie open at least one year before it 
 
 " * JJij/!crium, .?(•« Goyd'juid La.lantlius. 
 
284 
 
 A\ ill bear any thing, and they generally, by lying open 
 four or live years without any other draining, become 
 quite dry, and might be advantageously used for pas- 
 ture ground. 
 
 " The cypress galls differ from these, in being a firm 
 sandy soil, in having no vitriolic taste in the water, 
 and very seldom vent. I never knew these made use 
 of for the purpose of planting, and the cypress they 
 produce is a dwarf kind, not fit for use, being very 
 much twisted and often hollow. There is no under- 
 growth here, but in dry seasons some tolerable grass. 
 Through all the above species of land we find a distri- 
 bution of very fine clay, fit for manufacturing. The 
 finest I ever saw is at the village on Mobile Bay, 
 where I have seen the inhabitants, in imitation of the 
 savages, have several rough made vessels thereof. — 
 There is also a great variety of nitrous and bitumi- 
 nous earths, fossils, marls, boles, magnetic and other , 
 iron ore, lead, coal, chalk, slate, freestone, chrystals, 
 and white topazes : these last in the beds of rivers. 
 Ambergris is sometimes found ; one Stirrup a few 
 years ago found a piece of a very enormous size on one 
 of the keys. There is also much of a natural pitch, or 
 asphalthus^ vulgarly called mung'iac^ thrown up by the 
 sea. The uplands also aftbrd a metallic substance, 
 appearing like musket bullets, which, on being 
 thrown into the fire, go off in smoke with a very sul- 
 phureous stench. 
 
 " The water in this country is very various as to 
 taste, quality, and use. There are salt, brackish, ni 
 
 i 
 
285 
 
 trous, sulphureous, and good fresh springs in most 
 parts of this country, as well as salt and fresh lakes, 
 lagoons, and rivers. The rivers also vary in many 
 respects, and so does the sea, as well in the colour 
 and clearness of the water, as in its degree of saltness. 
 The water of St. Mary's and Nassau, and all the 
 brooks that run into them, is very good, wholesome, 
 and well tasted. The colour in the rivers is dark, as 
 in all the American rivers of the southern district. 
 St. John's is a curiosity among rivers indeed ; this 
 rises at a small distance from the lagoon called In- 
 dian river, somewhere in or near the latitude of 27°, 
 perhaps out of the lake Mayacco, which I have rea- 
 son to believe really exists, and is the head of the 
 river St. Lucia, a^ I am told by a credible Spanish 
 hunter, who had been carried there by way of this 
 last river. From its origin it runs through wide 
 extended plains and marshes, till near the latitude 
 28°, where it approaches the lagoon much. It then 
 continues its course with a considerable current 
 northward, and glides through five great lakes, of 
 which the last, called Lake George, is by much the 
 m.ost considerable. In this last lake is about eight 
 feet "^vater ; it is twenty miles long, and about eleven 
 or twelve wide. All these lakes and the river in ge- 
 neral is very pleasant. Endless orange groves are 
 found here, and indeed on every part of the river; 
 below these the river grows wider, loses its current, 
 and has in some places none, in others a retrogade 
 one, when yet lower down it is again in its true di- 
 
286 
 
 rection. The banks of this river are very poor land, 
 and exhibit, in a number of places, sad monuments 
 of the folly and extravagant ideas of the first Euro- 
 pean adventurers and sv?hcmers, and the villany of 
 their managers. The tide does not affect this river 
 very far up. In many places, high up this river, are 
 found some extraordinary springs, which, at a small 
 distance from the river, on botli sides, rush or boil 
 out of the earth, at once becoming navigable for 
 boats, and from twenty-five to forty yards wide : their 
 course is seldom half a mile before they meet the 
 river. Their water is, contrary to that of the river, 
 clear, so as to admit of seeing a small piece of money 
 at the depth of ten feet or more ; they smell strong 
 of sulphur, and whatever is thrown in them becomes 
 soon encrusted with a white fungous matter ; their 
 taste is bituminous, very disagreeable, and they, in 
 my opinion, cause the green cloudings we see on the 
 surface of the water of this river, and make it putrid, 
 and so unwholesome as experience has taught us it is. 
 '• I have no sufficient ground to decide upon an- 
 other circumstance, which I am told, viz. that when 
 rice is overflown m ith this river water, it kills it : 
 above these springs the water of the river is good. 
 This river is from one and a half to three miles Avide, 
 except at the house of Mr. Rolle, who has here made 
 an odd attempt towards settling and making an estate 
 in as complete a sandy desart as can be found. Just 
 above this, it is full of islands, exhibiting every where 
 a very romantic appearance. There is a fine piece of 
 
287 
 
 water, called Dun's Lake ; this is about nine miles 
 from the river, eastward from this place ; this empties 
 itself by a stream into the river. Another, called the 
 Doctor's Lake, is on the west side, about sixty miles 
 from the mouth : we see a variety of aquatic plants 
 floating thereon. 
 
 " In my journey by land from the Bay of Tampe 
 across the peninsula to St. Augustine, I crossed 
 twenty-three m.iles from east to west of miserable 
 barren sand hills : the grain of the sand, is very small 
 and ferrugineous. These hills rise a considerable 
 height ; on them is some growth of very small pines, 
 and a very humble kind of oak grows so thick, that 
 with the addition of some wythes and other plants, 
 to me utterly unknown, they render it absolutely im- 
 penetrable. In this ridge, which, as far as I can 
 learn, extends from north to south, between the rivers 
 St. John and Ocklaiv-ivawbaw, for about a hundred 
 and fifty miles, having no where any water in its whole 
 extent ; and, I am told, that v/here we crossed it is its 
 narrowest place ^' my Indian guide had the precau- 
 tion to carry water for ourselves and horses, which 
 proved very serviceable, as it was a very hot day, no 
 growth of trees to shade us, and such a burning sand 
 for the sun to reflect oi^. I leave the reader to judge 
 what we suffered, though it was but a short distance 
 over ; both ourselves and beasts often experienced 
 the necessity of carrying water. What must travel- 
 ling over this place be in a hot day, where it is forty 
 or more miles wide ? 
 
288 
 
 *' Before I leave St. John's ri\er, I must not for- 
 get the river running from south to north, called 
 Pablo. This originates at a small distance from St. 
 Mark's or North River, and empties into St. John's, 
 at a small distance from the mouth. The water of 
 this river is good, so is the land on it ; and it is 
 thought that a communication with St. Mark's or 
 the North River might be effected without much dif- 
 ficulty ; this would open an inland navigation by ca- 
 noes or boats, all the way from Carolina to near the 
 Mosketo. 
 
 " The river St. Mary, although it is said to origi- 
 nate in the Ekanphanakin swamp, has a current of 
 fine, clear, and wholesome water, supplied from the 
 pine lands through which it flows, with many fine 
 springs, runs, and rivulets of very clear water. Nas- 
 sau has also the same blessings, but doth not spring 
 far distant from the sea. On Amelia Island, near 
 the sea, is a very good spring, which makes a fine 
 stream for some miles, dividing the island almost into 
 two ; but below the spring its water is not commend- 
 able. On the beach between St. John's and St. 
 Augustine, at or near a place called the Horsegu^rds, 
 there are three good springs running into the sea, 
 and in cuery part 'where the beach is clear sand, water 
 is obtained by digging. About four miles north of 
 St. Augustine, rises St. Sebastian's creek, being a 
 good fresh spring ; it soon joins a creek in salt 
 marshes, and at a small distance from town it becomes 
 very large and deep. It empties into St. Anastasia's 
 
289 
 
 Sound, two miles south of St. Augustine, making a 
 peninsula of this territory nearly in form of a cres- 
 cent. Three miles farther south is the mouth of the 
 river St. Nicholas, not very considerable ; St. Cecilia 
 in the same sound ; the North-west, south of the 
 Matanca and Penon ; the Tomoke and Spruce creek, 
 in the Musketo Lagoon, and in short every river and 
 creek in the country, except those above-named, are 
 excellent wholesome water. Thus much, I suppose, 
 will suffice as to the nature and quality of the water. 
 All the rivers aud springs in West Florida are good." 
 
 The author has given us the characteristic portraits 
 of a Chactaw, Chickasaw, and Creek man, andj 
 though coarsely executed, the physiognomy is well 
 preserved. The whole book, indeed, is a valuable 
 and interesting account of the manners of the Florida 
 savages, and the face and products of their country. 
 He treats with judgment on the diseases of the coun- 
 try, and points out the errors and exaggerations of 
 Dr. Lind. He does not deny the excessive damps 
 of the climate of St. John's and St. Augustine, but 
 he maintains that St. Augustine is very healthy, be- 
 cause it has not the marshes of St. John's. 
 
 Sudden and violent changes of temperature, with 
 heavy dews, are frequent at St. John's, Nassau, Mo- 
 bile, and Campbeltown j but at Pensacola and the 
 country east of it, at New Orleans and on the Mis- 
 sissippi, they were not complained of. These incon- 
 veniences, however, are much greater in Georgia, 
 ' and greater still in Carolina. People guard against 
 
 2 o 
 
290 
 
 them by kindling an evening fire, and by putting on 
 lianncl. There are no brackish swamps, except at 
 St. Jolin's, whereas they arc common in Georgia and 
 tjie Carolinas, and the air is loaded with their mos- 
 quitoes and noisome exhalations. 
 
 Flie6 and mosquitoes abound only in the planta- 
 tions of rice and indigo. As cultivation advances 
 they retire. The shores of the Mississippi are in- 
 fested with these venomous insects, to a degree 
 scarcely credible, nor is there any living, but under 
 the protection of mosquitoe nets*. 
 
 Our author is correct in dissuadino; all adventurers 
 from comin^: hither, who are luxurious and intern- 
 perate, who are of a full habit or plethoric constitu- 
 tion, unless they can resolve to submit to a thorough 
 change of regimen. Fevers prevail in July, August, 
 and September, and half of October, that is', imme- 
 diately ensuing the heavy sultry rains. They are 
 more obstinate in the low wet lands, where rice and 
 indigo are cultivated. 
 
 " Fevers are the first of the summer diseases. The 
 ancients have ages ago made an observation, that the 
 season of the reign of this terrible disorder was al- 
 ways preceded by an atmosphere laden with great 
 heats and much rain, for some time ; the modern 
 writers seem to me to be generally of the same opi- 
 
 * At nijjht, and in the houses or woods, for half the year, this 
 plar^uc prevails, and tlic very negroes are obliged to screen them- 
 selves behind a cuilain or net. — Trans. 
 
291 
 
 nion. This Is exactly the case in all the southern 
 I .provinces, for fevers begin to take place, in some 
 districts more, in some less, about the latter end of 
 July and in August, and continue throughout Septem- 
 ber and part of October : just the season immediately 
 succeeding our greatest rains and most violent heats. 
 Here 1 w ill notice a remark* which I have read long 
 
 !aao, and I find it confamed in all climates, " That 
 the middle of the third month was observed to be the 
 y period of the greatest rage of epidemical disorders." 
 Those districts which lie near to low rice fields, par- 
 ticularly in back swamps, and to such indigo works, 
 where the planter is obliged to make reservoirs of 
 water, are most liable to these disorders, after and 
 during the latter part of an excessive drought ; be- 
 cause in those neighbourhoods the air is at such 
 times most prodigiously laden with corrupt moist 
 effluvia. For this same reason, cool rainy summers 
 will make those places more healthy than dryer spots, 
 because, during such a season, all the above-men- 
 tioned noxious exhalations do not take place in so 
 great a degree, and the air is kept cool by the fre- 
 quency of the showers. However, such situations 
 will never be so common in the Floridas as in Caro- 
 lina or Georgia, the quantity of good, wholesome, 
 fresh, running water being infinitely greater, and con- 
 
 " * Enquiry concerniiT;!; the Cause of tlie Pestilenccj and the 
 Diseases in Fleets ond Armies, London, 1759. 
 
292 
 
 scquently little necessity of making stagnating ponds 
 or dams. 
 
 " It must be allowed, that all fevers, however dis- 
 similar in appearance, proceed from the same origin : 
 Nature only works with more or less violence to rid 
 herself of what is detrimental to her. 
 
 " The ephemera, or day fever, occasioned by a 
 mere increase of the velocity of the blood, by means 
 of a fit of drunkenness or debauch, or originating 
 from violent exercise during the heat of the day, is 
 too frequently seen here ; but as it is seldom of a 
 longer continuance than eighteen or twenty hours, it 
 has not often dangerous consequences, and may be 
 avoided by every person. I shall content myself with 
 barely observing, that some cooling acidulated liquid 
 aliments will soon abate its violence ; bleeding may 
 likewise be of use to restrain its force. 
 
 " The continual fever, or inflammatory fever, is 
 sometimes though rarely experienced in this climate, 
 but seldom attended by those dreadful symptoms and 
 fatality, which accompany the same kind of fever, 
 though of a more violent class, in the countries imme- 
 diately between the tropics. This, in its common 
 form, lasts about ten or twelve days, beginning to 
 abate its violence, in general, after the seventh : the 
 fourth or fifth is often fatal. 
 
 " I am persuaded, that whenever the yellow fever 
 has made its appearance in the Floridas, it was im- 
 ported from Jamaica or Havannah, as was the case in 
 
293 
 
 1765, which, by the way, was almost universally an 
 unhealthy esra^ as well in Europe as elsewhere. 
 
 " This continual fever begins with an excessive 
 heat of the whole body, continued though not violent 
 head-ache, great drought of the tongue and palate, 
 and consequently a continual desire to drink. Those 
 people who die of this disorder generally depart on 
 the fourth day, and I am of opinion that few are car- 
 ried off by it, except such as are kept too close con- 
 fined from the fresh air. I would recommend the 
 keeping the sun out of the room, but to admit as 
 much air as will gently ventilate it ; a cooling diet, 
 such as rice gruel, barley water, infusions of balm 
 or sage, and lemonade, which is lime juice, water, 
 and very little sugar; lime juice, syrup of lemons, 
 and currant jelly should moderately enter into every 
 part of the patient's diet ; avoid all salt, spices, spi- 
 rituous liquors, or generous wines : a gentle purge 
 of glauber salt, with a few grains of kermes mineral y 
 and some drops of oil of mint, is generally given on 
 the first appearance of the disease ; the effects of this 
 are forwarded by frequent draughts of warm chicken 
 broth. During the operation of this avoid all acids : 
 bleeding, especially if the disease makes a violent 
 attack, and the patient is of a plethoric habit, is indis- 
 pensably necessary ; the patient ought, by all means, 
 to avoid motion, and, notwithstanding the above cau- 
 tion of admitting air in the room, keep himself 
 covered, and be careful not to throw his bed-clothes 
 aside. If the symptoms abate after the above mix- 
 
294 
 
 ture, emetics are commonly prescribed : if it still 
 continues, particularly if attended with delirium, le- 
 thargic symptoms, or their reverse, blisters are ap- 
 plied, and in great watchfulness some laudanum is 
 used : if worms are suspected, an infusion of Indian 
 pink root*, a very common plant here, leaves, wood, 
 and all, is made use of as tea ; but this plant pos- 
 sessing a pretty strong narcotic quality, ought to be 
 used with caution. In excessive heats, some grains 
 of sal nitri are added to the liquors administered to 
 the patient ; and as soon as the fever begins to abate, 
 some orange, lime, or lemon juice, saturated with 
 salt of wormwood, is given by a small tea-cup full 
 every two hours. 
 
 " Intermittents are endemial in all low situations. 
 Thus we see, in all the provinces to the southward, 
 particular places remarkable for a continuance of this 
 disorder in them ; such as, more especially, Jackson- 
 burg, in South Carolina, Savannah, in Georgia, 
 Rolles-town, and most of the settlements on St. 
 John's, in East Florida, at Campbeltown, near the 
 mouth of the Escambe, and at Mobile, in West Flo- 
 rida. This disease attacks people much in the same 
 form as the continued fever, the first fit frequently 
 lasting three days without intermission. Physicians 
 treat it nearly in the same manner as the last, but I 
 have observed that they are very averse to taking 
 blood from a patient afflicted with this disorder, say- 
 
 " * Loniccera. 
 
295 
 
 ing, that bleeding is a sure way to prolong the disease, 
 although sometimes a small matter of blood is taken 
 from people of a very gross habit of body, when the 
 returning fits seem to continue longer in point of 
 time than at the first. The same diet is observ- 
 ed as in the continued fever, except when the pa- 
 tient is very weak, when strong broths, well sepa- 
 rated from the fat, are frequently given ; if delirious, 
 or comatose symptoms, with pains in the back, &c. 
 make their appearance, cooling medicines are used, 
 during the paroxysms. Dr. James' powder or other 
 antimonials ; and, on intermission, the bark in copi- 
 ous doses is administered with effect, and in obsti- 
 nate head-aches recourse is had to blisters. 
 
 *' This is a very tedious disease, and whoever is 
 afiected with it should not too soon judge himself 
 cured, but continue taking a bitter infusion, com- 
 posed of the bark of" the root of the magnolia major, 
 which the French on the Mississippi substitute in 
 lieu of Jesuit's bark, with Virginia heart, snake-root, 
 rue, sal absynth ; and pink root, in good Madeira or 
 Lisbon wine. 
 
 " People in general, suppose them even obliged to 
 remainon the sickly spot during the fatal season, which 
 is autumn, may, by care, in a great measure shun 
 this tedious illness, such as living on a more gene- 
 rous diet, especially animal food high seasoned, and 
 a moderate glass of wine, avoiding a too great expo- 
 sure to the then frequent sudden changes of air. 
 They ought to use the cold bath often, wear garlic 
 
29G 
 
 and camphire in the pockets, not expose themselves 
 to rain, and above all keep warm and dry feet, and if 
 got wet by rain not to change their clothes too sud- 
 denly ; never go out of a morning fasting, but before 
 you go to work, business, Sec. eat a piece of bread, 
 and drink a glass of the bitter infusion ; avoid the 
 night air, and keep some fire in the house, particu- 
 larly in the mornings and evenings, to rarify the damp 
 air in the rooms, especially in the bed-rooms, which 
 ought never to be on a lower floor, and should be in 
 the eastern parts of the building, exposed to the 
 morning sun. By observing these rules, the consti- 
 tution of the human body will be less disposed to 
 receive the impressions of a bad air. 
 
 " An excellent thing to be given the negroes on 
 a plantation, before they go to work, is a wine glass 
 full of the above bitter ingredients, and garlic infused 
 in rum, and they should be encouraged to chew and 
 smoke tobacco. 
 
 " When a person is seized with a fit of the ague, 
 he ought by no means to delay going to bed, and 
 drink a draught of lime juice and powder of chalk, 
 while it is fermenting in the glass : this will bring on 
 a sweat, and shorten the fit ; or, in the hot fit, use 
 some opiate, if the patient is not delirious : this ought 
 to be done as often as the paroxysms return. 
 
 '■- The nervous fever, likewise called the slow fe- 
 ver, is known by a small, quick, and low pulse, and 
 by not afiecting the patient with such violent heats as 
 the other fevers, but with greater oppression about 
 
297 
 
 the pr^ecordiinn; it does not make them so thirsty ; 
 the tongue is at first unusually moist, and looks white, 
 though at last it becomes dry, and looks brown or 
 inflamed ; continual heats; are felt in the palms of 
 the hands, heats and chills return alternately very 
 quick, a copious clammy weakening sweat, excessive 
 lowness of spirits, restlessness, being diowsy without 
 power of sleeping, pain and giddiness of the head, 
 ringing in the ears, and, if it lasts long, the tendons 
 are often affecfed viith a sort of cramp ; deafness, de- 
 liriums, continual lethargic fits; insensibility and 
 slupor are ihe constant attendants of this disorder, 
 when in iis last stages. 
 
 *' This is a most treacherous disorder; and by 
 afftcting the su^erer with only slight symptoms of 
 wcciriness and weakness, attended with frequent yawn- 
 ings iuid stretchings, a slight giddiness and loss of 
 appetite, and a great heat in the forehead, makes 
 people neglect an early application to the physician, 
 and thus they endanger themselves much, though in 
 people of a robust constitution, who are much ex- 
 posed to the sun, it will often appear for the first day 
 or two with violent symptoms. This fever will last 
 sometimes for twenty days or more, without any ap- 
 parent abatement. It generally attacks people who 
 have been exposed to unusual fatigue, or such as are 
 naturally of a weak constitution. Vomits are the 
 remedy to which recourse is most usually had in this 
 disorder. 
 
 2 p 
 
298 
 
 *' Physicians steadily and almost totally avoid 
 bleeding and purging, till after a free use of the ipe- 
 cacuana^ and even then their cathartic prescriptions 
 are rarely any other than manna and salts, and after 
 the gentle purges obtained by this method, they order 
 a free use of rich chicken broth, and the above-des- 
 cribed juice of lemons, saturated with sal absynth : 
 this they generally continue until the disease changes 
 into an intermittent fever, and then treat it in the 
 manner last-mentioned, frequently also applying blis- 
 ters. 
 
 " This fever, more particularly than any other 
 disorder, bears hardest on the patient towards sunset. 
 The diet commonly prescribed is sago, chicken broth, 
 and panado, with some small matter of wine and loaf 
 sugar in the first and last. Infusions of sage and 
 balm, together with wine whey, are the drink mostly 
 thought proper, during the continuance of this disor- 
 der. 
 
 *' The use of bark is generally blamed, as produc- 
 tive of dropsy, jaundice, the ague-cake*, and other 
 inveterate chronical disorders, but it is certain that 
 the bark is blameless ; it is the fault of the physi- 
 cians, who too late and with too much caution use 
 this blessed remedy, which seems as purposely de- 
 signed by Providence to relieve us in those tedious 
 
 " * A hardness in the region of the spleen, one of the conse- 
 quences of long continued fevers, and by the Dutch Creoles dis- 
 tinguished by this name. They call it, in their own language, 
 koek hi dc buijcky or simply dc kock. 
 
299 
 
 disorders ; or it is that of the patient himself, who, pre- 
 judiced against this excellent remedy, refuses to take 
 it till it is too late, and thereby brings upon himself 
 the above diseases, which are consequences of the fe- 
 vers, not of this great specific. 
 
 " The above-mentioned fevers, and unusual hard- 
 ships in travelling, &c. as well as excesses at plenti- 
 ful tables full of variety, often bring on a severe 
 bloody flux, especially in autumn, and if this makes 
 its appearance with hard, dry, and bloody stools, the 
 disease is dangerous. Brisk purges, and clysters of 
 Castile soap, and some of the hot seeds are used to 
 expel these ; when the desired end is obtained, gen- 
 tle emetics are called in. I have known people find 
 great relief from a decoction of logwood and pome- 
 granate skins ; others again it would not help in the 
 least ; a new honey-comb, inclosed in an apple 
 scooped out, and then roasted before the fire, has 
 often proved a speedy and very effectual remedy ; 
 calcined hartshorn, a nauseous medicine, is nonsense; 
 bark of sumach is a good medicine, but there being a 
 dangerous kind, it ought to be gathered by a skilful 
 hand ; the bark of the I'lqu'idamhar styraciflua, aceris 
 folio, together with the gum exuding from the same 
 tree, is generally found efficacious ; a wine glass full 
 of the juice of lemons, mixed with some common 
 salt, has often proved a most excellent, safe, and ge- 
 neral specific ; the frequent chewing of cinnamon 
 and camomile flowers, especially when a weak sto- 
 mach vexes the patient, has a noble effect ; avoid all 
 
300 
 
 vegetable food, except rice ; eat roasted rather than 
 boiled flesh ; salted beef need not to be avoided ; use 
 often veal, jellies, and salop ; use a great deal of 
 mustard ; I know by the experience of many, as well 
 as my own, that Dr. Barry's observation of vegetables 
 not being so easily assimilated as animal food, is in 
 the strictest sense universally true ; and in an obsti- 
 nate continuance of this disorder, vegetables, even 
 our common wheaten bread, are not at all digested, 
 but most generally pass through the body unaltered. 
 When this disease changes into a chronic habitual 
 flux, it will be necessary to use pills of equal parts of 
 rhubarb and ipecacuana^ mixed with some liquid 
 opiate, and use weak lime water for common drink. 
 If this docs not prove a specific, let the patient be 
 removed to some other clime, for no remedy will 
 aflfect that disorder in the same climate where it was 
 originally contracted. Claret or port ought to be 
 their constant drink in this disease, and spirituous 
 liquors ought by all means to be avoided : rum, a 
 cursed bane of health and of society, is too often and 
 indiscriminately applied to every disease, as a uni- 
 versal arcanum. 
 
 " The cholera morbus is likewise a consequence of 
 intemperate meals, and when it is not occasioned by 
 any food peculiarly repugnant to the stomach, it often 
 proves fatal. 
 
 " Debauch of every kind, particularly unseason- 
 able sitting up, is most frequently productive of some 
 
301 
 
 of the most dreadful disorders, and excessive passions 
 of ihe mind sometimes produce the same effects, 
 
 " Excess in venery is generally productive of the 
 most violent and obstinate disorders, principally in- 
 flammatory fevers and obstinate fluxes. 
 
 " There is a disease which the French call la tyta- 
 nose, which aftects people in the w^estern parts of 
 Florida, and will attack them with prodigious vio- 
 lence upon being wounded, even in the slightest man- 
 ner : if, during the hot months, a splinter be run into 
 the flesh, the patients are attacked with violent con- 
 torsive spasms, and generally die in about eighteen 
 or twenty hours. 
 
 " I never saw any person afflicted with this dread- 
 ful disorder, but from the similarity of the name with 
 the Latin teta?ius, and from my being told that opium 
 and camphire are much used to procure relief, I take 
 it to be the locked jav/, with which I saw a young 
 man die at Mobile. Mr. Lind* recommends copious 
 external applications of opium, and the cold bath, 
 and gives some imperfect account of mercurial oint- 
 ment having lately proved an efficacious remedy : the 
 hint was perhaps necessary to be inserted here. 
 
 " Angina siiffocatha, or the putrid sore throat, 
 sometimes appears here. This is a contagious dis- 
 temper, and rages in America mostly among the 
 youth. It generally begins with a slow fever, at- 
 tended with great lassitude and a low pulse. This is 
 
 " * Hot Climatesj second edition, page 285 — 286. 
 
302 
 
 succeeded by a sore throat, with white spots iiear the 
 iiijiila; and if it be not immediately taken notice of, 
 the patient soon becomes past hopes, and generally 
 dies within twenty-four hours after the first severe 
 attack of the fever. The physicians in Carolina and 
 Georgia prescribe first mercurial purges, and order a 
 gargle of borax, dragon's blood, and Armenian bole, 
 in vinegar and honey ; and the throat is anointed fre- 
 quently, by help of a feather, with a mixture of bal- 
 sam of sulphur, tincture of myrrh, honey, loaf sugar, 
 and yolk of eggs. The principal part of the cure is 
 to attend the disease early, the least neglect being 
 dangerous. 
 
 " The dry belly-ache is a very painful and tor- 
 menting disorder, though rarely fatal. It is occa- 
 sioned by cold damp lodgings, and being exposed to 
 the night air, but most frequently, in all climates, by 
 an excessive use of the vegetable acid juices, which 
 are all extremely astringent in their nature : and 
 when this disorder proceeds from too liberal a use of 
 punch, rheumatic pains and paralytic affections of the 
 nerves are its constant consequences and attendants, 
 with loss of the proper use of limbs, often for life. 
 The most usual symptoms are the vomiting of bile, 
 with the most obstinate costive habit imaginable ; and 
 when stools are procured, the excrements are exces- 
 s.ve hard, and in round balls like horse dung: all 
 this is attended with the most excruciating pain in 
 the bowels, and a clammy sweat. The method of 
 cure is by administering emetics of the antimonial 
 
303 
 
 kind, which often also procure a stool : this is the 
 only thing that can relieve the poor sufferers ; the 
 warm steam of hot herb baths, clysters of the tinct. 
 Thebaic, in luke-warm milk, and emollient plasters, 
 in which opium enters, applied to the stomach and 
 belly ; bitter purging salts and manna, and infusions 
 of senna leaves, after the middle vein is stript out of 
 them ; in the severe attacks of the pain, opiates are 
 used, and too often that cursed arcanum of the vul- 
 gar among the English, I mean rum and other dis- 
 tilled spirits, which In this disorder too often prove 
 fatal poisons ; the oil oi pahiKS Cbrista;^ by three or 
 four spoonfuls, has sometimes proved effectual ; oil 
 of almonds and of olives have been given with suc- 
 cess. 
 
 " After all medicines had failed, I once applied to 
 a mulato woman, who was a noted empiric in the 
 island of Curacoa, where I was attacked by this dis- 
 temper. She ordered a clyster of sweet milk, tobacco, 
 and brown sugar, which gave some slight relief, but 
 after a while the painful symptoms of the disease 
 seemed to be as excruciating as ever ; she then ga- 
 thered some handfuls of the leaves of a shrub which 
 is there called imld carpal; these she boiled like 
 spinnage, and made them into seven or eight balls of 
 the size of walnuts, put them in a plate, and poured 
 oil olive on them, and a little pepper ; this kind of 
 sallad she made me eat with a piece of bread, when I 
 observed to her, that she ought to have added vine- 
 gar to have made a perfect sallad. She answered, 
 
304 
 
 that vinegar in my case was poison. In half an hour 
 after the use of this mess, a st^ool, tlie first in twenty- 
 three days, was procured, ^\hich was followed by 
 I five or six more that very afternooon ; and she then 
 gave me for some days an intensely bitter mixture, in 
 which I perceived the juice of aloes predominant, but 
 could not learn the composition. This kept me in a 
 lax habit of body, and in about fourteen days I v.as 
 enabled to pursue my ordinary avocations. Cam- 
 phire and opium enter into all the purgative pre- 
 scriptions I have seen ordered in this disease, by the 
 physicians of the south. 
 
 " There is an instantaneous fatal disorder, which 
 the French call //// coup cle soldi, i. e. literally, a stroke 
 of the sun. Of this I remember one instance, during 
 my stay in West Florida, when it killed a child of 
 about twelve years eld on the spot, between the hours 
 of eleven and twelve in the forenoon, the time, as I 
 am informed, in which it always takes place. By 
 instantly applying cold water to the crown of the 
 head, 1 am told, its fatality is prevented ; likewise by 
 cupping the crown of the h ad. What its symptoms 
 are I have not seen, but, by the descriptions, I take it 
 to be a fever, which so violently attacks the patient, 
 that it causes instant death. This disorder occurs 
 \cry seldom, and as it is so very easily guarded 
 against, persons who are attacked by it are in a great 
 measure blameable for their own misforiune, particu- 
 larly if they know the country. The French, one 
 and all, put a single piece of clean writing paper be- 
 
505 
 
 tvveen their hat and head, during the hot months, to 
 ward off the attacks of the coup de sole'il. 
 
 " These are the diseases which occur during the 
 hot seasons. There is likewise a fever, in which the 
 patient is continually affected with defluxions of the 
 head. This appears in the late winter months, and 
 during a wet spring : it is called a catarrhal fever. 
 This disease is not frequent, but when it appears, it 
 is generally treated like other fevers, except that 
 bleeding is more freely used. 
 
 " The pleurisy also makes its appearance some- 
 times in winter. Moderate or copious bleedings from 
 the arm-, according to the degrees of violence of its 
 attacks, are immediately used: if looseness and gripes 
 attend the pain, blood is taken away often, and in 
 small quantities ; the patient is kept moderately 
 warm, and on no account suffered to uncover ; the 
 first medicine is commonly a cooling purge ; gentle 
 sudorifics are likewise administered ; frequent hot 
 baths for the feet are also prescribed, be t very cau- 
 tiously applied, for fear of his catching cold. After 
 the operation of purges and sudorifics, gentle antimo- 
 nials are used, and a light easy digested diet, with 
 infusions of hyssop, sage, or balm, follow in course ; 
 likewise swallowing of living wood-lice ; and in case 
 of costive symptoms, clysters are used ; on the con- 
 tinuance of the pain in the side, a moderate blister or 
 drawing plaster is put to the part ; much coughing, 
 which causes a watchfulness, is removed by opiates ; 
 in feverish symptoms, the disease is treated as the 
 
 2q, 
 
506 
 
 other fevers ; spirituous liquors are to be avoided by- 
 all means. 
 
 '* During some winters, \x pcripneumo7iy also visits 
 a few people here : the method of cure is tlie same 
 as for the pleurisy. It is said to be more dangerous 
 than the pleurisy, particularly if copious bleeding is 
 not made use of as soon as the patient is affected. In 
 this disorder there is generally a freer access of air 
 allowed than in the last, and the patient kept almost 
 in a sitting posture. It is said that the steams of 
 warm water drawn into the lungs in this disease is a 
 powerful help. 
 
 " A compound of the two last disorders, called 
 xXvt pleuro-peripneumonyy is likewise sometimes heard 
 of, and is treated as the last. 
 
 " In Georgia I saw one or two instances of a disor- 
 der among blacks, to which the people give the odd 
 name of the pleurisy of the temple, of the f(5rehead, 
 of the eye, and so on : I am told they have a pleurisy 
 for every '^ irt of the head. It is violently acute, and, 
 as I am informed, proves sometimes fatal in ten or 
 twelve hours time, if, immediately on its attack, a 
 quantity of blood is not drawn from the arm. For 
 the rest, this disease is treated like a pleurisy. 
 
 " The chronic diseases are dropsies, consump- 
 tions, hemorrhoidal and habitual fluxes, relaxed and 
 bilious habits of body, ruptures, worm-fevers, and, 
 among blacks, the leprosy, elephantiasis, and body 
 yaws : vihich last in Carolina is called the lame dis- 
 temper. The first five of these are often best re- 
 
307 
 
 moved by a change of air, as the most efficacious 
 medicines often prove of no use against the ol^stinacy 
 of the disorders, in the climate where they first ori- 
 ginated. 
 
 " The dropsy most frequently seizes a patient after 
 an obstinate intermitting fever, where the use of the 
 bark has been too long delayed. In this disorder 
 the ordinary prescriptions in these countries is syrup 
 of squills, and the common diuretic salt ; with these 
 the patient is confined to dry food, and from spiritu- 
 ous liquors ; such vegetables as turnips, radishes, 
 &c. he is allowed to indulge in. Dr. Lind says, that 
 exciting a slight salivation may be of help in a toler- 
 able sound constitution : perhaps none of the chronic 
 diseases are more relieved by change of climate than 
 an obstinate dropsy. A consumptive habit of body, 
 particularly where the cough is very obstinate and 
 frequent, and when bilious stools, with a great hard- 
 ness of the lower belly, affect the patient, or when a 
 continual fever emaciates the poor sufferer, he is in a 
 dangerous way, and a remove to colder climates is 
 hardly adviseable. I have known such people re- 
 lieved by making frequent short voyages to sea, in 
 moderate climates ; but unless proper remedies are 
 also made use of during these voyages, the fever re- 
 turns almost directly on re-landing. Frequently, after 
 one or two of these voj^ages, the patient feels himself 
 better. If he then retires to a milk diet, and freely 
 indulges himself in fruits, utterly avoiding all manner 
 of drugs and medicines, he may find relief, and even 
 
308 
 
 a return of constitution. Frequent doses of flour of 
 brimstone, and cooling the water he drinks with sal 
 nitre, are of use during this course ; likewise the pa- 
 tient ought with the greatest care to avoid exercise : 
 the stiller he keeps himself, the more hopes of reco- 
 very there is. The fever which attends this disor- 
 der is of such a nature, that here the use of the bark 
 must be carefully shunned, as it has been during long 
 practice, and by frequent experiments of very able 
 physicians, found to be a sure poison in this dis- 
 order. 
 
 " The Spaniards wear the nest of the great travel- 
 ling spider sowed in a rag about their necks, as a 
 sure way to assuage a hectic fever, and I think with 
 great success. It is a matter of surprise to see how" 
 perhaps a thousand animalcidte, w hich are in perfect 
 life in one of these nests, at the time of its being put 
 round the patient's neck, will, in the course of about 
 thirty hours, be perfectly pulverised by meer dint of 
 the heat of the body, which these young spiders seem 
 in a peculiar manner to attract. In hardness of the 
 belly, in this disorder, most of the Creoles use hard 
 and frequent rubbing it a\ ith a warm hand dipt in oil 
 or hog's lard. ^Lcre: bear's oil being so very sub- 
 tle and penetrating, would it not be preferable in 
 rubbing ? 
 
 " The bcemorrhoidal flux is very frequent here, 
 and was it not so very troublesome an attendant, it 
 would be looked upon as a beneficial event. Persons 
 >vho are attacked by it are generally certain of not 
 
309 
 
 falling into the more dangerous diseases occasioned 
 by obstructions of the viscera in hot climates. The 
 greatest danger attending it is that of the patient fall- 
 ing into a habitual flux, which is a most tedious and 
 troublesome disease, and that, although the patient 
 has no other complaint but the frequent necessity of 
 going to stool, and is but seldom troubled with an 
 involuntary expulsion of the fceces^ this disease is 
 almost always a slow though sure harbinger of death, 
 by its continuance for years, draining the very last 
 drop of moisture from the sufferer, who, being left a 
 mere skeleton, is, as it Vvcre, carried off in the man- 
 ner of an expiring candle snuff. Yet those persons, 
 who have been opened after deatli, have been found 
 with all the inward parts perfectly sound, and thus 
 the faculty is left in the dark, without any way to ac- 
 count for this disorder. I have heard of people of a 
 very robust constitution, with whom it has continued 
 above twenty years. No disease is so frequent. It 
 almost always attacks people who have suffered much 
 from frequent sickness or severe fatigue, and its ob- 
 stinacy is such, that it v.^ill yield to no remedy what- 
 ever in the climate where it originated. I have my- 
 self been attacked by it, first in the province of Geor- 
 gia, in consequence of the great fatigue I underv. ent, 
 in my frequent long and wearisome journies by land. 
 No astringent of any kind, not even the long use of 
 rhubarb and ipecacuana^ was of the least service to 
 me ; vain was every medicine against this obstinate 
 malady. Opium v.as recommended to me as a spc- 
 
310 
 
 clfic ; this I took at length in incredible doses, but 
 the relief was only momentary ; after the short re- 
 prieve obtained hereby, it returned with tenfold vio- 
 lence and obstinacy. If then I was unhappy enough 
 to use opium during this attack, it was of no use 
 whatever, but obliged mc, for the next time, to seek 
 respite from a double dose. The cold bath I found 
 of some slight benefit ; and when I was at the pro- 
 per season in any part of Florida Avhere the coco- 
 plumb* grew in abundance, by freely eating this 
 wholesome fruit I was relieved for that season ; and 
 no sooner was I obliged to abandon this excellent re- 
 medy, but the disease again prevailed. Thus v/as I 
 harassed for about eight years, when I changed cli- 
 mates, by coming to New York. Here likewise all 
 medical prescriptions failed, till at length I found that 
 a decoction of the bark of semi-ruba and terra japo- 
 nicaj in the proportion of half an ounce of each to six 
 pounds of water, being boiled down to one- sixth, 
 was an effectual medicine after the change of climate, 
 which last alone must not be relied on. One quart 
 of the above decoction, in the quantity of a wine 
 glass full, taken morning and evening, cured me ; 
 but relapsing again, after about three months, I got 
 another quart, with the two first glasses of which I 
 took a small pill of crude opium, and by two more 
 glasses full I found myself again restored to my natu- 
 ral habit of body. 
 
 " * C7i?'!.>P0 Culaiius. 
 
311 
 
 *' An entire relaxation of the solids, and a bilious 
 habit of body, is another common affliction of those 
 who have suffered much by the diseases of hot cli- 
 mates. The constitution is in such people so de- 
 cayed, that it seems as if every moment v^^ould be 
 that of dissolution ; the stomach is weak, their com- 
 plexion is nearly that of a sufferer by the jaundice, 
 and hardly any food, especially greens and sallads, is 
 found digestible. If the dry belly-ache has been 
 their frequent attendant, a paralytic contraction of 
 the limbs is the final consequence of that malady. 
 Others again will vomit clear bile, and be very cos- 
 tive, having the abdomen exceeding hard. For all 
 these complaints there is no better cure than a change 
 of climate, and when the patient begins to feel any 
 benefit from the difference of air while at sea, I would 
 recommend a plentiful and constant use of camomile 
 flowers, chewing them in the same manner as people 
 do tobacco : this, however disagreeable to most pa- 
 lates at first, becomes in time as agreeable to the 
 mouth as it is grateful to the stomach. The use of 
 elixir vitrioli, in the quantity of fifteen or twenty 
 drops, taken every morning fasting, and again an 
 hour before dinner ; and the moderate use of a glass 
 of generous wine is not amiss to such sufferers. Ani- 
 mal food, especially mutton, is the most suitable diet, 
 and, in case of an obstinate costiveness, use the elixir 
 aloes often at nieht or in the morninor. The cold 
 
 o o 
 
 bath, especially of salt water, is very beneficial to 
 such sufferers. ' 
 
512 
 
 '' Ruptures arc prett}- much complained of on the 
 banks of the TVlississippi. I have observed likewise 
 that they are a good deal frequent in Georgia and in 
 Carolina. What can be the cause of a disorder of 
 this kind being frequent I know not; but I find in a 
 pamphlet, which gives a superficial description of 
 South Carolina, the following way to account for it: 
 * The obstructed -viscera being swelled beyond their 
 natural size, the intestines are too much confined ; 
 and by nature of the aliment and bad digestion being 
 frequently distended with wind, it is not to be won- 
 dered at that they often pass through the rings of the 
 abdominal muscles.' 
 
 *' The worm fever, which is common throughout 
 all America, especially from Pennsylvania south- 
 wards, is not so common here as in Carolina, Geor- 
 gia, Sec. The reason I take to be because the sweet 
 potatoe is not so universally used for food here as 
 elsewhere ; children suffer most with it, though it 
 sometimes aftbcts people of all ages. When a fever 
 obstinately withstands all medicines, it may almost 
 be depended upon that this obstinacy proceeds from 
 worms. The stinking weed, which is known by the 
 name of Jerusalem oak, and in those provinces is the 
 most efficacious vermifuge, and the safest medicine, 
 especially for children ; a spoonful of the expressed 
 juice of the whole plant, taken on an empty stomach, 
 is found to be a sovereign aniidote. The lo7iic<tra I 
 have already mentioned, as to its qualities. U the 
 worms are suspected to be lodged in the rectum^ 
 
313 
 
 clysters of a decoction of tansey, onions, garlick, rue, 
 wormwood, and such like, in milk, are of good ef- 
 fect ; a plaster of pulverised aloes, oil of rue, or 
 wormwood, with powder of the bitter gourd and ox- 
 gal, applied to the navel, is also of good effect. I 
 would recommend the use of animal food, particu- 
 larly rich fish soups, highly seasoned with garlic or 
 onions, and it will be proper to avoid all kinds of fa- 
 rinaceous vegetables, except wheaten bread : above 
 all, the potatoe and pumpkin ought to be shunned as 
 poison. 
 
 " A loathsome disease appears sometimes among 
 the negroes, after severe acute disorders, especially if 
 the patient has been obliged to keep his bed long, 
 likewise after a violent exercise has brought on a 
 surfeit. This is called the elephantiasis from the 
 swelling of the feet and legs : it is most frequently 
 seen to affect one leg only. In the first stages of this 
 disorder, the patient becomes wretched through ex- 
 cessive lassitudes, which bring on an emaciation of 
 the body ; then the corrupted juices subside into the 
 leg or legs, and feet ; these swell, the skin becomes 
 distended, shines and shows the distended veins 
 every where below the knee ; now the skin by de- 
 grees loses its gloss, and becomes unequal and some- 
 thing scaly ; after this chaps make their appearance, 
 the glands are stretched, and the scales are daily en- 
 larged, appearing as hard and callous as the hide of 
 an alligator, notwithstanding which, the slightest 
 
 2 R 
 
! 
 
 314 
 
 prick of a pointed instrument will cause the blood 
 to exude. This disease affects neither the appetite nor 
 the digestive powers of the body ; on the contrary, 
 the patient, in this and cheerfulness of spirits, resem- 
 bles the healthiest of men, and the inconvenience of 
 his heavy leg only prevents his ability for the more 
 laborious part of his duty. 
 
 " No manner of cure has yet been found for this 
 cruel disorder, but the patients often live to a very 
 advanced age under the pressure of its yoke, even 
 when it has been contracted in early youth. It is 
 said that the amputation of the affected limbs is no 
 cure, for the disease will immediately attack the 
 sound leg. This I find also asserted by Hughes, in 
 his Natural History of Barbadoes. 
 
 *' I have seen three or four instances of the disease 
 called body yaws in the islands, and in Carolina the 
 lame distemper. This is said to proceed from here- 
 ditary venereal taints. It appears in cancerous corrod- 
 ing sores in the mouth and throat, and spreading 
 ulcers, together with fleshy protuberances, chiefly on 
 the face, breast, and thighs, with a swelling of the 
 skin and knee-bones, and commonly corrodes the car- 
 tilages of the nose. Its first symptoms showing them 
 selves about the throat and palate, have caused igno- 
 rant people to mistake it for the angina suffocatha 
 before-described. Mercurial medicines are used 
 against it, afterwards diet drinks of China root, nut- 
 grass, &c. The sores in the mouth are often to be 
 
315 
 
 rubbed with a feather dipt in syrup of roses, to an 
 ounce of which two drops of sp. 'vin-. have been 
 added. Unctuous, saU, spiced meats, and spiritu- 
 ous liquors, are absohitely to be avoided ; frequent 
 sweats are also prescribed, and a great care against 
 catching cold. 
 
 " The leprosy so called ; whether the same as was 
 the cause of proscription to the unhappy patients, 
 under the Mosaic laws, I shall not pretend to deter- 
 mine : certain it is, that it is a nauseous, loathsome, 
 and infectious disease, sometimes seen among the 
 blacks. This appears first with the loss of beard and 
 hair from the eyebrows, swelling of the lobes of the 
 ears, the face begins to shine, and brown protuber- 
 ances appear thereon, the lips and nose swell to a 
 monstrous size, the fingers and toes will in the end 
 drop off, and the body becomes at last so ulcerated, 
 as to make the poor incurable patient really a miser- 
 able object of pity." 
 
 To these ample quotations I shall only add, that 
 the author confirms the principal circumstances of 
 the shipwreck of Pierre Viaud and madame La 
 Couture, which took place on the shore of Apalachi- 
 cola : but when they came to relate their adventures, 
 they turned them into a romance. The eggs they 
 found were those of the tortoise, and not, as they tell 
 us, turkies' eggs. He mentions persons by whom 
 these two sufferers were assisted after their ship- 
 wreck. It is much to be regretted, that a book, con- 
 
316 
 
 taining such various, authentic, and useful informa- 
 tion, has not been translated into French*. 
 
 * We may also express regret that it has not been republished 
 in its native language. The vicinity of Florida to the United 
 States, and the probability of its being incorporated with our ter- 
 ritory, in a little time, vi^ould render its contents uncommonly in- 
 teresting to the present, and still more so to the next generation. 
 — Trans. 
 
317 
 
 No. III. 
 
 On the History of JS/'env Hampshire^ by Jeremiah Belknap^ and the 
 History of Vermont^ by Samuel Williams. 
 
 I. 
 
 MR. BELKNAP'S History of New Hamp- 
 shire, to which I have often referred, and which has 
 not been translated into French, is published at Bos- 
 ton, in three octavo volumes. The history of the 
 colony is given in the first and second volumes, and 
 the picture he draws is more worthy of attention, be- 
 cause it shows the original of many customs, which, 
 though first created by positive laws, have since be- 
 come inveterate habits, and form the most intimate 
 ingredients in the character of the people. 
 
 This history displays, in strong colours, the austere 
 spirit of the early colonists, who imposed the most 
 rigid restraints on the intercourse between one sex 
 and the other, and even between those of the same sex ; 
 on the forms of courtship ; on the looks and behavi- 
 our at home and abroad ; on the carriage of the head, 
 the eyes, and the limbs : whence have proceeded that 
 ceremonious tone, those grave and silent airs, and all 
 
318 
 
 those prim formalities which still distinguish the fe- 
 males of the United States^. Women were prohibited 
 from exposing their arms and necks ; the raiment w as 
 to descend to the wrist, and ascend to the chin. Men 
 were obliged to cut their hair short : drinking healths 
 was forbidden, as a rite of idolatry ; and it was a 
 crime to brew on Saturday, because the liquor might 
 •work on a Sunday f. Disobedience to a7iy of these 
 precepts exposed the culprit to legal process and con- 
 dign punishment ; a real inquisition was established ; 
 and all the habits generated by religious persecution 
 took root in the minds of the people : among these 
 were taciturnity, reserve, hypocrisy, the habits of sys- 
 tem and union J, with energy of resolution and resist- 
 ance after patience has been exhausted. This work is 
 useful and interesting, on account of its moral views 
 
 * What a groundless and extravagant inference 1 Mr. Belk- 
 nap's history relates only to New Hampshire, or, at furthest, to 
 New England. The rest of the United States arose from very 
 different beginnings. The founders of Maryland were Romanists; 
 of Virginia and the Carolinas episcopalians; of New York Hol- 
 landers ; of Pennsylvania quakers, whose early laws and manners 
 Avere total strangers to what is here recorded ; and, even in New 
 England, these austere laws have been long ago consigned to 
 oblivion and contempt. — Trans. 
 
 t This trite and wretched fiun^ so evidently a mere joke, is here 
 stated gravely, as a fact ahd a law. Volney could not have gotten 
 this from Belknap, though the context implies as much, but has 
 heard it, as fnost travellers have done, in a string of other jests in 
 a stage coach. — ^Tkans. 
 
 \ Combinaison d' idees et de plans.— V. 
 
319 
 
 and its laborious authenticity ; but the muhitude of 
 minute particulars, of no concern or interest to us, 
 would perhaps scarcely warrant the pains of transla- 
 tion. 
 
 The third volume bears a very different stamp. It 
 contains a regular description of this district, its cli- 
 mate, soil, and productions, its trade and agriculture, 
 and, in fine, every thing relative to the condition of 
 the country. This part of the work may be com- 
 pared to Mr. Jefferson's account of Virginia. In both 
 we find as extensive and accurate a statistical account 
 of the states of which they treat, as could be ex- 
 pected from the zeal and labours of a single indivi- 
 dual. Mr. Jefferson, whose work appeared in 1782, 
 has the credit of first leading the way, and of sur- 
 mounting the chief difficulty, in first tracing a design 
 till then new*. Mr. Belknap's work appeared ten 
 years afterwards, and had thus the opportunity of 
 profiting by the facts and methods acquired in the 
 progress of the statistical science. This volume, of 
 480 pages, is capable of some abridgment, as many 
 particulars are uninteresting to us. If we overlook 
 some effusions of prejudice, natural to the author's 
 character as an American and clergyman, and which 
 show themselves in declamations against the philo- 
 sophers and travellers of Europe, his work is one of 
 
 * The forming a plan of enquiry, and distributing a subject 
 into proper parts, hardly deserves the name of the chief difficulty. 
 Any ingenious mind can perform this, but to fill up the outline, 
 fric labor, hoc ojnu est. — Trans. 
 
320 
 
 the most instructive and philosophical with which 
 America is capable of enriching our language. 
 
 II. 
 
 The praise I have given to Mr. Belknap is like- 
 wise justly due to S. Williams, who published, in 
 one volume, octavo, of 400 pages, a History, Natural 
 and Civil, of Vermont. The book is divided into 
 seventeen chapters. Thie first six chapters describe 
 the situation, boundaries, surface, soil, mountains, 
 caverns, springs, rivers, lakes, climate, seasons, and 
 vegetable and animal productions. The seventh and 
 eighth chapters treat of the character, manners, and 
 con'dition of the Indians. The three next chapters 
 detail the history of the state, and the rest of the work 
 discusses the occupations of the people, their man- 
 ners and customs, connected with education, mar- 
 riage and social life ; their religious spirit and esta- 
 blishments ; then' mode of government, population, 
 and notions of civil liberty : the last of which he 
 thinks chiefly o^ving to the situation and condition of 
 the people. 
 
 Mr. Williams may sometimes be thought too mi- 
 nute and circumstantial, but the information he con- 
 veys is, in many respects, so valuable and authentic, 
 that I consider this book as the principal means of dif- 
 fusing natural knowledge among the people of Ame- 
 rica. I procured a literal version of it, as well as the 
 
321 
 
 third volume of Belknap, with a view of finally turn- 
 ing it into good French ; but I have since been in- 
 duced to relinquish this design, not only by the weak 
 and precarious state of my health, but by informa- 
 tion that the task is undertaken by a person who 
 will soon publish the result of his labours* . 
 
 * The true method of translation I take to be this. We should 
 first turn the foreign book into words as exactly and literally an- 
 swering to those of the original as possible. As the idiom of ouf 
 own tongue would, in such a proce<ss, be lost and confounded, wc 
 should lay it aside for some time, and, when the original is for- 
 gotten, we should take up our literal version, and, by coi iecting 
 and new modelling the style, we may be able to produce an excel- 
 lent performance, as well as a faithful translation. To make 
 even a tolerable translation is no easy undertaking. 
 
 2 s 
 
322 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 Galiijiolis.) or the French colony at Scioto. 
 
 A CERTAIN association, called the Scioto 
 Company, proposed, at Paris, in 1790, with much 
 parade, the sale of some lands in the best part of the 
 United States, at 120 cents an acre. They dealt out 
 the most liberal promises and charming prospects, 
 such as people are generally accustomed to offer on 
 these occasions. " A climate wholesome and delight- 
 ful, frost, even in winter, almost entirely unknown, 
 and a river called, by way of eminence, the beautiful, 
 and abounding in excellent fish, of a vast size. No- 
 ble forests, consisting of trees that spontaneously pro- 
 duce sugar fthe sugar maple J, and a plant that yields 
 ready made candles (myrica ccriferaj. Venison in 
 plenty, the pursuit of M'hich is uninterrupted by 
 wolves, foxes, lions, or tygers. A couple of swine 
 will multiply themselves a hundred fold in two or 
 three years, w'ithout taking any care of them. No 
 taxes to pay, no military services to be performed." 
 These munificent promisers forgot to lay, that 
 these forests must be cut down before corn could be 
 raised ; that for a year at least they must bring their 
 
323 
 
 daily bread from a great distance ; that hunting and 
 fishing are agreeable amusements, when pursued for 
 the sake of amusement, but are widely different when 
 followed for the sake of subsistence : and they quite 
 forgot to mention, that though there be no bears or 
 tygers, in the neighbourhood, there are wild beasts 
 infinitely more cunning and ferocious, in the shape 
 of men, who were at that time at open and cruel war 
 with the whites. 
 
 In truth, the market value of these lands, at that 
 time, in America, was no more than six or seven 
 cents an acre. In France, in Paris, the imagination 
 was too heated to admit of doubt or suspicion, and 
 people were too ignorant and uninformed to perceive 
 where the picture was defective, and its colours too 
 glaring. The example, too, of the wealthy and re- 
 putedly wise confirmed the popular delusion. No- 
 thing was talked of, in every social circle, but the 
 paradise that was opened for Frenchmen in the wes- 
 tern wilderness ; the free and happy life to be led on 
 the blissful banks of the Scioto. At length Brissot 
 published his travels, and completed the flattering 
 delusion : buyers became numerous and importunate, 
 chiefly among the better sort of the middle class : 
 single persons and whole families disposed of their 
 all, flattering themselves with having made excellent 
 bargains at a crown an acre, because in France, near 
 Paris, good ground was worth above eighty or a hun- 
 dred crowns. Each one set off", in his own time, from 
 
324 
 
 some French ports, in the course of 1791, and Paris 
 heard no more of these adventurers. 
 
 On my arrival in America, in October, 1795, I 
 made some enquiry after these people, but could only 
 hear a vague story that they were buried somewhere 
 in the \\estern wilds, and had not prospered. Next 
 summer I shaped my course through Virginia, and 
 alter travelling three hundred miles to Staunton, two 
 hundred more, over a rugged desart, to the Great 
 Kenhawah, and sixty miles down that river, through 
 a scene still more dreary and desolate, to the Ohio, 
 I at last reached a village called Point Pleasant, four 
 miles from Gallipolis : by this splendid appellation 
 (which means French city) the emigrants denominated 
 their settlement. My eagerness to see the face and 
 hear the the language of my countrymen, once more, 
 made me hasten thither without delay. 
 
 Colonel Lewis, a kinsman of general Washington, 
 facilitated my journey. I went on, but reflecting 
 that I was going to visit Frenchmen, disappointed in 
 their dearest hopes, their vanity mortified, and their 
 mortification likely to be aggravated by the sight of 
 one, who had probably foretold their misfortunes to 
 fiome of them, my impatience was greatly diminished. 
 It was night- fall before I reached the village, and I 
 could perceive nothing but a double row of small ^^•hite 
 houses, built on the flat top of the bank of the Ohio, 
 which here laves the foot of a cliff" fifty feet high. 
 The water being low, I climbed the bank, by a slope 
 formed in its side, and was conducted to a log house 
 
325 
 
 called an inn. It was kept by a Frenchman, who 
 asked me but few questions, and his demeanour 
 evinced the truth of all my prognostics. 
 
 Next day I took a view of the place, and was struck 
 with its forlorn appearance ; with the thin pale faces, 
 sickly looks, and anxious air of its inhabitants. — 
 They were shy of conversing with me. Their dwel- 
 lings, though made externally cheerful by whitewash, 
 were only log huts, patched with clay, and roofed 
 with shingles, consequently damp, unwholesome, and 
 uncomfortable. The village forms an oblong quad- 
 rangle of two rows of contiguous buildings, which a 
 spark would consume altogether. This, with many 
 other faults, they owe to the negligence of the com- 
 pany. Adjoining these huts are gardens, fenced with 
 thorn, destitute of trees, but well stocked with useful 
 vegetables. Behind these gardens runs a creek, 
 nearly parallel to the river, which makes the scite of 
 the town nearly a peninsula. This creek, at low 
 water, shows a bottom of black mud, and the over- 
 flowings of the river run up this creek, and spread 
 themselves over some pestiferous marshes. South- 
 east lies the broad expanse of the river, but in front 
 and to the north there appear nothing but interminable 
 forests. Above the town, the clayey and tenacious 
 soil retains the rain water, and forms marshes, ex- 
 tremely unhealthful in the autumn. From July to 
 November intermittents are extremely prevalent. 
 
 I met with nobody who had known me before, but 
 their confidence was easily obtained, and I collected 
 
326 
 
 from several persons the following history of their 
 disastrous expedition. 
 
 About five hundred mechanics, artists, and trades- 
 men, in easy circumstances, and of good morals, ar- 
 rived, in 1791 and 1792, at New York, Philadelphia, 
 and Baltimore, from France. Each paid twenty or 
 twenty-four guineas passage money, and their jour- 
 nies by land, in both hemispheres, cost them an equal 
 sum. Thus dispersed, without any common plan of 
 operations, they made, separately, their way towards 
 Pittsburg and the Ohio, where their new home was 
 situated. After many mistakes on the road, and a great 
 waste of time and money, they reached a point, mark- 
 ed out upon a map, where the company had erected 
 barracks for their accommodation. This company 
 soon after became bankrupt, failing in its payments 
 to the Ohio company, the original proprietors. — 
 These, of course, not deeming themselves bound by 
 the engagements of their debtors, refused the land to 
 the emigrants. A vexatious law suit was the con- 
 sequence, the more distressing to them, as their 
 money w^as now exhausted. The United States were 
 at war with the Indians, who disputed the right of the 
 former to this very district. After the defeat of St. 
 Clair, the savages blockaded the poor Frenchmen in 
 their settlement, made captives of four, and scalped 
 a fifth, \\ho survived tliis dreadful operation. 
 
 Despondency overv.helmed them : some of them 
 forsook the flUal spot, and withdrew into the country 
 better peopled, or passed into Louisiana. At last. 
 
*^ 327 
 
 after four years of dangers, hardships, and vexations, 
 the poor remnant obtained a tract of 912 acres, for a 
 new advance of 1100 dollars. This boon they owed 
 to a son, of general Putnam, who benefited them in a 
 still more signal and disinterested manner, by refusing 
 1200 dollars offered by two Frenchmen, with a view 
 of getting the whole into their own hands, and then 
 extorting an exorbitant price from their companions. 
 They were again fortunate in receiving, from the 
 congress of 1795, a gratuitous present of 20,000 
 acres, opposite Sandy Creek. This bounty was the 
 more remarkable, because the animosity against 
 France, which broke out the next year, began already 
 to prevail in that assembly. Of this land 4000 acres 
 belonged to those whose activity had promoted the 
 gift, and the rest was distributed among eighty-two 
 or eightv-four persons who remained. 
 
 When I paid my visit, only a year had elapsed since 
 this arrangement had been made, and the settlement 
 had already begun to revive and prosper, in such a 
 manner as showed what great things would have been 
 effected, had not its progress been checked by such 
 heavy misfortunes. Still the situation of the colonists 
 was far from being agreeable. All the labours of 
 clearing and tillage were imposed on the family itself 
 of the proprietor, labourers not being to be hired but 
 at enormous prices. It may easily be imagined how 
 severe a hardship it v»'as, on men brought up in the 
 ease and indolence of Paris, to chop trees, to plough, 
 to sow, to reap, to labour in the field or the barn, in 
 
328 
 
 a heat of 85 or 95 degrees. It is true, the soil was 
 fertile, and the season propitious. In autumn and 
 winter, venison was a cent or two a pound, and bread 
 was two or three cents ; but money was extremely- 
 scarce. The maple, tapped in February, afforded 
 those who attended to the produce perhaps a hundred 
 pounds of coarse dark sugar, frequently injured in^ 
 the boiling, and extremely impure. The islets of 
 the river afford a low creeping vine, with a tolerably 
 sweet red grape, supposed to have been propagated 
 from those planted by the French at Fort Duquesne, 
 the seeds of which might have been brought hither 
 by the bears, who are fond of grapes ; but the liquor 
 of this species differs little from that of the indigenous 
 vine, which climbs trees sixty feet high, and bears a 
 small, hard, and black grape. Swine have been of 
 great use to them, and they have learned to cure the 
 meat so well, that, in this journey, I consumed a 
 whole ham, which had only been well smoked, but 
 which I supposed to have been boiled. Some, with 
 reason, prefei them in this state, for the lean part, 
 when not too much salted, or when soaked in water, 
 is confessed to be more wholesome, in hot climates, 
 than beef. 
 
 Such is the condition of the Scioto colony, which 
 does not altogether realize the pictures of the inland 
 paradise given by American farmers, nor the glories 
 of the future capital of the Ohio and its realms, pre- 
 dicted by a certain writer. If such encomiasts could 
 hear their praises as they are rehearsed on the spot, 
 
 ii 
 
 ■il 
 
i 
 
 329 
 
 they would grow disgusted with that trite, idle, and 
 inflated rhetoric, which has condemned five hundred 
 meritorious families to hardship and misery. 
 
 Throughout America I have heard Frenchmen bit- 
 terly complaining of their treatment. It must, how- 
 ever, be acknowledged, that their calamity may be, 
 in some degree, ascribed to their own infatuation and 
 temerity, which refused to take warning by the cau- 
 tions or sufferings of others ; that their deceivers did 
 not debar them from the means of better informa- 
 tion ; and that their credulity swallowed manifest 
 chimeras and impossibilities. When it is added, 
 that, even since my return, there have been adven- 
 turers who shut their ears and their eyes against con- 
 viction, and assiduously avoid hearing the truth, we 
 must confess that such rashness and credulity almost 
 necessarily give birth to the arts of mercenary specu- 
 lators*. 
 
 I wished to leave this settlement with a persuasion 
 that they were doing well and would prosper : but, 
 
 * To resist the arguments or authority of Volney seems, in this 
 place, to warrant, in his opinion, the sufferings that overwhelm 
 the poor deluded emigrant. The desire of bettering our condi- 
 tion, and the confidence inspired by plausible deceivers, whose 
 council coincides with our own wishes, is an ample apology for 
 the credulity or obstinacy here complained of. Nothing less than 
 a miracle could arm the inexperienced mind of a Paris shopkeeper 
 against the delusions that were practised upon him. The dreams 
 of the Scioto colonists were some of them even ludicrously ex- 
 travagant, and yet the dreamers themselves were some of theia. 
 people of capacity and education. — Trans. 
 
 2 T 
 
330 
 
 besides the original and incurable error in the choice 
 of situation, I am afraid that their despondency w'lW 
 never be entirely removed, since there will always be 
 some cause for it, and since the French nation are less 
 qualified for settling a new country than the emigrants 
 from England, Ireland, or Germany. Among fifteen 
 instances of farms, cultivated or formed by French- 
 men, which were mentioned to me in America, only 
 two or three were likely to thrive. As to collecting 
 men in villages, such as Gallipolis, those that have 
 been formed on the frontiers of Louisiana or Canada, 
 and have been left to shift for themselves, have gene- 
 rally dwindled, and sooner or later disappeared ; while 
 plain men, from the British isles or Germany, who 
 have pierced the heart of the forest with their families 
 only, and even ventured alone into the Indian terri- 
 tory, have generally made good their footing, and 
 have prospered and multiplied. 
 
 An example of this truth is to be found in the his- 
 tory of the French settlement at Vincennes, on the 
 Wabash, which I visited after leaving Gallipolis. I 
 was prompted to more careful observations at this 
 place, because I not only felt a general interest in the 
 welfare of these my countrymen, but was anxious 
 to know what kind of asylum these regions were 
 adapted to afford to those natives of France who might 
 hereafter be inclined or obliged to take refuge in 
 them. 
 
331 
 
 No. V. 
 
 Of the French Colonies on the Wabash^ the Mississippi^ and ♦ 
 Lake Erie, 
 
 HAVING descended the Ohio, by Preston, 
 Washington*, Charleston (Kentucky), and Cincin- 
 nati, I arrived at Louisville, about 350 miles from 
 GelHpolis. Through this vast extent of country, I 
 scarcely met with five infant villages, and eight farms. 
 Louisville (Kentucky) has about a hundred houses, 
 and is two miles above the falls, more properly the 
 rapids, of the Ohio, which I passed over in a boat. 
 I waited here eight hours, till a caravan was collected 
 of four or five horsemen, necessary to travel upwards 
 of 100 miles of woods and meadows, so desart as not 
 to contain a solitary hut, 
 
 * There are above sixty places in the United States that bear 
 the name of Washington. There are also a dozen Charlestons. 
 Indeed, the geographical denominations of this country are bor- 
 rowed from proper names, or from those of Europe, because the 
 settlers are naturally fond of giving to their new abode the name 
 of their native spot. And thus America has become a kind of 
 second, though, as yet, by no means an improved, edition of Eu- 
 rope, especially of England and Germany. This circumstance 
 will be more conspicuous a century hence* 
 
332 ? 
 
 After a hasty march of three days, we reached (Au- 
 gust 2, 1796) Vincenncs, on the Wabash., The eye 
 is at first presented with an irregular savannah, eight 
 miles in length by three in breadth, skirted by eter- 
 nal forests, and sprinkled with a few trees, and abun- 
 dance of umbelliferous plants, three or four feet high. 
 Maize, tobacco, wheat, barley, squashes, and even 
 cotton, grow in the fields around the village, which 
 contains about fifty houses, whose cheerful white re^ 
 lieves the eye, after the tedious dusk and green of 
 the woods. 
 
 These houses are placed along the left bank of the 
 Wabash, here about two hundred feet wide, and fall- 
 ing, when the waters are low, twenty feet below the 
 scite of the town. The bank of the river is sloping 
 towards the savannah, which is a few feet lower : this 
 slope is occasioned by the periodical floods. Each 
 house, as is customary in Canada, stands alone, and 
 is surrounded by a court and garden, fenced Mdth 
 poles. I was delighted by the sight of peach trees 
 loaded with fruit, but was sorry to notice the thorn 
 apple, which is found in all the cultivated places from 
 beyond Gallipolis. Adjoining the village and river 
 is a space, enclosed by a ditch eight feet wide, and 
 by sharp stakes six feet high. This is called the fort, 
 and is a sufficient safeguard against surprises from 
 Indians. 
 
 I had letters to a principal man of the place, by 
 birth a Dutchman, but who spoke good French. I 
 was accommodated at his house, in the kindest and 
 
333 
 
 most hospitable manner, for ten days. The clay after 
 my arrival a court was held, to which I repaired, to 
 make my remarks on the scene. On entering, I was 
 surprised to observe the audience divided into races 
 of men, in person and feature widely differing from 
 each other. The fair or light brown hair, ruddy 
 complexion, round face, and plump body, indicative 
 of health and ease, of one set, were forcibly contrasted 
 with the emaciated frame, and meagre tawny visage 
 of the other : the dress, likewise, of the latter denoted 
 their indigence. I soon discovered that the former 
 were new settlers from the neighbouring states, whose 
 lands had been reclaimed five or six years before, 
 while the latter were French, of sixty years standing 
 in the district. The latter, three or four excepted, 
 knew nothing of English, while the former were al- 
 most as ignorant of French. I had acquired, in the 
 course of a year, a sufficient knowledge of English to 
 converse with them, and was thus enabled to hear the 
 tales of both parties. 
 
 The French, in a querulous tone, recounted the 
 losses and hardships they had suffered, especially since 
 the last Indian war, in 1788. Between that period 
 and the peace of 1763, w^hen England obtained Ca- ( 
 nada, and Spain Louisiana, they enjoyed tranquillity * 
 and happiness, under the protection of Spain. Un- 
 molested and sequestered in the heart of the wilder- 
 ness, fifty leagues from the nearest post on the Mis- 
 sissippi, without taxes, and in friendship with the 
 Indians, they passed their lives in hunting, fishing, 
 
334 
 
 trading in furs, and raising a few esculents and a little 
 corn for tl\eir families. Many of them had inter- 
 married with the Indians, whose amity was l>y thccic 
 ties secured and strengthened, and their numbers 
 amounted to three hundred persons. 
 
 During the revolutionary war, their remote situa- 
 tion exempted them from all its evils, till, in 17S2, 
 they were visited by a detachment from Kentucky, 
 who plundered and insulted them, and killed or drove 
 off the cattle which formed their chief wealth. 
 
 The peace of 1783 gave them to the United States, 
 under whose benign government they began to breathe 
 again ; but unluckily an Indian war commenced in 
 1788, and siding with the whites, as duty and dis- 
 cretion enjoined, they were annoyed by the savages, 
 whose animosity was embittered by the remembrance 
 of their ancient friendship and alliance. Their cattle 
 were killed, their village closely beset, and, for seve- 
 ral years, they could not carry the plough or hoe a 
 musket shot from their huts. 
 
 Military service was added to their other hardships; 
 but, in 1792, the compassion of the federal govern- 
 ment gave four hundred acres of land to every one 
 who paid the capitation, and a hundred more to every 
 one who served in the militia. This domain, so 
 ample to a diligent husbandman, was of little value 
 to the hunting Frenchmen, who soon bartered away 
 their invaluable ground for about 30 cents an acre, 
 which was paid to them in goods, on which an exor- 
 bitant profit was charged. This land was of the l)cst 
 
335 
 
 quality ; it sold, as early as 1796, at two dollars an 
 acre, and I may venture to say is now worth at least 
 ten. Thus, for the most part, reduced again to their 
 gardens, or the little homestead which was indispen- 
 sable to their subsistence, they had nothing to live 
 on but their fruit, potatoes, maize, and now and then 
 a little game ; and, on this fare, no wonder they be- 
 came as lean as Arabs*. 
 
 They complain that they were cheated and rob- 
 bed, and especially that their rights were continu- 
 ally violated by the courts, in which two judges only 
 out of five were Frenchmen, who knew little of the 
 laws or language of the English. Their ignorance, 
 indeed, was profound. Nobody ever opened a school 
 among them, till it was done by the abbe R. a polite, 
 well educated, and liberal minded missionary, banish- 
 ed hither by the French revolution. Out of nine of 
 the French, scarcely six could read or write, whereas 
 nine-tenths of the Americans, or emigrants from the 
 east, could do both. Their dialect is by no means, 
 as I had been previously assured, a vulgar or provin- 
 cial brogue^ but pretty good French, intermixed with 
 many military terms and phrases, all these settlements 
 having been originally made by soldiers. The pri- 
 rnitive stock of Canada was the regiment of Carignon. 
 
 * This implies that hunger or spare diet makes them lean, but 
 this is evidently absurd. They cannot want plenty of the best 
 food, and are probably greater eaters than their sleek and jolly 
 neighbours. Their thinness must be owing to their constitution 
 or their activitv. — Trans. 
 
I could not fix with accuracy the date of the first set- 
 tlement of Vincennes ; and, notwithstanding the ho- 
 mage paid by some learned men to tradition, I could 
 trace out but few events of the war of 1757, though 
 some of the old men lived before that period. I was 
 only able to form a conjecture that it was planted 
 about 1735. 
 
 These statements were confirmed, for the most 
 part, by the new settlers. They only placed the 
 same facts in a different point of view. They told 
 me that the Canadians, for by that name the French 
 of the western colonies are known among them, had 
 only themselves to blame for all the hardships they 
 complained of. We must allow, say they, that they 
 are a kind, hospitable, sociable set, but then for idle- 
 ness and ignorance, they beat the Indians themselves. 
 They know nothing at all of civil or domestic aff^iirs : 
 their women neither sow, nor spin, nor make butter, 
 but pass their time in gossipping and tattle, while all 
 at home is dirt and disorder. The men take to no- 
 thing but hunting, fishing, roaming the woods, and 
 loitering in the sun. They do not lay up, as we do, 
 for winter, or provide for a rainy day. They cannot 
 cure pork or venison, make sour crout or spruce beer, 
 or distil spirits from apples or rye, all needful arts to 
 the farmer. If they trade, they try by exorbitant 
 charges to make much out of a litde ; for little is ge- 
 nerally their all, and what they get they throw away 
 upon the Indian girls, in toys and baubles. Their 
 
S37 
 
 time is wasted too in triflingstories of their insignificant 
 adventures, and journies to town to see their friends*. 
 
 When the peace of 1793 incorporated them with 
 the United States, their first demand was a command- 
 ing officer, and hard it was to make them comprehend 
 the nature of elective or municipal government. — 
 Even now they have nobody fit to govern the rest. 
 They will not learn English, and it is not worth while 
 for us to learn the language of eighty or ninety peo- 
 ple, who may leave us to-morrow for Louisiana. In- 
 deed they would be wise in doing so, for their indo- 
 lence will never be a match for our industry. 
 
 From all accounts, the state of things is similar to 
 this in the Illinois and Upper Louisiana. Apathy, 
 indolence, and poverty equally prevail among the 
 French settlers at Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Rocky 
 Meadows, St. Lewis, &c. These qualities they in 
 some degree derive from the nature of their govern- 
 ment. This, both with French and Spanish, is 
 purely military, the commander being a mere aga, 
 who grants and takes back at pleasure all the liberties 
 of trade, foreign and domestic. All commerce and 
 property hang upon his will and caprice, and, to en- 
 rich a few favourites or relatives, the rest are con- 
 demned to poverty and misery. It is a perfect Turk- 
 ish government, except that it is not, as formerly, 
 sanguinary or prone to punishment. 
 
 * Thus they speak of New Orleans, as if it were a walk of half 
 an hour, though it is fifteen hundred miles down the river. 
 
 2 U 
 
338 
 
 This state of things will, in some degree, be ac- 
 counted for by the situation of the first settlers, Mho 
 were either soldiers by profession, or made so by their 
 frequent wars with their white and red neighbours. 
 They were thus habituated to a life alternately active 
 and idle, and made to prefer the slothful and precarious 
 existence of the savage, to the steady habits and la- 
 borious uniformity of the husbandman. Hence it is 
 that, of late years, when the Americans* introduced 
 themselves among them, their industry has quickly 
 gained the superiority, and, in five or six years, they 
 
 * The want of a peculiar geographical appellation, and their 
 superiority in numbers and importance to every other nation, exotic 
 or indigenous, of America, has given to the people of the United 
 States the name of " Americans," among their neighbours and 
 among Europeans. The largest or most important part is na- 
 turally confounded with the whole., and the name of the latter be- 
 stowed upon the former. Instead of regretting this circumstance, 
 as some ingenious men have done, I think it rather a cause of 
 pride and exultation. We should exult in the pre-eminence 
 ■which this custom tacitly allows us, and ardently anticipate the 
 period, when the extension of our empire will make the national 
 appellation o{ Am means a strictly geographical and precise one. 
 The complaint of present ambiguity in this term seems to be 
 without foundation ; for though the whole continent is called 
 America, and the proper name of its inhabitants, therefore, Ame- 
 ricans, the occasion on which these words are used always tho- 
 roughly explains the sense, either wide or narrow, in which they 
 arc designed to be taken. There are very few words which have 
 not several acceptations, but they are used without the least dan- 
 ger of ambiguity. One of these words is jiapcr^ which has a 
 greater number of meanings than almost any other word, and is 
 sometimes comprehensive and sometimes limited. " My paper" 
 
339 
 
 have become almost the sole proprietors. The French 
 colonists, reduced to distress, have sold their lands for 
 a trifle, as at Vincennes, and so rapidly were they 
 supplanted, that, in 1796, almost all the district of 
 Kaskaskias belonged to the house of E., and that of 
 V. owned, in other places, 60,000 acres of land. 
 
 On the west side of the Mississippi the Spaniards, 
 to augment the value of their lands, granted them to 
 such emigrants from the United States as would natu- 
 ralize themselves, and, in consequence, the old French 
 settlers have been quite supplanted by the new comers, 
 in trade and agriculture, and, gradually vanishing be- 
 fore them, retire into Canada or Lower Louisiana. 
 Two of my fellow travellers, in Kentucky, were emi- 
 grating to the Missouri. They told me that upwards 
 of eight hundred of their countrymen were already 
 fixed in the country ; and if lands continued to be 
 granted in fee ^ three or four thousand families would 
 hasten thither from Kentucky, where land was grown 
 dear, and titles were doubtful. 
 
 I intended to bear them company as far as St. 
 Lewis, 180 miles from Vincennes, but accidents pre- 
 vented my journey. I was obliged to trust to the evi- 
 dence of many who travelled through this country this 
 and the four preceding years. According to their re- 
 
 is a simple phrase, but is perfectly understood, always in a sense 
 peculiar to each, when uttered by a paper-maker, a merchant, a 
 gazette printer, or an upholstei'er.— Trans. 
 
340 
 
 presentations, from Vincennes to Kas f Kasliaskias* J 
 is a journey of forty-three hours, computed by Ar- 
 rowsmith at 160 miles. 
 
 The steps in this journey are detailed in the fol- 
 lowing table : 
 
 Road from Fort Fincennes to Kaskaskias. 
 
 Miles. Hours. 
 To Ombra creek .92 
 
 To the Elm in the meadow 13^ 3 
 
 To Cat river - - 13| 3 
 
 To the Yoke - - 15 3 
 
 To the Salt spring - 6 11 
 
 To the Slave's gibbet - 15 3 
 
 To Great Point . \5 2\ 
 
 To the Coftee-pot - 12 2 
 
 To the Yellow bark - 15 3 
 
 To Walnut point - 15 2| 
 
 Beyond this is a beaver dam, destroyed. 
 At a cross road you take the left, which 
 is shortest. There is no water for fifteen 
 miles, and you fall into the main road at 
 Pointe mix Fesses, 
 
 To the Dam - - 41 1 
 
 Carried forward 133| 26i 
 
 * This useful licence, in cutting off the superfluous syllables of 
 long names, has many examples in America, besides the above: 
 as IVIixkinaw for Machillimachinach, and Ty for Ticonderoga.— . 
 
 TUANS. 
 
341 
 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Hours, 
 
 Brought forward 
 
 133i 
 
 261 
 
 To the three-thorned Acacia 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 To Pointe aux Fesses 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 To the Meadow of the Hole 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 To the Great Rib 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 To Lepronier 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 To Kas 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 Totals 220i 431 
 
 Beyond Ombra we enter a Tartarian meadow, in- 
 terspersed with clumps of trees, but in general flat 
 and naked, and windy and cold in winter. In sum- 
 mer it is filled with tall and strong shrubs, which 
 brush the legs of the rider in his narrow path so 
 much, that a journey out and back will wear out a 
 pair of boots. Water is scarce, and there is danger 
 of bein,^ bewildered, as happened to one of my fellow 
 travellers, three years before, when, with two others, 
 he roamed about for seventeen days. Thunder, rain, 
 gnats, and horseflies, are very troublesome in summer. 
 Five years ago, you could not fail of meeting, in these 
 meadows, with herds of four or five hundred buffa- 
 loes, but now there are none. The hunters and the 
 bells of the tame cattle have driven them beyond the 
 Mississippi, which they crossed by swimming. 
 
 At the end of these meadows, near die Mississippi, 
 is the district of Kas. The village is seated in a 
 close sultry valley. It has dwindled so much, that 
 
342 
 
 scarcely twelve Canadian families are left ; yet, in 
 1764, Bouqvitt counted 400 inhabitants. On the 
 opposite side of tiic river was formerly the large vil- 
 lage of St. Genevieve, noted for a salt sprini^ ; but 
 the an:aual floods have swept it away, and the peo- 
 ple have retired to the upland, two miles off, where 
 each one occupies a board house on his own land. 
 Twelve or thirteen miles above, on the same side 
 with Kas, was Fort Chartres, built of stone, with 
 unusual magnificence. This has also been destroyed 
 by the river, which has already undermined a bastion 
 of New Madrid, which was founded in 1791, oppo- 
 site the mouth of the Ohio, and 600 feet from the 
 Mississippi. A great part of this fort will probably 
 be washed away by the next floods. 
 
 The magnificent Mississippi, decorated by Mr. 
 B. with all the charms of a land of promise, is a most 
 mischievous neighbour. It rolls along, a mass of yel- 
 low muddy w-ater, a mile and a half wide, which it an- 
 nually lifts twenty or twenty-five feet above its banks, 
 and deluges with it a loose soil of sand and clay ; 
 forms islands and destroys them ; throws trees upon 
 one side, and uproots them on the other ; submitting 
 its course to obstructions of its own creating ; and at 
 length overwhelms the spot which you thought the 
 most secure. The sublimity of this stream is like 
 that of most other grand agent^ in nature, to be ad- 
 mired safely only at a great distance. 
 
 This is not all : its damp and sultry precincts, in 
 summer and autumn, engender obstinate fevers. 
 
343 
 
 Such is the situation of Rocky Meadoivs, a village of 
 ten families ; of Cahokia, or Caho, which has about 
 forty, instead of twice that number, who dwelt there 
 in 1790. Opposite Caho, on the west bank, is St. 
 Lewis, or Pancore, a compact town of seventy houses, 
 with a well-looking but useless stone fort, spreading 
 over two acres, with half a dozen wealthy families, 
 five hundred poor, idle, and sickly whites, and a few 
 blacks, the property of the rich, who treat them well. 
 'The Spanish code is more lenient and benignant to- 
 ward the negroes, than the colonial system of any 
 other nation. This, however, did not prevent an in- 
 surrection in Lower Louisiana, in 1791. In conse- 
 quence of this, all the whites in Upper Louisiana were 
 numbered and enrolled, and found to amount to five 
 hundred. Colonel Sergeant, a man of talents, and 
 high in office in the North-western Territory, who, 
 in 1790, inspected the settlements in the Illinois, as- 
 sured me, that the French families did not exceed a 
 hundred and fifty. The whole population of what is 
 called Upper Louisiana may, therefore, be reckoned 
 at twenty-five hundred, including seven hundred capa- 
 ble of bearing arms. 
 
 These accounts differ, it is plain, very widely from 
 those that have lately circulated at Paris, where this 
 country was described as on the eve of bursting into 
 a mighty empire : but my statements are received 
 from witnesses upon the spot, who had no interest to 
 mislead them, or induce them to mislead others, and 
 I publish them with candour, and without any desire 
 
344 
 
 of preventing others from examining for themselves. 
 I am too well satisfied with this conduct to relinquish 
 it*. 
 
 I have bestowed much reflection on the causes of 
 the great decay of the French settlements in North 
 America, for even in Canada their progress, if com- 
 pared with that of the Americans, is a sort of decayf. 
 It must not be admitted, as is maintained by some, 
 that the French cannot bear the climate so well as 
 their neighbours. The experience of Rochambeau's 
 army proved that the French were more able to sus- 
 tain cold, heat, hardship, and vicissitude than their 
 allies. It seems to me that our fibre is more vital 
 and elastic ; and this natural advantage is improved 
 by our more wholesome regimen. Besides their 
 erroneous diet, as mentioned before, the Americans 
 are scarcely less addicted to liquor than the savages ; 
 and in Wayne's army it was remarked, that the water 
 drinkers held out better than the drinkers of spirits ; 
 and as to the Indians, spirits are well known to kill •'< 
 them faster than even war or the small-pox. 
 
 This difference no doubt proceeds from the differ- 
 ence in the means by which each pursues his end, 
 and in the employment of their time : in other words, 
 
 * In 1799, the population of Upper Louisiana amounted to 
 6028 Trans. 
 
 t At Detroit this national character is evident, for most of the 
 French people told tne, when I was there, that they were going 
 into the British territory, rather than submit to the troublesome 
 republican forms of the United States. 
 
 
S45 
 
 it resolves Itself into a difference in what is called 
 habit or national character. This originates in edu- 
 cation and in government, either of which does more 
 than the physical constitution or temperament. This 
 will clearly appear on comparing the two nations in 
 their ordinary life and conduct. 
 
 The settler, of British or German descent, is of a 
 cold and phlegmatic temper, and deliberately forms a 
 plan of husbandry, which he steadily pursues. He 
 attends sedulously to every thing that can influence 
 the success of his projects. He never becomes idle, 
 till his end is accomplished, and he has put his affairs 
 on a good footing. 
 
 The impetuosity of the Frenchman leads him to 
 embrace precipitately any plausible or flattering pro- 
 ject, and he proceeds in his career without labori- 
 ously computing expences and contingencies. With 
 more genius for his portion, he laughs at the dullness 
 and cautions of his Dutch or English neighbour, 
 whom he stigmatises as an ox : but his neighbour 
 will sedately and wisely reply, that the patient ox will 
 plough much better than the mettlesome racer. And, 
 in truth, the Frenchman's fire easily slackens : his 
 patience is worn out ; and after changing, correcting, 
 and altering his plans, he finally abandons his project 
 in despair. 
 
 His neighbour is in no haste to rise o' mornings, 
 but when fairly up he applies steadily to work. At 
 breakfast he gives cold and laconic orders to his wife, 
 who obeys them without contradiction or deaiur. 
 
 2x 
 
346. 
 
 Weather permitting, he goes to plough or chop ; if 
 the weather be bad, he prosecutes his in-door tasks, 
 looks over the contents of his house and granary, 
 repairs his doors or windows, drives pegs or nails, 
 makes chairs or tables, and is always busy in making 
 his habitation more comfortable and secure. With 
 these habits, he is nowise averse to sell his farm for 
 a good price, and move, even in old age, still farther 
 into the forest, cheerfully recommencing all the la- 
 bours of a new settlement. There will h'e spend 
 years in felling trees, building a hut and a barn, and 
 in fencing and sowing his fields. His wife, as placid 
 and patient as himself, will second all his labours, 
 and they will sometimes pass away six months with- 
 out seeing the face of a stranger. In four or five 
 years, comfort, convenience, and ease will grow up 
 around them, and a competence will recompense their 
 solitary toils. 
 
 The Frenchman, on the contrary. Mill be up be- 
 times, for the pleasure of viewing and talking over 
 matters with his wife, whose counsel he demands. 
 Their constant agreement would be quite a miracle : 
 the wife dissents, argues, wrangles, and the husband 
 has his own way, or give& up to her, and is irritated 
 or disheartened. Home, perhaps, grows irksome, so 
 lie takes his gun, goes a shooting or a journey, or to 
 chat with a neighbour. If he stays at home, he either 
 whiles away the hour in good-humoured talk, or he 
 scolds and quarrels. Neighbours interchange visits: 
 for to visit imd talk are so necessary to a Frenchman, 
 
 i 
 
547 
 
 that along the frontier of Canada and Louisiana there 
 is no where a settler of that nation to be found, but 
 within sight or reach of some other. On asking how 
 far off the remotest settler was, I have been told. He 
 is in the woods, with the bears, a league from any 
 house, and with nobody to talk to. 
 
 This temper is the most characteristic difference 
 between the two nations ; and the more I reflect upon 
 this subject the firmer is my persuasion, that the 
 Americans and the northern Europeans, from whom 
 they are descended, chiefly owe their success in arts 
 and commerce to their habitual taciturnity. In silence 
 they collect, arrange, and digest their thoughts, and 
 have leisure to calculate the future ; they acquire 
 habits of clear thinking and accurate expression ; 
 and hence there is more decision in their conduct, 
 both in public and domestic exigences, and they at 
 once see the way to their point more clearly, and pur- 
 sue it more directly. 
 
 On the contrary, the Frenchman's ideas evaporate 
 in ceaseless chat ; he exposes himself to bickering 
 and contradiction ; excites the garrulity of his wife 
 and sisters ; involves himself in quarrels with his 
 neighbours; and finds, in the end, that his life has 
 been squandered away without use or benefit. 
 
 These distinctions may be thought trivial ; but 
 they are connected with the employment of time, and 
 time, as Franklin says, is the fleece from which is spun 
 the thread of life. These habits must inevitably tend 
 to make men superficial and thoughtless. I have ofteu 
 
348 
 
 questioned the Canadians of the frontier as to distances 
 of time or place, or measures of capacity or magnitude, 
 and have found their notions crude and obscure. They 
 appear to feel and see without reflection, and are un- 
 equal to any calculation, in any degree complex*- 
 They would say, from this place to that is one or two 
 pipes of tobacco ; you can or cannot reach it by sun- 
 set, and the like. But an American settler will state 
 exactly the distance in miles or hours, and the weight 
 or magnitude in pounds, gallons, or yards, and is 
 capable of entering into calculations and forming esti- 
 mates. This practical skill is productive of impor- 
 tant eftbcts in human life, and my readers may be 
 surprised to hear, what nevertheless is true, that, even 
 in Europe, it is much less common among the French 
 than we imagine. 
 
 I have often heard this gossipping and tattling dis- 
 position ascribed to warmth of blood, and briskness 
 of flow in the animal spirits ; but I should rather 
 judge it to be the mere effect of artificial habits and 
 opinions : for going into the east a talkative and lively 
 Frenchman, I returned, in three years, as demure as a 
 Turk. A short stay in France restored my old habits ; 
 but a few months abode in the United States gave 
 me back my oriental taciturnity, which, in like man- 
 ner, aficr my return to Paris, quickly yielded to the 
 sprightly influence of my native air. 
 
 Thtse habits owe much of their force to fashion. 
 Among the Turks and Americans, to talk much is a 
 mark of ill-breeding and vulgarity, while, with us, 
 
 i 
 I 
 
^ 
 
 349 
 
 silence is a token of pride or sullenness : to talk 
 evinces wit and politeness, and to let the conversa- 
 tion drop or droop is a proof of wanting one or the 
 other*. 
 
 The same prejudice it is, the offspring of fashion 
 or education, which inclines the French to blame the 
 readiness of the American to quit his natal spot and 
 ancient patrimony, and fix himself in a new region. 
 There is certainly no crime in leaving a place, when 
 our condition, as we think, can be bettered by a 
 change : but this view of things, if carefully consi- 
 dered, will be found to have been propagated by the 
 rulers, and fostered by the laws of nations in political 
 slavery. To chain men to the soil was always the 
 labour of tyrannical governments, afraid lest their 
 victim should escape them. Now the original motive 
 of the Americans, in leaving Europe, was to break 
 their civil and religious fetters, and we need not be 
 surprised that emigration has become a habit with 
 them, and possesses, in their eyes, the charms which 
 attend an act of liberty. Be this as it may, this spirit 
 will more advance the civilization of the globe than 
 that of a sedentary people, who would rather spend 
 
 * This criterion of wit and politeness seems to prevail every 
 where. To keep up a constant and lively conversation is as much 
 desired on one side of the ocean as the other, but loquacity im- 
 plies the impulse of impertinence and vanity, and is only charged 
 upon those who, in company, talk more than their share.— 
 Trans. 
 
n 
 
 350 
 
 their lives in wars or idleness at home, than form use* 
 ful and splendid settlements abroad. 
 
 I might, perhaps, not improperly, embrace this 
 opportunity of tracing to their true causes the taci- 
 turnity of the one nation, and the reserve of the other. 
 I might enquire if any connection subsists between 
 a dark and misty sky, and a grave and serious de- 
 meanour ; or whether a clear air and brilliant sun 
 does not stimulate to gaiety, by augmenting the elec- 
 tric fluid, which fills and animates the nerves; and whe- 
 ther cold and wet do not make us splenetic, by a direct 
 but inverse action on the nerves and viscera. But 
 since the enquiry is extremely complex ; since the 
 natives of some southern regions, like the Hindoos, 
 Turks, and Spaniards, are as demure and taciturn as 
 some northern nations ; since we must enquire wh}', 
 even in England, the people of bustling cities are as 
 talkative as Frenchmen ; since we ourselves are said 
 to have lost somewhat of our vivacity ; since women, 
 in all countries, are more garrulous than men, and 
 slaves more than denizens ; since it would be first 
 necessary to settle the meaning of the word nation ; 
 to examine whether a peculiar character does not 
 cleave to every class and profession ; and to decide 
 whether v.hat we call the national character be any 
 thing more than the habits of the highest or ruling 
 class ; I shall forbear to enter on such abstruse to- 
 pics. I must, however, observe, that the principles 
 rasliiy embraced by most political writers arc at war 
 
351 
 
 with experience ; that climate and constitution, when 
 most powerful, are causes but subordinate to laws 
 and government, which are able to new- mould our 
 habits, change our conduct, and introduce a total re- 
 volution in the character of nations. 
 
 An instance to this purpose may, I think, be found 
 in the manners of the settlers at Gallipolis and Vin- 
 cennes. Between these there is a difference, which 
 clearly shows that the subjects of Louis XIV and 
 Louis XV were far inferior to the present generation 
 in knowledge and industr3\ The latter, since 1771, 
 have received impressions, and acquired motives of 
 activity, unknown to their ancestors. I have greatly 
 regretted that the Scioto colony, whose members 
 were sober and industrious, were not guided at first 
 to the Wabash or the Mississippi. By adding their 
 numbers and substance to those of the ancient set- 
 tlers, a body might have been formed capable of de- 
 fending itself both agixmst lubites and reds, the savage 
 on one side, and the land jobber on the other, and 
 might have formed a central point for other emigrants 
 to collect around, other Frenchmen who wished to 
 transmit to their posterity the inheritance of liberty 
 and peace. 
 
352 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 On the Indians or Savages* QfJVorth America. 
 
 MY stay at Vincennes afforded me some 
 knowledge of the Indians, who were there assembled 
 to barter away the produce of their red hunt. There 
 were four or five hundred of them, men, women, and 
 children, of various tribes, as the Weeaws, Payories, 
 Sawkies, Pyankishaws, and Miamis, all living near 
 the head of the AVabash. This was the first oppor- 
 tunity I had of observing, at my leisure, a people who 
 
 * The Americans, after the example of the English, call the 
 sirvages Indians. The former term is preferable, because it is ab- 
 surd to give the name, proper to the great Hindoo peninsula, first 
 to South and then to North America. It was the mistake of an 
 early Portuguese navigator, who, in his voyage to India, wandered 
 so far to the west, as to light upon tJie coast of Brazil, which he 
 consoled himself by naming the West Indies.— V. The 
 
 I'rench sauvagc answers, first, to the English .savage, which is ap- 
 plied to persons or actions which we want to stigmatize as wicked 
 and cruel, and is given to men in the rudest state of society, only 
 when we allude to their ignorance or ferocity ; and, secondly, to 
 Indian, which, however derived, is become tht fu-o/iername of the 
 aboriginal tribes of America. To use the term savage as » na- 
 tional appellation would be bad English. — Tkans. 
 
353 
 
 have already become rare east of the Allegheny. It 
 was, to me> a new and most whimsical sight. Bo- 
 dies almost naked, tanned by the sun and air, shining 
 with grease and soot ; head uncovered ; hair coarse, 
 black, and straight; a face smeared with red, blue, 
 and black paint, in patches of all forms and sizes ; 
 one nostril bored to admit a ring of silver or copper ; 
 ear-rings, with three rows of drops, down to the 
 shoulders, and passing through holes that would ad- 
 mit a finger ; a little square apron before, and another 
 behind, fastened by the same string ; the legs and 
 thighs sometimes bare, and sometimes covered with 
 cloth hose ; socks of smoke-dried leather ; sometimes 
 a shirt, with short loose sleeves, and flowing loosely 
 on the thighs, of variegated or striped cloth ; over 
 this a blanket, or a square piece of cloth, drawn over 
 over one shoulder, and fastened under the other, or 
 under the chin. On solemn occasions, or for war, 
 their hair is braided with flowers, feathers, or bones. 
 The warriors have their wrists adorned with broad 
 metal rings, like our dog collars, and a circle round 
 their heads, of buckles or beads. They carry in their 
 hand a pipe, knife or tomahawk, and a little looking- 
 glass, which they examine with as much attention and 
 complacency as any European coquet. The females 
 are a little more covered about the loins. They carry 
 one or two children behind them in a sort of bag, the 
 ends of which are tied upon their forehead. In this 
 respect they have a strong resemblance to our gypsies, 
 
 2 y 
 
54 
 
 ^ 
 
 The men and women roamed all day about tWfi 
 town, merely to get rum, for which they eagerly ex 
 changed their peltry, their toys, their clothes, and at 
 length, when they had parted with their all, they 
 offered their prayers and entreaties, never ceasing to 
 drink till they had lost their senses. Hence arise 
 ridiculous scenes. They will hold the cup with both 
 hands, like monkies, burst into unmeaning laughter, 
 and gargle their beloved cup, to enjoy the taste of 
 it the longer ; hand about the liquor with clamorous 
 invitations, bawl aloud at each other, though close 
 together, seize their wives, and pour the liquor down 
 their throats, and, in short, display all the freaks of 
 vulgar drunkenness. Sometimes tragical scenes en- 
 sue : they become mad or stupid, and falling in the 
 dust or mud, lie a senseless log till next day. We 
 found them in the streets by dozens in the morning, 
 wailo^ving in the filth with the pigs. It was rare for 
 a day to pass without a deadly quarrel, by which 
 about ten men lose their lives yearly. A savage once 
 stabbed his wife, in four places, with a knife, a few 
 paces from me. A similar event took place a fort- 
 night before, and five such the preceding year. For 
 this, vengeance is either immediately taken, or de- 
 ferred to a future opportunity by the relations of the 
 slain, which affords fresh cause for bloodshed and 
 treachery. I at first conceived the design of spending 
 a few months among them, as I had done among the 
 Bedvvins ; but I was satisfied with this sample, and 
 
 i| 
 
355 
 
 those the best acquainted with them assured me, that 
 there was no Arabian hospitality among them : that 
 all was anarchy and disorder. The greatest chief 
 could not strike or punish the meanest warrior, even 
 in the field, and at home nobod}'- obeyed him but his 
 own wife and children. They dwell separately, in mis- 
 trust, jealousy, and eternal animosity. With them, 
 what they want they have a right to, and what they 
 have strength enough to seize is their own. Be- 
 sides, as they scarcely made provision for themselves, 
 a stranger would run the risk of being starved. 
 
 I chiefly regretted, on abandoning my scheme, the 
 loss of an opportunity for gaining some knowledge 
 of their language, and forming a vocabulary : a 
 scheme the importance of which, with respect to a 
 people who want all other monuments, I have else- 
 where insisted on*. The missionary R., whom I 
 have already mentioned, having failed in all his ef- 
 forts to this purpose, left me no hopes of succeeding. 
 Some of rhe people of Vincennes are acquainted with 
 the Indian dialects, but their pronunciation is so bad, 
 and their ignorance of all grammatical distinctions so 
 great, that they could afford him no aid. This more 
 clearly appeared, when a chief of the Weeaws, an old 
 and fast friend of the French, sought a conference 
 with me : we could never get the Canadian interpre- 
 ter to translate literally. 
 
 * See my Lectures upon History, lecture V. 
 
356 
 
 The only person in America capable of giving me , 
 the aid I wanted was a man by the name of Wells, * ■ 
 who had been made captive by the Indians at thirteen 
 years of age, and, having previously had a good edu- 
 cation, he acquired an accurate knowledge of many 
 of their dialects, while he lived among them. After 
 the victories of Wayne, in 1794, he obtained leave to 
 return home, and was at this time acting as interpre- ) 
 ter to the general, who was negociating at Detroit 4 
 with more than seven hundred Indians. I 
 
 This agreed with my plan of visiting Niagara. — j 
 I accordingly returned to Louisville, and passed t 
 through Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky, and Lex- » 
 ington, where, in 1782, not a house was to be seen, 
 but which now contained near five hundred habita- 
 tions, well built of brick. Thence I went to Cincin- 
 nati, and availed myself of a military convoy going to 
 Detroit, through the kindness of major Swan, by a road 
 formed by the army over two hundred and fifty miles 
 of forest. Five pallisaded forts, neatly constructed, 
 were the c:ily stages in this journey. There I met 
 with a most flattering reception from the commander 
 in chief. The country and the season deprived me 
 of the benefits I hoped from this reception, for I was 
 disabled by a severe fever. 
 
 I was obliged to seize the only opportunity that 
 offered for crossing the lake before winter, and return 
 to Philadelphia, where fortunately Mr. Wells arrived, 
 in company with a noted Miami chief, called Mishi- 
 kinakwa, or the Litde Turtle. It was he who con- 
 
357 
 
 tributed most to the defeat of St. Clair, and well-in- 
 formed officers have assured me, that had his plan of 
 waylaying stragglers, and cutting off convoys, been 
 followed, Wayne's army Avould probably have shared 
 the same fate. This hero, convinced at length that 
 all opposition was fruitless, had the wisdom to per- 
 suade his tribe to peaceable measures. His good 
 sense perceived the necessity of turning the attention 
 of his people from hunting and fishing to tillage, and 
 he came to Philadelphia with a view of obtaining the 
 assistance of the government, and the benevolent 
 society of friends*, to his laudable intentions. He 
 had been inoculated for the small-pox since his arri- 
 
 * Commonly called quakers: a sect which has, perhaps, been 
 too much applauded in Europe, and too little in America, on ac- 
 count of the blacks, but which, impartially considered, is, in its 
 theoretical and practical morality, more favourable than any other 
 to the happiness of mankind. Every plan of public charity or re- 
 formation in Pennsylvania is its work, and nothing seems want- 
 ing to make it the church of all reasonable people, but the intro- 
 duction of the physical sciences into their seminaries of education. 
 How can the truly devout condemn as profane the study of the 
 works of God ? — V. The quakers pay due respect to the 
 
 physical and mathematical sciences, and consequently the requi- 
 site here mentioned is not wanting. They even admit the study 
 of ancient and modern languages and literature into their schools; 
 and, with regai'd to the various branches of liberal pursuit, they 
 object to nothing but what is chiefly or solely conducive to the 
 amusement of the senses, as music, dancing, and the like. They 
 deem the human character truly adorned and ennobled by skill in 
 natural philosophy and history, and the sciences properly so 
 called. — Tkans. 
 
val. He had both j^out and rheumatism, for which 
 ihc government had eagerly provided liim medical 
 aid. 
 
 By this accident I was furnished not only with a 
 skilful interpreter, but with the mouth of a native to 
 afford the true primitive words : for I soon made 
 myself acquainted \\iih Mr. Wells and the chief. 
 They readily concurred with my wishes, and nine or 
 ten visits, in January and February, 1798, enabled 
 me to draw up the vocabulary annexed. This was 
 my principal purpose, but the course of conversation 
 afforded me many hints and facts, the more to be 
 relied upon, because they were given accidentally, 
 and without design ; and my being a Frenchman, 
 added to the familiarity of so many interviews, less- 
 ened that suspicion and distrust which these people 
 are apt to entertain of strangers. After each visit I 
 put upon paper what appeared to me worth noting, 
 and these hints, together with such as I was able to 
 collect from other respectable quarters, form the sub- 
 stance of the following pages. 
 
 I am neither able nor willing to treat of savage na- 
 tions in ueneral. There is such a difference, in charac- 
 ler and manners, between the savages of hot climates 
 and of cold, open and wood land, sterile and fruitful, 
 wet or dry, that the theme would be too extensive. 
 I shall merely speak of the aborigines of North Ame- 
 rica, and desire only to contribute my testimony to- 
 wards clearing up a subject so much obscured by 
 paradox and misrepresentation. The reader, I pre- 
 
 i 
 
359 
 
 sume, Is not wholly unacquainted with those travel- 
 lers who have visited and described this people within 
 the last forty years*. 
 
 I first conversed with them on the climate and soil 
 of the Miamis. Mr. Wells informed me, that this 
 tribe dwelt on the upper branches of the Wabash : 
 that its language is spoken by all the tribes of that 
 river, nearly to Lake Michigan, as the Weeaws, 
 Payories, Pyankishaws, Kaskaskias, and Long Isle 
 
 * As Carver, whose travels, in 1768, have been well translated. 
 This writer, though a little credulous and vain, and biassed, by 
 their respect for him, in favour of the savages, seems, on the 
 whole, to have been upright and sincere. His confession that he 
 W's unqualified for forming an Indian grammar and dictionary, 
 leads me to suspect that his work was compiled by another, as 
 was the case with a well-known French traveller. 
 
 Another traveller is John Long, twenty years a factor in the 
 Canada fur trade. His book appeared in 1791, and was translated 
 into French in 1793. It is to be lamented that the translator has 
 omitted the vocabulary. The entire work deserves republication, 
 for I know of no picture so good of the Indians and traders. 
 
 A third is Bernard Romans, of whom I have already said 
 enough. 
 
 A fourth is Umphi*aville, whom I have made knov.'n to my 
 countrymen. 
 
 Adair's book on the Creeks and Cherckecs deserves not men- 
 tion, because he has mixed with a few facts a great many misre- 
 presentations and absurdities, to prove the Indians descended from 
 the Jews. This groundless, notion, which, however, is cherisiicd 
 by a great many missionaries, has led him to view every thing 
 in a delusive light. Without sound notions of the nature of the 
 human understanding, its progress, and the causes tiiat model the 
 man of nature, we ai-e not tit to investigate the history of nations. 
 
Indians : that its dialect is nearly allied to that of the 
 Chippeways, Ottawas, and Shavvanese, but quite dis- 
 tinct from that of the Delawares;^ The Miamis make 
 much use of the nasal sounds, and I almost imagined 
 I heard the Turkish. Their country is divided be- 
 tween forest and savannah, and is colder ihan Vin- 
 cennes. After leaving a complete thaw in this 
 country, Mr. Wells found the same snow 130 miles 
 nortli, without any mountainous elevation of the sur- 
 face. The air at Philadelphia was not so keen. 
 Their winds resemble those on the sea coast. In 
 winter they have clear weather, with a strong and cut- 
 ting north-west ; in summer the south-west prevails, 
 hot, wet, and sometimes tempestuous. The ch\ef 
 rains are brought by the south ; the north, in winter, 
 brings snow, but, in summer, is fair and mild. The 
 south-east is rare, and the north rarer. They have 
 a good soil, with finer maize, and greater plenty of 
 game, than are found east of the mountains. Hence 
 it is that the natives are a stout, well-formed race. 
 The same may be said of the Shawanese, the stature 
 of whose women astonished me more than their 
 beauty. 
 
 While talking with Wells, I was not inattentive to 
 the chit f. Not understanding English, he took no 
 part in the conversation, but walked about, plucking 
 out the hairs from his chin, and even from his eye- 
 brows. He dressed in the American style ; in a blue 
 suit, \vith round hat and pantaloons. I desired Mr. 
 Wells to ask him how he liked his clothes. " At 
 
361 
 
 first," said he, " they confined my limbs unpleasantly; 
 but I have got used to them ; and as they defend me 
 against th£ heat and the cold, I now like them well 
 enough." Tucking up his sleeves, he showed me a 
 skin, between the wrist and elbow, whose white- 
 ness surprised me. It differed not at all from my 
 own. My hands were as much tanned as his, and 
 we looked as we had a pair of gloves on. His skin 
 was as soft and fair as a Parisian's. 
 
 We talked a good deal about the colour of the Indi- 
 ans. The copper or red hue is commonly supposed to 
 be innate, and to discriminate this race, as black does 
 the Africans ; but I gathered from these interviews, 
 that, though they distinguish themselves by the name 
 of red men, and justly pride themselves on this dis- 
 tinction, yet they are born as white as we*, and con- 
 tinue so through infancy!, the copper hue being 
 derived from exposure to the sun, and from the 
 grease and juices with which they rub themselves. 
 The women are always white about the middle, in 
 those parts which are constantly covered. It is, 
 therefore, far from true that the copper hue is innate 
 to this people ; nor indeed is it universal : on the 
 contrary, many tribes of North America have differ- 
 ent shades, and their diversity, in this respect, is one 
 of their means of distinguishing each other. 
 
 * So is the negro, but he grows black in a few hours. 
 t Oldmixon says the same. 
 
 2 z 
 
362 
 
 Mr. Wells, who had lived, in their fashion, fifteen 
 years among them, had their eomplexion. The real 
 colour appeared to be that of soot, or of smbked ham, 
 clear and shining, exactly similar to that of the pea- 
 sants of Lower Poitou, Mho live like savages, in a 
 hot, moist climate, or that of the Andalusiar.s. 
 
 On mentioning this to Little Turde, he replied : 
 " That he had seen Spaniards in Louisiana, and saw 
 no difference between their colour and his own. And 
 AAhy," said he, " should there be any ? In them and^ 
 us the sun, the father of colours^ causes it by burning 
 us. You yourselves see the difference between your 
 faces and bodies." This reminded me that, when I 
 quitted the turban, on leaving Turkey, half my fore- 
 head resembled bronze, while the other half, above 
 it, was as white as paper. If, as philosophers be- 
 lieve, all colours flow from light, it is plain that the 
 difference in human complexions is produced by the 
 action of this fluid, in conjunction with some other, 
 on the skin. It will one day be proved, that the 
 sable hue of the negro arises from no other cause*. 
 
 The features of the Little Turtle bore a strong re- 
 semblance to those of some Chinese Tartars, who 
 had been brought to Philadelphia by Van Braam, the 
 
 * New facts, corrobovating this conclusion, daily occur. One 
 of these is the remarkable case of Henry Mess, a negro of Vir- 
 ginia, descended in the third degree from natives of Congo, who, 
 in the course of seven years, became white, with smooth brown 
 hair, like any European. He is the same mentioned by Lian- 
 court. 
 
 H 
 
363 
 
 Dutch ambassador to Pekin. This likeness between 
 the Indians and Tartars has struck all who have seen 
 them both, but perhaps some have too hastily inferred 
 that the former are originally from Asia. As Indians 
 have some notions of geography, I explained this 
 theory to the chief, and laid before him a map of the 
 contiguous parts of Asia and America. He readily 
 recognized rhe Canadian lakes, and the Ohio, Wa- 
 bash, Sec, and the rest he eyed with an eagerness 
 that showed it was new to him : but it is a rule in 
 Indian manners never to betray surprise. When I 
 showed him the communication by Behring's Straits 
 and the Aleutian isles, " Why," said he, " should 
 not these Tartars, who are like us, have gone first 
 fjom the American side? Are there any proofs to 
 thf^ contrary ? Why should not their fathers and 
 our'b have been born in our country ?" The Indians, 
 indeed, give themselves the name of Metoktheniaka 
 {born of the soil. J " I see no objection," said I: 
 " but our black coats (the name given by the Indians 
 to the missionaries) won't allow it. It is only diffi- 
 cult to find out how any particular nation sprung up 
 at the beginning." *' But that," he answered, " is 
 as great a difficulty to the black coats as to us*," 
 
 I have said that the Indians resemble the Asiatic 
 Tartars ; but some exceptions must be made, for the 
 
 * Voiney never slips an oppoi'tunity of glancing at religion. 
 If he really kr.ew of no argument, no proof, in favour of the prior 
 settlement of the eastern continent, he must indeed be as ignorant 
 as his savage acquaintance. — Trans. 
 
364 
 
 Esquimeaux of the north, and the grey-eyed race, 
 near Nootka Sound, are each a distinct race, with no 
 Tartarean features. The Tartar face belongs only 
 to those who people the middle and southern regions, 
 and who form a vast majority. This face is not that 
 of the Calmucks, whose flattened face and nose are not 
 found among them. In general, the Indian face is tri- 
 angular at the lower part, and square at the upper; has 
 a well- shaped forehead ; eyes black, deep set, small 
 and lively ; cheeks somewhat prominent ; a straight 
 nose, and thick lips ; their hair is universally black, 
 coarse, and straight; their look is watchful, suspici- 
 ous, and ferocious. 
 
 Such is the national physiognomy, but it is varied 
 in the tribe and individual. At Vincennes and De- 
 troit I met with faces that reminded me of Bedwins 
 and Egyptian fellahs. In the hue of their skin, qua- 
 lity of hair, and many other circumstances, they were 
 alike. They likewise resemble in having a mouth 
 shaped like a shark's, the sides lower than the front, 
 the teeth small, regular, white, and very sharp, like 
 the tyger's*. This form may perhaps arise from 
 their custom of biting from a large piece when they 
 eat, without the use of knives. This motion gives 
 the muscles a form, which they at length retain, and 
 the solid parts are modified conformably to itf. 
 
 * Children consequently cut them easily, and never suffer from 
 dentition. 
 
 t This will not account for the sharp teeth and the easy denti- 
 tion, nor, indeed, wili'il account for any thing. — Trans. 
 
365 
 
 Viewing things in this light, the resemblance between 
 savage tribes, remote from each other, will not argue 
 any relationship between them, for similarities in 
 shape and feature will naturally flow from similar cli- 
 mate, soil, food, and manners. Their women have 
 no peculiarity of feature. I do not deny the claim 
 of the females to beauty. In this respect tastes can- 
 not but vary, and toil and abstinence will make that 
 a dainty, which, at another time, would be nauseous 
 or insipid. I shall say little of the custom of the Chac- 
 taws to mould the skull of their new-born children 
 to the shape of a truncated pyramid, by pressing them 
 between boards. This mode is so effectual, that the 
 tribe is known by the name of the Flat Heads. 
 
 Some intelligent writers have said, that these peo- 
 ple are all so much alike, that they are hardly distin- 
 guishable one from another. They might as well 
 say that all negroes and all sheep are alike : but this 
 would only prove the carelessness of their scrutiny ; 
 that they have not the eye of the shepherd or the 
 slave dealer. ' " We know every tribe," said Little 
 Turtle, " at first sight. The shape, colour, knees, 
 legs, and feet are all to us certain marks of distinc- 
 tion. The print of the foot enables us to distinguish 
 not only between men, women, and children, but 
 even tribes. You whites are always known by turn- 
 ing out your toes. We carry them straight forward, 
 to avoid the obstacles of stones and bushes. Some 
 turn their toes inward, have broad or narrow, long 
 
566 
 
 or short feet; some tread more on the heel, others 
 on the toe, and the like." 
 
 That the Indians have no beard is a notion ground- 
 less, indeed, but formerly very current. The smooth 
 chin is occasioned by the extreme care with which 
 the hairs are, from time to time, eradicated. This 
 custom is attested by all the accurate observers, such 
 as Romans, Carver, Long, Umphravillc, &:c. Oid- 
 mixon, who wrote, in 1707, from the best authorities, 
 says, the Indians have no beard, because they use 
 certain receipts to remove it, which they will not dis- 
 close. These receipts are since found to be nothing 
 more than little shells, employed as tweezers. Since 
 metals have been knov/n to them, they make use of 
 a piece of brass wire rolled on a round stick, of the 
 size of a finger, so as to form a spiral spring, which 
 grasps the hair, and pulls out several at one time. 
 
 It is strange that our Lahontan, and Kaimes among 
 the English*, should have been ignorant of this fact : 
 but it is by no means wonderful that such a para- 
 doxiccil visionary as De Pauw should adopt the notion 
 that the Indians are naturally beardless. Both Mr. 
 Wells and Little Turtle left me no doubt on this 
 head. The latter was as constantly employed in ex- 
 tracting the hair, even of his eye-brows, as the Turks 
 are in curhng their whiskers. No wonder if this 
 
 * And the illustrious ami laborious investigator Dr. Robert- 
 son. — Trans. 
 
367 
 
 practice, continued for several generations^^ enfeeble 
 the roots of the beard. As to hair elsewhere on the 
 body, I myself have seen it surprisingly long and 
 straight under the arm-pits. Does it grov/ more 
 freely from exposure to the air ? and did the custom 
 of out-rooting the beard arise from the wish to deprive 
 the enemy of such a hold on the face ? This to me 
 seems probable. 
 
 The shape of the Indians is justly admired. They 
 are generally plump and well made. Those who 
 dwell in a fruitful and well watered country, like the 
 banks of the Wabash, are taller and stouter than those 
 who occupy poor land, which is the situation of all 
 beyond latitude 45° north, who are both shorter and 
 more slender. If we never meet with halt or blind 
 among them, w^e must not draw too hasty an inference 
 in favour of Indian manners, since every feeble child 
 must necessarily perish in infancy. Nay, parents 
 will sometimes expose a deformed and burthensome 
 infant; and, in this respect, they imitate the Spar- 
 tans, and obey Lycurgus : not that they took the 
 hint from the Spartan legislator, but because the same 
 causes produce every where the same effects. In a 
 poor and warlike nation, there is no place for idle or 
 helpless mouths : and hence it is, that among many 
 tribes, north of Lake Superior, the old and burthen- 
 some are dispatched to live in another country ; in 
 
 * How should the practice of one man, in this respect, affect 
 the growth of hair in his grandson? — Trans. 
 
SOS 
 
 plain terms, they are killed, as was done, according 
 to Herodotus, by the savages of Scythia and the 
 Erythrcan sea. So wretched is this state of barbar- 
 ism, that the old men themselves are generally the 
 first to ask for death. If an Indian lose a limb by 
 war or disease, he is undone. How could a cripple 
 resist a robust enemy ? How could he hunt, or fish, 
 or get food, which nobody will gratuitously give him? 
 Nobody has any thing in store, and each one subsists 
 on his own precarious and laboriqus gettings. Hence 
 likewise it is that none of them labour under ruptures 
 nor chronical complaints. Wild Nature around them 
 seems to say, " Be strong or perish." Yet she often 
 deprives them even of this hard option, by frequently 
 multiplying their difficulties, till the strongest sink 
 under the load. 
 
 Much has also been said of the sound health of the 
 Indians. Doubtless their constitutions derive a force 
 and vigour from hardship and exposure, which the 
 effeminate life of cities cannot afford : but it is to 
 be remembered, that their way of life is a tissue of 
 irregularities and excesses incompatible with constant 
 health. They abhor the quiet labours of the farmer ; 
 the roaming and precarious life of fishers and hunters 
 they prefer ; and having no stores nor durable provi- 
 sion, no cattle nor corn, they are liable to the most 
 violent vicissitudes of scarcity and superfluity. When 
 game is plenty, and they can pursue it without dan- 
 ger or constraint, they revel and gluttonize, but when 
 it is scarce, and this happens every winter, or their 
 
569 
 
 steps are hampered by the fear of an enemy, they are 
 reduced to subsist, like the wolf, on roots and the 
 bark of trees. They have lately bethought them- 
 selves of drying fish, and reducing it to powder, but 
 they never provide enough to last them through the 
 season. When, after a long fast, they light on prey, 
 a deer, bear, or buffaloe, they fall on it like vultures, 
 and leave it not till they are gorged to the throat. This 
 custom makes them unmanageable guides on a regu- 
 lar journey. The quantity they will devour on such 
 occasions, though the fact is supported by the strong, 
 est testimony, is scarcely credible. It is notorious that 
 a couple of starving Indians will pick the bones of a 
 Seer clean at one meal, and be still unsatisfied. This 
 reminds us of the heroes at Troy, who could eat up 
 half a calf or a lamb at breakfast : a clear proof that 
 these heroes were no better than Creeks and Chero- 
 kees. 
 
 Such excesses, preceded and followed by painful 
 abstinences, must necessarily impair the stomach and 
 destroy the health; and true it is that they are afiiic- 
 ted with diseases of the stomach, intermittent and bi- 
 lious fevers, consumption, and pleurisy. Fractures 
 and dislocations are not rare among them, but they 
 are pretty dexterous in reducing- them. They would 
 suffer more from rheumatism, if they did not practice 
 fumigatipn, by means of hot stones. The havoc 
 made among them by the small-pox is v/ell known ; 
 and the evil is no doubt aggravated by the hardness 
 
 3 A 
 
370 
 
 of their skin, which opposes the eruption. Mr. Jef- 
 ferson will do them an important kindness by teach- 
 ing them, as the newspapers tell us he is domg, the 
 process of vaccination. Of late years, the quaker and 
 moravian missionaries, who have succeeded the Je- 
 suits*, tell us, that their converts have become more 
 strong and hardy, and less subject to sickness, than 
 the untamed savages. The superiority of the people 
 of Kentucky and Virginia over tjiem has been proved, 
 not only in the contest of troop with troop, but man 
 to man, in all their wars. 
 
 I shall not mention, in proof of their infirmity, 
 their slow pulse, as maintained by Dr. Rush, because 
 Dr. Barton, at the same time and in the same per- 
 sons, could perceive no difference, and the pulse of 
 Little Turtle appeared to me just like my own. Nei- 
 ther shall I mention the weakness of the sexual passion 
 ascribed to them, as this arises from another cause. 
 The Indian is continent and almost chaste from prin- 
 ciple, and the danger of his situation ; the least dimi- 
 nution of his strength might cost him his life, by 
 making him less able to resist the attacks of his fel- 
 low-men, or of Naturef. 
 
 * The qiiakers are missionaries on a new plan, since their ob- 
 ject is not to influence the religious faith of the Indians, but merely 
 to convert them into husbandmen, carpenters, smiths, and wea- 
 vers. — Trans. 
 
 t This- is ascribing to the Indian much more moderation and 
 foresiijlit than he diophiys on other occasions. Since he is not 
 
S71 
 
 1 asked Mr. Wells whether there were many whites 
 who adopted the savage life from choice, and why 
 they preferred it to what we call the civilised life. 
 His answer, which was copious and minute, agreed 
 with what I had already heard from men of sense and 
 experience, in Kentucky, at Vincennes, and Detroit. 
 I learned from all these persons, that the Canadians, 
 or men of French descent, were much more apt to 
 make this exchange, than the men of British or Ger- 
 man blood. The latter bear a violent antipathy to 
 the Indians, which is encreased by the cruelty these 
 people exercise upon their captives. They have a 
 particular repugnance to the Indian females, which 
 the French have not. Yet the preference of a savage 
 life is less common among grown men than among 
 the young. Americans, who have been carried off 
 at an early age, have sometimes become attached to 
 this life, because the liberty in which children are in- 
 dulged of running and playing about is more agree- 
 ble to them than the restraints of schools. To have 
 nothing to do but to play is all that children desire ; 
 years will hardly inure them to labour and study, but 
 a few days will give them habits of idleness and inde- 
 
 deterred, by the most palpable and powerful considerations, from 
 the excessive indulgence of other appetites, more immediately 
 and glaringly destructive of his safety and health than this, we 
 cannot suppose him so very wise and provident on this head. 
 The fact, indeed, ought to be proved before it is accounted fur.— 
 Trans. 
 
' 372 
 
 pendence. These are the primitive inclinations of 
 man, and he turns to them mechanically*. 
 
 As to adults, especially if they be Americans, 
 taken and adopted by the Indians, they seldom con- 
 tract a liking for the wigwam. " I myself (said Mr. 
 Wells, who appeared to be about thirty-two), though 
 taken away at thirteen, and adopted and well treated, 
 could never forget the scenes and pleasures I had al- 
 ready tasted. 
 
 " Those who join the Indians of their own accord ^ i 
 are generally Canadians, shallow libertines, idle and 
 capricious. The influence they acquire among their . i 
 new friends flatters their vanity, and their licentious ■ 
 indulgences with the squaws form another charm to 
 their vicious mindsf; but when they grow old, and 
 sink into extreme misery, they seldom fail to return 
 to their early habits, and regret their rambles when 
 too late. 
 
 " Among us, a man, with ever so little industry, 
 may get a comfortable living for the present, and lay 
 
 * The children of the frontier settlers are but little acquainted 
 v'ith scholastic restraints. The true reason why the captive 
 child soon becomes savage in his habits is the same that makes 
 the savage him.self persist in the course he has been accustomed 
 to ; because he was too young at the time of his captivity to have 
 imbibed opposite habits and impressions, and young enough, 
 tlierefore, to receive all those proper to the Indian mode of life. 
 — Trans. " . 
 
 t What becomes of the continence and chastity supposed above 
 to be characteristic of the savage life? — Trans. 
 
373 
 
 up something for old age. We establish a farm, 
 bring up children, who, when we are worn out with 
 age, will close our eyes. Not so among Indians. All 
 your pleasures consist of eating and drinking, and 
 these are not always to be had, and hunting. The 
 utmost flight of ambition is to be a great warrior, of 
 some repute among five or six hundred men. Old 
 age comes on with speed, your strength fails, your 
 influence is no more, infirmity, contempt, neglect en- 
 sue, and the only boon you can beg for, with success, 
 is the stroke that puts an end to your existence. The 
 Indian never requires the service of another : to serve 
 or obey is, in his eyes, an ignominy reserved only 
 for women. To hunt and fight are his provinces, 
 while on the women is laid the burthen of all house- 
 hold affairs, of tillage, if any there be, and of carrying 
 the children and utensils on a journey : in short, they 
 are beasts of burthen. They have no share in their 
 husbands' property. Were Little Turtle to return 
 home and die to-morrow, all his presents, clothes, 
 hats, trinkets, would be scrambled for by his coun- 
 trymen, and nothing go to his wife or children. 
 Such is the custom of his tribe, and of many others : 
 while living, each enjoys his arms, trinkets, and other 
 moveables, but when dead, not even his knife or pipe 
 falls to his children. They have no notion whatever 
 of property in land or houses*. 
 
 * Except the hut each one occupies. — .Trams. 
 
374 
 
 '' A life, thus hard, is constantly in danger. The 
 chances to which his life is continually exposed, arc 
 the chief subject of an Indian's thoughts. It is a frail 
 vessel, momently liable to be broken by a thousand 
 accidents. Death becomes so familiar to him, that 
 he regards it with indifference : when inevitable, he 
 resigns himself to it, or braves it with alacrity. 
 Hence it is that he is attached to nothing but his 
 weapons, or perhaps some associate, whose aid is 
 wseful to his safety. He regards his children as any 
 other animal regards its young. He fondles and 
 caresses them while present, but he leaves them with- 
 out reluctance, and goes to hunt or to figlit without 
 thinking of them more. They may shift for them- 
 selves, and live or die ; no matter, since death must, 
 sooner or later, be their lot. Suicide is common 
 among them : they kill themselves when tired of 
 life, or thwarted in love, or in rage, when provoked 
 without the means of vengeance. They live almost 
 wholly to the present, they give little or no remem- 
 brance to the past, and hope nothing for the future. 
 In health, they gambol, laugh, and sing ; sick or 
 weary, they lie down, smoke, or steep : but as they 
 seldom possess the means or opportunity of food or 
 repose, they can found on this no claims to liberty or 
 happiness." 
 
 Such was the sum of Mr. Wells's information, 
 which was the more valuable, as being the result of 
 twelve or fifteen years experience. I was curious to 
 
375 
 
 know the reasons that withheld the Indians from set- 
 tling and incorporating with the whites, and why- 
 many of them, though educated in colleges and on 
 farms, so eagerly reverted to the habits of their coun- 
 trymen. A few days afterwards, I had an opportu- 
 nity of making these enquiries of Little Turtle him- 
 self, and obtaining his answers. 
 
 Some o^ the frieMs had paid him a visit, and in- 
 vited him to remain among them, promising him that 
 he should want for nothing. When they were gone, 
 I asked him, through our interpreter, why he did not 
 accept their offer. " You know these people. They 
 are slow in their offers and advances, but what they 
 promise you know they will perform. Are you 
 not more comfortable here than on the banks of the 
 Wabash ?" 
 
 He made a considerable pause, agreeably to the In- 
 dian habits of deliberation and reserve in speaking. 
 After some meditation, walking about the while, and 
 plucking out his beard, he replied: '* Yes; I am 
 pretty well accustomed to what I find here. I think 
 this dress warm and comfortable. These houses are 
 good to keep out wind and rain, and they have every 
 thing convenient. This market (we overlooked Mar- 
 ket-street) gives us every thing we want, without the 
 trouble of hunting in the woods. All things consi- 
 dered, you are better oif than we, but — here, I am 
 deaf and dumb. I do not talk your language. When 
 I walk the streets, I see every body busy about some- 
 thing; one makes shoes, another hats, i third sells 
 
376 
 
 cloth, and all live by their work. I say to myself, which 
 of these things can I do ? Not one. I can make a bow, 
 catch fish, kill deer, and go to war, but none of these 
 things are done here. To learn what you do would 
 ask much time, be very difficult, and uncertain of 
 success ; and meanwhile old age hurries on. Were I 
 to stay with the whites, I should be an idle piece of 
 furniture, useless to myself, to you, and to my nation. 
 What must be done with useless lumber ? I must 
 go back*." 
 
 In this reply may we find the solution of the pro- 
 blem. To every removal to a strange country the 
 language is the first obstacle. To live with those 
 with whom we cannot converse is intolerable ; and 
 long after you speak it, it is extremely difficult to 
 utter your wishes and ideas with readiness and pro- 
 priety. This impediment surmounted, and the young- 
 only can hope to surmount it, three others remain : 
 
 * These reasonings would have been easily confuted, but no 
 reasonings could have changed his inclinations, already moulded 
 and fixed irrecoverably by the force of habit. The Indian life is 
 a thousand times preferable, as to ease, safety, and liberty, to that 
 of a sailor, yet how many of civilised communities are sailors I 
 and how impossible to change their inclinations by reasoning ! 
 Habit endears motion, hardship, and danger, and an Indian returns 
 to his woods for the same reasons which influenced an old gentle- 
 man of easy fortune, in Rhode Island, after several years retire- 
 ment, to equip a ship, and resume his early vocation o( (rans/iori- 
 ing 7iegroes from Jfrica to Ja?}tatca. Every body knows the ter- 
 rors, dangers, discomforts, and privations that beset the niaslcr* 
 and, above all, the mariner of u slave-ship.— -Tkan's. 
 
377 
 
 First, the early habits and impressions of childhood, 
 the force of which is such, that, after much considera- 
 tion^ I am now clearly of opinion^ that the moral system 
 of man has assumed, at the age of five years, a shape 
 and tendency which it will retain through life. New 
 or late events may unfold it, but the character con- 
 tains nothing new ; all proceeds from the seed sown 
 in childhood. Secondly, the tie of friendship and 
 kindred. Thirdly, that painful and laborious pre- 
 paration, which our social state would demand from 
 an Indian ; not to mention the physical difficulty of 
 abjuring his careless and erratic habits, and submit- 
 ting to the restraint and drudgery of cities*. 
 
 These men are in the state of wild animals, which 
 cannot be tamed after they have reached a mature 
 age. The missionaries have been long ago convin- 
 
 * All these causes apply -with as much force to that part cf ci- 
 vilised mankind v/ho pass a country life, as to the Indians. The 
 true problem is not why the Indian cannot be changed into a shop- 
 keeper or mechanic, but why he cannot, like the Canadian of 
 Vincennes and Kaskaskias, add to the enjoyment of his native 
 woods, to hunting and fishing, the keeping of a cow or a few 
 sheep, and the occasional culture of a corn field or a polatoe 
 patch. This is all that the welfare cf the United States, and 
 their own happiness and dignity require of them. Nobody would 
 think of persuading Little Turtle or Coni Planter to idle away 
 his life in the streets of a city, which any Canadian trader or 
 Ohio planter would find as irksome and unnatural as li* ; but why 
 he cannot, if in fact he cannot, be persuaded to use his influence 
 and example to induce his tribe to provide against scarcity of 
 game, or infirmity of age, by appropriating and cultivating a lit- 
 tle ground, is the only mystery. — Trans. 
 
 3 B ' 
 
378 
 
 ced of this, and they all agree that this people can 
 only be changed by taking them from infancy, nay, 
 even from the birth, as we take birds we wish to dis- 
 cipline, from the nest. This passion for independ- 
 ence, that is, for doing nothing, is so strong among 
 mankind, that the mechanics who adventure from 
 Europe to America, if they have not skill to thrive 
 pretty soon in the towns, generally apply their little 
 earnings to buying a few acres in the coimtry, where 
 ground is to be had for twenty or fifty cents an acre, 
 and there they settle as proprietors. Cutting down 
 trees being rather toilsome, they soon relinquish the 
 task, and mingle with their labour the diversions of 
 shooting and fishing. In short, they become half sa- 
 vages. But what price do they pay for these plea- 
 sures ? Let us hear Mr. Wells. 
 
 " Little Turtle has good reasons for what he says. 
 If he delayed returning, he would lose all credit with 
 his countrymen. Already it requires some address 
 to retain their esteem. At home, he must resume 
 their dress and habits, and be careful of praising those 
 he has left, for fear of wounding their pride, which is 
 extreme. Among them, the jealousy of every mem- 
 ber of the clan makes the station of chief as perilous 
 and tottering as that of a leader in a democratic state, 
 for theirs, in fact, is a wild and lawless democracy. 
 This man has at home good clothes, tea^ and coffee. 
 He has a cow, and his wife makes butter. But he 
 must not indulge himself in these things, but reserve 
 them for the whites. His first cow was killed by 
 
379 
 
 night, and he was obliged to feign ignorance of the 
 man who did it, and to report that she died of her- 
 self*." 
 
 " What," said I, ivith an air of surprise , " are these 
 men of nature capable of hatred, envy, and sordid re- 
 venge ? There are prime geniuses among us who 
 maintain that the passions take root only in civilised 
 society." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Wells, " let them spend a few 
 months among Indians, and they will change their 
 opinion." He then confirmed all I had heard at Vin- 
 cennes and in Kentucky, of the intestine feuds and 
 anarchy that raged among these nations. He told 
 me, that the old had no coercive power over the 
 young ; that any mutinous or fanatical young man 
 might raise confusion among the youth, always tur- 
 bulent, because idle, and stir up a war involving the 
 whole tribe. Those things did not merely follow 
 from the madness of drunkenness, but from certain 
 superstitions, and a thirst of blood and of motion, 
 common to wild men and wild beasts. He gave 
 some curious instances of tricks and stratagems 
 among neighbouring tribes, the feuds they gave birth 
 to, the deep revenge harboured for slight affronts, 
 
 * It appears, then, that Little Turtle was a man capable of see- 
 inji; the benefits of turning farmer. His difficulties were unavoid- 
 able in iiis situation, but he is an example that an Indian can ab- 
 jure his habits, and adopt all the modes of the whites which are 
 worthy of adoption. — Trans. 
 
380 
 
 and the system of immeasureable retaliation which 
 these produce. 
 
 A striking example of this vindictive spirit occur- 
 red, within my own observation, at Miami fort, in the 
 conduct of a noted chief called Blue Jockey. This 
 man, m hen drunk, met an old enemy, to whom he had 
 borne a grudge of twenty-two years standing. Blue 
 Jockey seized the opportunity, and killed him. Next 
 day all the family were in arms to revenge the mur- 
 der. He came to the fort, and said to the command- 
 ing officer, who repeated the tale to me, " Let them 
 kill me. It is but right. My heart betrayed me, and 
 the liquor robbed me of my wits. But they threaten 
 to kill my son, and that is not just. Father, try to 
 make it up for me. I will give them all I have : my 
 two horses, my trinkets, my weapons, except one set, 
 and, if that will not content them, I will meet them 
 at any time and place, and they may kill me." 
 
 This law of retaliation prevails among all barba- 
 rians, that is among those who have no regular go- 
 vernment : for then each man is obliged to be his 
 own protector. To suppose it transmitted from the 
 earliest races, from Arabs or Hebrews, is absurd. 
 It may indeed have been the Arabs who introduced 
 it into Spain, Italy, and Corsica^. It is quite pos- 
 
 * In the three months which I spent in Corsica, I heard of 1 1 1 
 private murders, committed in retahation. Under the Genoese 
 government, they amounted to 900 yearly. What J\ government I 
 ■what manners! 
 
381 
 
 sible, however, that barbarism had introduced it al- 
 ready, and without their aid*. 
 
 " Yet," said Mr. Wells, " the Indians of the 
 Wabash, the Miamis, Putewoatamies, &c. are better 
 than they were a few generations ago. Longer 
 intervals of peace, which they owe to the decline of 
 the Six Nations, have allowed them to raise some 
 corn and potatoes, and even cabbages and turnips. 
 Their captives have planted peach and apple trees, 
 and taught them to breed poultry, pigs, and even 
 cows : in short, they are as much improved as the 
 Creeks and Chactawsf. 
 
 When we recollect that, according to the earliest 
 travellers and annalists of New England and Virginia, 
 the Indians were of old still further advanced than at 
 present ; that each tribe had a sachem or chief, pos- 
 sessed, in some respects, of monarchical authority, and 
 
 * The last two sentences contradict, in some degree, the fore- 
 going one. Retaliation is the mode of punishment which all 
 simple nations, and some refined ones, have solemnly adopted, as 
 the most just. Tiie same structure of mind, which gave this rule 
 to one nation, or one man, gives it to another. — Trans. 
 
 t These hints would lead us to suppose that the Indian tribes 
 have really derived some benefit from their vicinity to a civilised 
 people. They very early learned the use of horses and fire-arms, 
 and thus acquired new means of killing game and defending 
 themselves. They receive many useful, as well as some perni- 
 cious things, in the Avay of trade, and have already probably taken 
 several steps towards a total assimilation to the customs of the 
 whites, but they are hastening to extinction with a much quicker 
 pace than to civilisation.— Tu an s. 
 
382 
 
 composing privileged and noble families, as ahiong die 
 Arabs ; that their population was considerable, and 
 their respective territories of moderate extent : must 
 we not infer tliat their state was more civilised ; that 
 they would have spontaneously gone forward to the 
 point which human societies have reached in the east- 
 ern continent ; that their wars with the colonists have 
 plunged them into anarchy, and thrown them many 
 degrees backward ; that their state, rude as it is, is 
 liable to revolutions, perhaps the more frequent and 
 violent, as their numbers are smaller, and their con- 
 dition weaker ? 
 
 The Weeaw chief, who harangued me at Vin- 
 cennes said to me, " Before the war (from 1788 to 
 1794), we were united and peaceable ; we began to 
 raise corn like the whites. But now we are poor 
 hunted deer, scattered abroad without house or home, 
 and, unless somebody come to our assistance, no 
 trace of us will be left." 
 
 While conversing with Mr. Wells, the chief was 
 looking out of the window at what was passing in 
 Market- street. To draw his attention, I told him I 
 had been among a people strangely different from his, 
 for they were kept in subjection by five or six thou- 
 sand horsemen, though they amounted to two mil- 
 lions and a half in number, and covered a country al- 
 most equal to the Ohio. So that about three hun- 
 dred and seventy persons allowed themselves to be 
 robbed, imprisoned, beaten, and abused by a single 
 man, no stronger than any of them. 
 
 J 
 
383 
 
 Knowing the haughty spirit of aiv Indian, I ex- 
 pected some very indignant reply ; but he merely an- 
 swered, quietly stroking his chin, " For all that, they 
 have, no doubt, pleasures of their own kind." I was 
 much surprised at an answer which betokened a mind 
 free from the prejudice of education, and capable of 
 comprehending the power of habit. 
 
 In conclusion, I enquired what it was that so much 
 engaged his attention in the market, and what he 
 thought most remarkable in Philadelphia. 
 
 " In observing this multitude" (it was market 
 day), replied he, " two things surprise me : the 
 great number of the white people, and the difference 
 in their faces. We red men have each a face and ap- 
 pearance of his own, but still we are all much alike : 
 but here there is an endless and puzzling variety. 
 There are ten cliiFerent shades between black and 
 white; and the face, the forehead, nose, mouth, and 
 chin ; black, brown, and light hair ; blue, grey, and 
 brown eyes : all make such a diversity as puzzles 
 me very much." 
 
 I told him that this city was visited by all nations 
 of the globe, and these, by marrying together, could 
 not fail of producing great varieties. But, added I, 
 if you were to visit the inland parts of our countries, 
 France or England, you would find all the people of 
 a village, by marrying among themselves for many 
 generations, become all alike. — This is what I have 
 frequently noticed, in sequestered and lonely parishes, 
 especially in the forests of Laval and Rennes. Sta- 
 
384 
 
 tioning myself fit the church door, I have examined 
 the people as they passed, and I have observed one 
 general physiognomy common, but peculiar to each 
 parish. 
 
 " As to your numbers," said the chief, " your en- 
 crease is quite inconceivable. More than two lives, 
 supposing eighty years to each, have not gone by 
 since the' whites first set foot among us, yet already 
 they swarm like flies : while we, who have been here 
 nobody knows how long, are still as thin as deer." 
 
 Finding his thoughts going in this track, I asked 
 him why they did not multiply as fast. " Ah !" said 
 he, " our case is very different. You whites con- 
 trive to collect upon a small space a ^ure and plenti- 
 ful supply of food. A white man gathers from a field, 
 a few times bigger than this room, bread enough for 
 a whole year. If he adds to this a small field of grass, 
 he maintains beasts, which give him all the meat and 
 clothes he wants, anct all the rest of his time he may 
 do what he pleases ; while we must have a great deal 
 of ground to live upon. A deer will serve us but a 
 couple of days, and a single deer must have a great 
 deal of ground to put him in 'good condition. If 
 we kill twio or three hundred a year, 'tis the same as 
 to eat all the wood and grass of the land they live on, 
 and that is a great deal*. No wonder the whites 
 
 * A thoiisiml acres a head, in a fruitful counUy, is a scanty al- 
 lo'.vance Ibr Indian populatitm. An Irish peasant's family, of six 
 persons, derive a plentiful subiiistence from three acres of pasture 
 
385 
 
 drive us every year further and further before them, 
 from the sea to the Mississippi. They spread like 
 oil on a blanket ; we melt like snow before the sun. 
 If things do not greatly change, the red men will dis- 
 appear very shortly." These remarks convinced me, 
 as they will my readers, that this man has justly earned 
 the reputation which he enjoys, for sagacity superior 
 to most of his countrymen. 
 
 Here we have an Indian, who, in spite of the pre- 
 judices of his education, of prejudices sanctioned by 
 the ancient and universal habits and opinions of his 
 countrymen, has had penetration enough to discover 
 the essential basis of the social state in the cultivation 
 of the earth, and in landed property : for there can 
 be no regular cultivation without a stable right of 
 property. In all these tribes there is a set of old 
 men, who, when they see any one busy with the hoe, 
 exclaim against the degeneracy of modern limes. 
 They pretend that their national decline is owing 
 entirely to these innovations, and to retrieve their 
 ancient glory and prosperity nothing more is needful 
 than to throw away the hoe, and return to their pri- 
 mitive manners*. 
 
 and potatoe land. Here is, then, the enormous difference of a 
 thousand to one. — Trans. 
 
 * Their -condition would doubtless be improved, if they abjured 
 every thing new and European. They would profit, on the whole, 
 if they got rid of spirits and the small-pox, together with every 
 beneficial acquisition. — Trans. 
 
 3 G 
 
386 
 
 Let any one compare this sketch with the specula- 
 tions of Rousseau, who maintains that the introduc- 
 tion of exclusive property was the first corrupter of 
 manners, and who deplores that folly and infatuation 
 which prevented the savage from pulling up the first 
 stake, as a sacrilegious restraint upon his natural li- 
 berty*. Let him consider to which the most credit 
 is due ; a man situated like Little Turtle, anIio has 
 spent fifty years in ihe management of public affairs, 
 in governing turbulent and jealous minds, with ac- 
 knowledged skill and address, and has fully expe- 
 rienced the benefits and evils of both wiiys of life ; or 
 a humble individual like Rousseau, who never had the 
 care of any public business, and knew not even how 
 to manage his own ; who, having created for himself 
 an airy and fantastic world, knew as little of the so 
 ciety of which he was born a sequestered member, as 
 of Indians, of whom all his notions were gathered 
 from the woods of Montmorenci ; who even did not 
 vindicate the tenets of his book from conviction, but 
 as a wanton exercise of eloquence and ingenuity, and 
 who was zealous in defence of them, merely because 
 his humour was thwarted, and his vanity mortificdf. 
 
 * See Rousseau, Sur I' Inetfa/i/e, he. 
 
 t This hint rtsptcting Rousseau is founded upon some little 
 circumstances, which are often of much importance in the history 
 of great men. My information was received from the lute baron 
 Holbach and Mr. Maigeon, member of the Institute. "When the 
 Academy of Dijon proposed its celebrated question, Diderot was 
 a prisoner in the castle of Vincennes, for his letter On the Blbul. 
 
387 
 
 What a pity is it that this author embraced a bad 
 cause, as his talents would have been proportionabiy 
 more useful and successful in the cause of truth, and 
 he might have had ample scope in declaiming against 
 tlie genuine corruptions of society. If he had drawn 
 a true picture of savage life, as a state without com- 
 pact or union, by which roaming and unsettled men 
 » 
 
 Rousseau used lo visit him. On one of these visits, he showed 
 Diderot the question, and said, " 'Tis a curious slibject : I have a 
 nrnnd to enter the lists." " In what way," said Diderot, " do 
 you mean to take up the question ?" " In the obvious way ; there 
 can be but one way. Can the arts and sciences be otherwise 
 than favourable to the prosperity of nations l" " That," said 
 Diderot, " will only be to trample on the fallen ; to swim with 
 the tide : it would be far more striking to maintain the reverse." 
 Rousseau went away, evidemly t,truck with this thought, wrote 
 his essay accordingly, and the rustic academicians gave him the 
 prize. 
 
 Some time after, Holbach and Diderot met him in the Cours 
 la Reine, and complimented him on the ingenuity of his perform- 
 ance. Rousseau made merry with the triumph of his paradox, 
 and laughed at the simplicity of his judges. Some talk followed 
 on the subject, and the weak side of his argument was pointed 
 out. Rousseau grew angry. They met agam, and the same 
 topic was revived, but Rousseau, to their great surprise, was now 
 changed, and fiercely maintained, as a truth, what he had for- 
 merly treated as a jest. Holbach observing this, " My fi lend," 
 said he to Diderot, " Rousseau, in his first work, will make man 
 walk on all fours." His prediction was verified. 
 
 Such was the origin of that man's opinions, whose motto was 
 " Vitam imfitndvrc vero ;" and these opinions have still some dis- 
 ciples, so ardent in their zeal, that they would willingly send to 
 Vincennes all those who do not udniire tiie Ciinfesnions, 
 
388 
 
 are urged to action by violent and physical wants, and 
 by passions connected with these wants ; who exer- 
 cise on each other no faculty but brute strength, 
 whose effects are directly opposite to those of that 
 equilibrating principle called Justice. If he had de- 
 fined civilisation, agreeably to etymology (it comes 
 from chit as, a city), to mean the settlement of men 
 into contiguous habitations, within an enclosure 
 formed to protect them from plunderers without and 
 disorder within ; a union which supposes the free 
 consent of its members, the natural right of each to 
 safety of person and property, and a mutual compact 
 to regulate the conduct, and circumscribe the liberty 
 of all, according to the rules of equity : he would 
 thus have proved that civilisation is only that state of 
 human society, in which persons and property are 
 carefully protected ; that this state implies a stable 
 government and equal laws ; while, on the contrary, 
 those who want these blessings are the truly barba- 
 rous ajid uncivilised. He might have shown, that if 
 civilised communities have vicious and depraved 
 members, they are not produced by the social and po- 
 litical union, but are merely vestiges and retnnants of 
 that barbarous condition from which all nations arose: 
 just as single men retain the bad habits instilled into 
 them by a bad education. 
 
 In discussing the influence of science and literature 
 on the social system, he might have maintained that 
 the arts, especially those of poetry, architecture, and 
 painting, are proofs of civilisation, and indications of 
 
389 
 
 the prosperous condition of a nation. Yet he might liave 
 produced examples from Italy and Greece, to shovv 
 that these arts may flourish under licentious demo- 
 cracy, and under military despotism, which are both 
 equally savage stages. All that they want is a strong 
 government, disposed to countenance and foster them. 
 But this encouragement, carried to excess, is destruc- 
 tive of the government itself, as private virtuosi are 
 ruined by lavishing too much time or money on pic- 
 tures, furniture, or buildings. The fine arts, by en- 
 grossing too much of the national revenue, may sub- 
 vert the government, and destroy social order, and 
 examples of this he might find in the histories of 
 Athens, Rome, and Palmyra. By this means he 
 might have done mankind an important service, by 
 giving its due direction and proper limits to taste, 
 and countervailing that bias, which has been of late 
 years so pregnant with mischief*. But let us return 
 to America. 
 
 We have stated the reason why this mode of life is 
 unfavourable to population. It would be a curious 
 enquiry to ascertain the difference, in this respect, 
 between savage and civilised life, and to calculate, in 
 general, how many Indians are maintained on a given 
 
 * Individuals may ruin themselves by the misapplication of 
 their fortune to objects of taste, but nobody ever heard of any na- 
 tion who has done the same. Follies of a more gigantic and 
 costly nature are usually the causes of national disti-ess, and no 
 Avhere does it appear that Athens, Rome, or Palmyra incurred any 
 injury, as nations^ by their passion for building.— Trans. 
 
390 
 
 quantity of land. Unluckily we want accurate data 
 for such a calculation, but we have some which may 
 possibly brins^ us somewhat near the truth. 
 
 Carver, who lived several months, in 1768, among 
 the Noudovv'cssies of the plains, tells us, with confi- 
 dence, that the eight tribes of the nation were able 
 to reckon up only two thousand warriors. This num- 
 ber of fighling men will allow us to suppose four 
 thousand old men,, women, and children, which, alto- 
 gether, amount to six thousand. Now the tract of 
 land occupied by these tribes appears to be four or 
 five times gTcater than Pennsylvania. Stating it at 
 onl}^ four times, and allowing Pennsylvania 50,000 
 square miles, which, quadrupled, makes 200,000, 
 consequently, among the Noudowessies, there is less 
 than one person to thirty square miles. 
 
 Maupertuis, in his travels towards the pole, com- 
 putes the population of Lapland at one to three square 
 miles, and the Laplanders live in peace, under a civi- 
 lised government. This case, though the reverse of 
 the former, tends to strengthen my conclusion. All 
 the Canadian traders agree in reporting, that, as they 
 go northward, beyond the 45th degree, the natives 
 are so thii^ly scattered, and the land so sterile, that 
 MC cannot admit a higher population than we have 
 piven to the Noudowessies : but since the soil im- 
 
 o 
 
 proves as we return southward, and the coasts of the 
 South Sea appear more populous, let us allow one 
 head to eighteen square miles, through all North 
 America. That continent, excluding the United 
 
391 
 
 States and Mexico, may be equal to six millions of 
 square miles, which, at the foregoing rate, would 
 maintain about 334,000 Indians. To satisfy the most 
 scrupulous, let us double that number, and make 
 670,000, yet this is only the population of a small 
 province of four or five thousand square miles, in a 
 civilised kingdom*. This diiference alone will en- 
 able us to determine which kind of life demands the 
 preference : it likewise puts beyond the reach of con- 
 troversy the question, whether savages have a right to 
 refuse kind to agricultural nations, who have not 
 enough of their ownf. 
 
 In their state of population, and in their mode of 
 occupying territory, the Indians resemble the wander- 
 
 * According to this rule, the counties of Lancaster or York, in 
 England, contains as many souls as all the aborigines of North 
 America amount to, exclusive of Mexico and the United States. 
 — Trans. 
 
 t The population of North America may be computed in the 
 following manner: 
 
 The United States contain - - 5,215,000 
 
 Mexico is allowed by the Spaniards to contain 3,000,000 
 
 Canada, in 1798, about - - 200,000 
 
 Upper and Lower Louisiana - - 40,000 
 
 East and West Florida - - 40,000 
 
 Creeks, Chactaws, and Chickasaws - 24,000 
 
 Indians in the North-western Territory 15,000 
 
 The rest of the continent - - 600,000 
 
 Total 9,134,000 
 
 Thus the whole population is hardly more than nine millions, 
 and the last item is probably over-rated by one-half. 
 
392 
 
 ing Arabs of Asia and Africa ; but the Bedvvins, pos- 
 sessing land which bears nothing but grass, and this 
 
 South America appears to be less populous. Enlightened 
 Spaniards do not compute the number, exclusive of the unsub- 
 jected natives, at more than - - 4,000,000 
 
 Brazil is reckoned to contain of Portuguese blood 
 
 500,000, and negroes 600,000 - 1,100,000 
 
 The Indians unconquered, if vi^e consider their ter- 
 ritory, cannot be allowed to exceed 1,000,000 
 The West Indian Isles - r 1,800,000 
 Dutch and French Guiana - - 75,000 
 
 Total 7,973,000 
 Thus we have about eight millions, which, if we raise to ten, 
 will make the whole population of America twenty millions. 
 
 This estimate differs widely from that of Lalande, who, in the 
 annals of years 8 and 9, gave the new world one hundred and 
 eighty millions. In the years 9 and 10, he suddenly fell to sixty 
 millions; and, in the present year (12), he has adopted my esti- 
 mate, which he received through the hands of a common friend. 
 He ought to act in the same manner in his estimates for Asia, 
 which he peoples with five hundred and eighty millions. No 
 doubt he assigns to China two or three hundred millions of these ; 
 but by the British estimates, published last year, the population 
 of the country amounts only to fifty-five millions, and we may 
 assign the same number to the cities of that empire : but by com- 
 parison with Europe, it may contain - 120,000,000 
 Asiatic Turkey may have - 11,000,000 
 Persia, according to Olivier - 3,000,000 
 Africa, including Egypt, can hardly exceed 
 
 America, but let it be - - 30,000,000 
 
 America - - - 20,000,000 
 
 Europe - - - 142,000,000 
 
 Total 437,000,000 
 
393 
 
 very scantily, are obliged to collect together, and 
 tame harmless and docile animals, to treat them kind- 
 ly, to subsist on their milk rather than on their flesh, 
 and to make clothing from their hair rather than from 
 their skin. The nature of their dwelling-place has 
 led them to the shepherd's life, and temperance is en- 
 joined them, under the penalty of dying with famine. 
 Whereas the savage of America, inhabiting a soil 
 which abounds with grass, shrubs, and irees,Jinds it 
 hard to retain the captive beasts, while they can flee 
 into the woods, and 7nore pleasant and convenient to 
 hunt than to feed them, he has been fashioned, by 
 
 Which is a total for the whole globe of less than five hundred 
 millions*. 
 
 We need not wonder at the mistakes committed in reckoning 
 the population of barbarous countries, since we have instances of 
 enoi^mous errors at home. Till 1792, the Corsic?.ns were never 
 reckoned at more than 158,000, as I have seen in the returns of 
 the directory at Corte. At present, Corsica, in all official reports, 
 stands at 230,000; and this difference I shall now account for. 
 In 1793, some Corsican patriots found it convenient to have two 
 departments, instead of one, for then France would pay double 
 salaries of every kind. The amount total of 158,000 was given 
 to Golo alone, and to Liamone were given the 7C;000, which it 
 may possibly possess, but they were already included in the sum 
 total. Thus, in one day, Corsica almost doubled its inhabitants, 
 though certain it is their numbers have dwindled since 1790. 
 Yet this is an official account, accepted and published without 
 scruple or objection. 
 
 * Macartney has proved the Chinese empire to contain three hundred and 
 thirty millions, which would i«ake the above total six hundred and forty-seven 
 millions. — Trans. 
 
 3 n 
 
594 
 
 the nature of his residence, into a hunter, a shedder 
 of blood and devourer of flesh*. 
 
 From this difference in their modes of subsistence, 
 a corresponding difference has arisen in their habits 
 and propensities. On the one hand, the Arab shep- 
 herd, compelled to be sparing and frugal of the lives 
 of his cattle, and accustomed to love them as his pro- 
 perty, has, of course, a less ferocious character, is 
 more fitted for social union, for acquiring the spirit of 
 family, and notions of inheritance, both in property 
 and power. Hence the condition of the Bedwins is 
 far more improved. They have a government, in 
 some cases, patriarchal, in which the head of the fa- 
 mily has kingly power over his kindred ; in others 
 aristocratic, where the government is shared between 
 the heads of several families. As the public manners 
 are formed by the private, and as their pastoral do- 
 main requires only a slow and gradual enlargement, 
 the temper of the tribe is less warlike ; that is, it 
 is not so quarrelsome and sanguinary. Property 
 extending its rights and obligations to a greater num- 
 ber of objects, and the people having more occasion 
 for communing together, their ideas of justice are 
 more enlarged, the limits of their possessions are more 
 carefully and accurately settled, hospitality flourishes, 
 and, in short, they are, in all respects, a more civi- 
 lised race. 
 
 * None of these reasons why the Indian is not a shepherd will 
 bold good. The Tartars, in the same kind of country, have be- 
 come pastoral.— -Than s. 
 
595 
 
 The American hunter^ who has daily occasion to 
 kill and to eat the slain, by whom evety animal is 
 regarded as prey which he must be quick to seize, 
 has imbibed, of course, an errant, wasteful, and cruel 
 disposition. He is akin to the wolf and the tyger. — 
 He unites with his fellows in troops, but not in frater- 
 nities. A stranger to property, all the sentiments 
 springing from, a family are unknown to him. De- 
 pendent on his own powers, he must always keep 
 them on the stretch : and hence a turbulent, harsh, 
 and fickle character ; a haughty and untractable spirit, 
 hostile to all men. He is constantly vigilant, because 
 danger is ever present, and always ready to hazard a life 
 which at best is held by so frail a tenure ; he is equally 
 indiiferent to the past, which has been destitute of com- 
 fort and security, and to the future, from which there 
 is nothing better to hope ; and, lastly, he enjoys an 
 existence concentering itself in the present moment. 
 Such is the private, and from such is formed the na- 
 tional character. Always in want, yet thriftless ; and 
 always greedy, yet improvident, their situation leads 
 them to extend their rights of hunting, and to en- 
 croach upon their neighbours. Hence a more warlike 
 spirit tovv'ards strangers ; while at home their imper- 
 fect ties, social and domestic, give birth to a demo- 
 cracy, turbulent and terrible, or, more accurately 
 speaking, to a pure anarchy. 
 
 It is generally true that no right of property exists 
 among the Indians, but it is to be admitted with some 
 exceptions. Travellers agree in saying, that in the 
 
396 
 
 wildest and most vagabond tribes, each one has an 
 exclusive right to his arms, clothes, trinkets, and 
 other moveables. It is to be remarked, that all these 
 are acquired by his labour and ingenuity, and this 
 species of property, therefore, arises from that which 
 a man has in his own body and life, and is, conse- 
 quently, natural and universal. All agree, likewise, 
 in saying, that real or landed property is entirely un- 
 known among them. This is true in relation to all 
 the wandering and unsettled tribes, but it does not 
 hold in the case of those whom a fertile soil, or any 
 other circumstance, has rendered sedentary. This is 
 the situation of the Creeks and Pute\^ oatamies, and 
 was found, a century ago, among the Hurciis and Six 
 Nations. These tribes reside in villages, in houses 
 built of logs, mud, or stones, and in these dwellings 
 the builder has an undisputed property, as well as in 
 the gardens sometimes adjoining them. 
 
 It even appears, that, in some tribes, where tillage 
 is regularly pursued, children and kindred inherit 
 these, and consequently the rights of real property 
 are fully established. In other unsettled tribes, all is 
 heaped together, after the last possessor's death, and 
 divided among his neighbours, by lot or by some 
 other rule. If the village be deserted, no one retains 
 any right to his hut or garden ; but he has the rights 
 of the first occupant, and of his own personal in- 
 dustry. 
 
 Exclusive of the village and its precincts, the ter- 
 ritory is every where enjoyed in common, as we see 
 
397 
 
 takes place, with respect to some portion of tlieir 
 lands, in some villages of France, in Poitou and Brit- 
 tany, but much more extensively in Spain, Italy, and 
 all the coasts of the Mediterranean. In Corsica there 
 is a striking analogy, in this respect, to be found 
 with the sedentary Indian tribes. There the greater 
 part of the land, belonging to most villages, is held 
 in common ; on this land each one has a right to pas- 
 ture his cattle, cut wood, and the like. But as tillage 
 prevails somewhat more in Corsica, a fourth or fifth 
 part is cultivated by the peasants in rotation. It is 
 distributed among the families by lot, and each holds 
 its assigned portion a year. As soon as the corn is 
 gathered, the ground becomes common, or rather a 
 scene of plunder and waste ensues, for all have a right 
 to take away, but nobody to put in : nobody can build 
 a house or plant a tree. It is resigned to the flocks, 
 who range over it at will. As these chiefly consist 
 of goats, who, as well as their guides, are very destruc- 
 tive animals, private fields are continually invaded, 
 and the burthen of enclosure is daily encreased. 
 Among the causes of the rude and barbarous condi- 
 tion, in which the Corsicans have, for so many ages, 
 remained, the most powerful is the extent of its com- 
 monsy which engross most of the island, and the in- 
 significance and insecurity of private property. 
 
 To the same cause are owing the poverty and 
 rudeness of the people who inhabit the conrmons of 
 Brittany. The evils produced by this state of things, 
 m Great Britain, have been forcibly displayed by sir 
 
398 
 
 John Sinclair, to whose speculations on this subject 
 I refer the reader. In Corsica, waylaying and murder 
 has become, on this account, more frequent : the land 
 being a desert, affords opportunities which otherwise 
 would be wanting. The abolition of these common 
 rights is the first step towards civilising this island. 
 A second step should be to prevent the accumulation of 
 land in a few hands ; to make some portion of the 
 ground indivisible or unalienable, so that no proprietor 
 should hold more than one portion, as at Sparta. Small 
 estates cannot govern themselves like great ones ; in 
 them the balance is too variable. The custom of 
 Brittany^ as it prevailed in the counties of Rohan and 
 Corrnvall (Cornoua'illes) had similar effects. There 
 the land always went to tlie youngest son, the elder 
 sons receiving a small portion, as they were supposed 
 more able to acquire for themselves ; and these pro- 
 vinces have ahvays been the best cultivated. Corsica 
 might easily support thirty thousand families in ease 
 and dignity : at present it has that number, almost 
 all of them idle and poor. Without independence, 
 there can be no mental improvement, agriculture, or 
 industry. I suppose it was on this account that Pas- 
 cal Paoli made no change in the ancient institutions. 
 The Indians and the Corsicans are alike in another 
 point. Of both, the villages are scattered over a wide 
 extent, so that fifty houses will sometimes spread over 
 half a mile square. The Indian adopts this system 
 from a shyness and suspicion of his neighbours, from 
 the dread of vengeance, secret or avowed, for slight 
 
399 
 
 and unintentional offences. Daily experience gives 
 them so bad an opinion of each other, tliat they meet 
 as seldom as possible, and never go forth unarmed ; 
 and the law of retaliation adds new force to their cau- 
 tion and mistrust*. They who know Corsica know 
 whether the same passions have not produced the 
 same effects. The parallel might, indeed, be ex- 
 tended to many other particulars, but the people ought 
 not, in this case, to be reproached for their evil ha- 
 bits : they are chargeable upon the Genoese govern- 
 ment, whose scheme of administration was the most 
 pernicious that ever existed. I was convinced, by a 
 year's residence in this island, that it is worthyof a bet- 
 ter fate, and that the people only want a few leading 
 reformations in their laws to make them as industrious 
 and civilised as any nation. The understanding of 
 these islanders is as acute as any nation can boast, 
 and their soil is much better than is commonly sup- 
 posed : but how rare it is to find thirty years of peace 
 and good government, in the course of three centu- 
 ries, among aiffy people ! 
 
 From the nature of the savage state, wars must 
 be frequent, and almost incessant. Cruelty is the cer- 
 
 * It is hard to conceive how these motives could lead to the use 
 of separate and lonely habitations ; how they could counterbalance 
 the ffc-ar of foreign enemies, whose attacks must be facilitated by 
 this mode of settlement. But Volney is an enthusiast against the 
 savages, and is as zealous to depreciate, as Rousseau ^\Q.s to exalt 
 their character.-— Trans. 
 
400 
 
 tain consequence of shedding much blood, or seeing 
 it shed ; but this cruel temper is promoted by other 
 circumstances. 
 
 1. The selfish spirit which every Indian carries to 
 war, arising from the reflection that the domain is 
 common, the deer upon it his immediate subsistence, 
 and, consequently, that the enemy is assailing all that 
 is dear to him. 
 
 Among polished nations a small part of the people 
 is directly affected by war. The rest are influenced 
 through the medium of taxation, and are deprived of 
 that with which they easily part. Among such a peo- 
 ple, war is carried on with little rage or animosity. 
 They fight and die from the impulse of vanity, and 
 in the way of a trade or profession, by which they 
 look for riches and honour. Whereas among savages, 
 poor and few as they are, the whole tribe, and every 
 member has his all embarked in the contest. War 
 has two ends with them : one is to starve, and the 
 other to exterminate the whole society. Of conse- 
 quence, the soldier must feel all his energies awak- 
 ened, and his whole soul must be engaged in the con- 
 test. 
 
 The ferocity of their wars is owing, secondly, to 
 the fierce revenge and terror of shame, with which the 
 warrior is inflamed. The party being always small, 
 each one fights in the view of all his friends and ene- 
 mies. Infamy as well as certain death pursues the 
 coward, and personal competition is added to all the 
 fervours which hatred and revenue inspire. 
 
401 
 
 A third cause of their ferocity is their mode of war- 
 fare, in which no quarter is allowed or expected. To 
 be killed is the least evil which the defeated can incur; 
 for if he be only wounded, or made prisoner, he can 
 merely expect to be scalped immediately, or burned 
 alive and devoured piece- meal. I shall explain what 
 I mean by scalping in the words of John Long, an 
 English trader, who lived twenty years among the 
 Indians. 
 
 " When an Indian strikes a person on the temple 
 with a tomahawk, the victim instantly drops : he then 
 seizes his hair with one hand, twisting it very tight 
 together, to separate the skin from the head, and pla- 
 cing his knee on the breast, with the other lie draxVs 
 the scalping knife from the sheath, and cuts the skin 
 round the forehead, pulling it off with his teeth. As 
 he is very dexterous, the operation is generally per- 
 formed in two minutes. The scalp is then extended 
 on three hoops, dried in the sun, and rubbed over 
 with Vermillion. 
 
 " There are instances of persons of both sexes, now 
 living in America, who, after having been scalped, 
 by wearing a plate of silver or tin on the crown of 
 the head, to keep it from cold, enjoy a good state of 
 health, and are seldom afflicted with pains." — Long's 
 Travels, p. 22. 
 
 Hence it appears that this operation is not always 
 fatal. I myself knew an instance to the same effect, 
 in a German settler at Gallipolis. 
 
 3 E 
 
402 
 
 Scalps are trophies of military glory, which is pro- 
 portioned to the longest string of them. 
 
 As to the practice of burning and devouring cap- 
 tives, every narration of an Indian war informs us 
 that captives are fastened to a stal^e, near a pile of 
 burning wood, there to be tormented in all the ways 
 which savage vengeance can devise. Travellers re- 
 late incredible things of the joy displayed by the vic- 
 tors at these terrible sacrifices, the fury even of 
 the women and children, and their emulation in cru- 
 elty. They describe the heroic firmness of the suf- 
 ferers, who not only betray no pain nor fear, but 
 b ave their tormentors with the bitterest insults and 
 sarcasms. They chant their own exploits, enumer- 
 a e the friends and kinsmen of the spectators whom 
 they have slain, or tortured in a much more ingeni- 
 ous manner, they upbraid them with ignorance in the 
 art of tormenting, and at last, dropping piece-meal, 
 they expire with taunts in their mouths, under the 
 teeth of their enraged enemies. These tales would 
 not be credited by civilised nations, were they not 
 well authenticated, and posterity, who will know no 
 savages, will treat such tales as fabulous*. 
 
 After this let romantic dreamers boast of the mild- 
 ness and purity of their man of nature. Equally er- 
 roneous are such writers as Pauw, who attribute these 
 
 * Alas! what a iiiistakcn nolion ihut cruelly prevails only 
 among iiuutinji; tribes, and ihut posterity will cease to be govern- 
 ed by the same ferocious passions, or prompted by them to the 
 same excesses 1 — Tkans. 
 
403 
 
 displays of firmness to dull and naturally blunt sen- 
 sations. They must surely, if this were the cause, 
 have as little sensibility as oysters or trees. The 
 truth is, the whole arises from a certain state of mind, 
 ^v•hen exalted by passion, instances of which are found 
 in the political and religious martyrs of all nations. 
 They are all in that state of feeling called fanaticism, 
 which is a strenuous belief that we are in the right, 
 and that our enemies are in the wrong : a conviction 
 that stands in no need of reasoning, and is incapable of 
 doubt. Indians, like martyrs at the stake, are buoyed 
 up by pride, far above their surrounding foes, and a 
 strife ensues between their wrath and his vanity, 
 w^hich shall hold out the longest. In every form of 
 societ3% this sort of competition daily produces the 
 greatest extravagances, as in gaming, war, and duels. 
 The fanaticism of religious martyrs is commonly 
 founded on the hope of futurity. The Indian wants 
 this hope, and hence his courage surprises us the 
 more, and may claim, perhaps, more applause : but 
 he is urged onward by despair, the certainty that no- 
 thing can avert his fate. He is like those animals, 
 who defend themselves with fierceness and obstinacy, 
 when assailed in their last retreat. The weakest and 
 most timid are then capable of prodigious efforts in 
 their own defence. In the Indian, it is the combined 
 impulses of fanaticism and necessity. On this dou- 
 ble basis the Scandinavian Odin erected his religion. 
 But a curious question remains to be solved, namely : 
 in what physical state are the nerves, or the electric 
 
404 
 
 fluid within them, by which the sense of pain is sus- 
 pended or extinguished ? This subject is well wor- 
 thy the attention of medical schools ; and those socie- 
 ties who speculate on moral topics would be equally 
 well employed in discussing the nature and laws of 
 fanaticism, in enquiring into the means, either in 
 temperament or education, by which it is induced, 
 and into the best mode of prevention or cure, and, 
 finally, to ascertain whether its operation on society 
 be more or less mischievous than the opposite spirit 
 of doubt and incredulity. 
 
 The last circumstance which generates ferocity in 
 an Indian is his education, and the pains which, in 
 his earliest childhood, his parents and elders take to 
 mould his inclinations and his feelings. " From 
 their infant state," says Long, p. 60, *' they endea- 
 vour to promote an independent spirit: they are never 
 known to beat or scold them, lest the martial dispo- 
 sition, which is to adorn their future life and charac- 
 ter, should be weakened : on all occasions they avoid 
 every thing compulsive, that the freedom with which 
 they wish them to think and act may not be con- 
 trolled." 
 
 In this, as in the whole system of savage life, the 
 grand mover is self-preservation. To make them- 
 selves bold protectors, the mothers spoil their chil- 
 dren, who, when they grow up, will domineer over, 
 insult, and even beat their mothers. They pass their 
 nights in recounting the exploits of their relatives : 
 they relate how many they slew, scalped, or burnt, 
 
 i 
 
405 
 
 in their lives ; and how, when captives at last, they 
 bore their torments without shrinking. Sometimes 
 they relate domestic quarrels, schemes of retaliation, 
 and methods of revenge : thus they teach a perpetual 
 lesson of hypocrisy, cruelty, suspicion, hatred, and 
 revenge. They eagerly seize the opportunity aiForded 
 by the possession of a prisoner to exemplify ttiese 
 lessons, to tutor them in the art of tormenting, and 
 initiate them in the taste of blood, in which tliese 
 scenes usually terminate. It is easy to see what deep 
 impressions such lessons must make ; how successful 
 they must prove in giving the young a licentious and 
 cruel disposition, united with caution and dissimula- 
 tion. They are even taught politeness, for they have 
 rules of intercourse as rigid and minute as those of 
 any court. In short, their whole system of tuition is 
 designed to qualify them for gratifying their thirst of 
 blood and revenge. On these points, their phrenzy 
 is a subject of affright and wonder to the whites. 
 
 " An impartial mind," says Long, p. 27, " will 
 require but little to be persuaded, that the Indians are 
 superior to us in the woods : it is their natural ele- 
 ment, if I may be allowed the expression ; and a tree 
 or river, of which their recollection never fails, guides 
 them to the secret recesses of a deep v/ood, either for 
 safety or the purposes of ambush. As they pay little 
 attention to the risir;; or setting sun, it at frst sur- 
 prised me by what method they travel from place to 
 place, without any material aberration : but this they 
 soon explained, by assuring me, that they had not 
 
I 
 
 406 
 
 the least difficulty in going from one spot to another, 
 being governed by the moss on the trees, M'hich al- 
 ways remains on the north side, but on the south it 
 wastes and decays : they remark also, that the 
 branches are larger, and the leaves more luxuriant, 
 on the south than on the north side of the tree. The 
 most enlightened part of mankind, 1 am persuaded, 
 cannot be more exact in their mode of judging, or 
 
 more attentive to the works of nature." p. 29, 
 
 *' Tiie disposition of the Indians is naturally proud 
 and self-sufficient : they think themselves the wisest 
 of the sons of men, and are extremely offended when 
 their advice is rejected. The feats of valour of their 
 ancestors, continually repeated and impressed upon 
 their minds, inspire them with the most exalted no- 
 tions of their own prowess and bravery : hence arises 
 the firmest reliance on their own courage and power; 
 and though but a handful of men, comparatively 
 speaking, they are vain enough to think they can 
 overthiow both French and English, whenever they 
 please. They say the latter are fools, for they hold 
 their guns half man high, and let them snap ; but that 
 they themselves take sight, and seldom fail of doing 
 execution, which, they add, is the true intention of! 
 going to war." p. 27, " Even the great Wash- 
 ington incurred their censure by his conduct,, and 
 gave occasion to an Indian chief of the name of Tha- 
 nachrishon, of the Seneca tribes, judging him by 
 their own rules, to say, that he was a good-natured 
 man, but had no experience." p. 37, " How- 
 
407 
 
 ever, with regard to bodily strength, they are excelled 
 by many ; and, even in hunting, the Virginians equal 
 them in every part of the chace, though all the world 
 allow them the merit of being good marksmen." — i— 
 p. 30, " The Iroquois laugh when you talk to them 
 of obedience to kings, for they cannot reconcile tljiC 
 idea- of submission with the dignity of man. Eadi 
 individual is a sovereign in his own mind; and as }p 
 conceives he derives his freedom from the Great Spi- 
 rit alone, he cannot be induced to acknowledge an^ 
 other power. They are extremely jealous, and easiUr 
 offended, and when they have been once induced 1o 
 suspect, it is very difficult to remove the impression. 
 They carry their resentments with them to the grave, 
 and bequeath them to the rising generation. Those 
 who have associated with them, though they mm 
 admire their heroism in war, their resolution in sun- 
 porting the most excruciating tortures, and the stal 
 bility of their friendships, cannot but lament the 
 dreadful effects of their displeasure, which has no! 
 bounds. It is this violence of temper, which isi 
 generally in the extreme, that makes them so difficult} 
 to subdue, and so dangerous to encourage : too much 
 indulgence they attribute to fear, and too much seveJ 
 
 rity brings on resentment."' p. 76, " It is very 
 
 strange that the thirst of blood should stimulate the 
 human mind to traverse such an amazing extent of 
 country, suffering inexpressible hardships, and un- 
 certain of success, to gratify a passion, which none 
 
408 
 
 but an infernal spirit could suggest* ; and when suc- 
 cess has crowned his labours, that he should return 
 with inconceivable satisfaction, and relate the trans- 
 actions of his journey, with the greatest exultation, 
 sriiling at the relation of agonies which Tie alone oc- 
 cisioned. The most dreadful acts of a maniac can- 
 ix)t exceed such cruelty." 
 
 Thus it appears, that the virtues of the savage are 
 reduced to mere courage in danger, to contempt of 
 pain and death, and patience under all the evils of 
 existence. These, no doubt, are useful qualities : 
 but they relate to the individual himself, they centre 
 u his safety or felicity, and have no relation to the 
 benefit of others. They are indications of a life of 
 chnger and distress ; a state of society so depraved, 
 tiat its members look not for succour and sympathy 
 to each other, but are driven, for solace, into despair 
 or indifference. Of the aid or compassion they can- 
 not procure they make themselves independent, and 
 what they cannot get they learn not to wish, and when 
 they cannot live they consent to die. 
 
 It ma}', indeed, be urged that this people, in their 
 leisure moments, laugh, sing, and play, and disturb 
 themselves with no repinings for the past, nor care 
 about the future. Does it not follow that they are 
 happier than we ? To this l.ittle Turtle shall answer,^' 
 in his own words : " No doubc they have pleasures 
 of their own sort." 
 
 * See Carver, chap. 9 and 16, and Ilcarnt's Journey. 
 
409 
 
 Men are such pliant creatures, and habit is so 
 strong with him, that in every situation there is some 
 posture or some thought which amounts to temporary 
 ease, some moments in which he feels a kind of en- 
 joyment, by comparison with dreaded or experienced 
 suffering. If it be happiness to laugh, sing, and 
 dance, soldiers may justly claim the meed of perfect 
 happiness, since none are more careless and merry 
 than they, even in the midst of perils, or on the eve 
 of batde. 
 
 During the gloomiest period of the revolution, the 
 tenants of the Conciergerie were happy, since they 
 were in general more gay and careless than their 
 keepers, or than those abroad, who only feared a like 
 fate. The terrors of those at freedom were propor- 
 tioned to the pleasures they wanted to preserve. — 
 Those in prison felt but one care : that of saving 
 their lives. Every moment of suspence was an ac- 
 quisition, and each day the prisoner blest himself for 
 being still among the living. Such is pretty much the 
 state of a soldier in war, and such is always the con- 
 dition of savage life. If this be happiness, wretched 
 is the country in which it is an object of envy. 
 
 More advantageous notions cannot reasonably be 
 formed of Indian liberty. He is only the slave of his 
 wants, and of Nature, froward and unkind. He has 
 neither food nor rest at command. He must con- 
 tinually encounter fatigue, hunger and thirst, heat 
 and cold, and every inclement vicissitude. His ig- 
 norance engenders a thousand errors and superstitions, 
 
 3 F 
 
410 
 
 unknown to civilised nations, of which his tranquil- 
 lity is the hourl}^ victim. 
 
 The limits to which I have confined myself do not 
 permit me to enter into the minute details of this im- 
 portant subject. I shall content myself with saying, 
 that the more we study the manners of savage nations, 
 the greater light is thrown upon the nature of man, 
 and the history and origin of society, and especially 
 on the situation of the nations of antiquity. I have 
 often been struck with the analogy subsisting be- 
 tween the Indians of North America, and the nations 
 so much extolled of ancient Greece and Italy. In the 
 personages of Homer's Iliad, I find the manners and 
 discourse of the Iroquois and Delawares. Sophocles 
 and Euripides pourtray, most faithfully, the opinions 
 of the red incn^ on necessity, destiny, and the mise- 
 ries of human life. But the opening of the history of 
 Thucydides, in which the author gives a concise view 
 of the Greeks, before anijj after the Trojan w^ar, up 
 to his own times, affords a picture, whose similitude 
 to the scenes I have been describing is so forcible, 
 that I cannot resist the temptation of quoting it. 
 
 " It is certain, that the region now known by the 
 name of Greece was not formerly possessed by any 
 fixed inhabitants, but was subject to frequent migra- 
 tions, as constantly every distinct people easily yielded 
 up their seats to the violence of a larger supervening 
 number. For, as commerce there was none, and 
 mutual fear prevented intercourse, both by sea and 
 land ; as then the only view of culture was to earn a 
 
411 
 
 penurious subsistence, and superfluous wealth was a 
 thing unknown ; as planting was not their employ- 
 ment, it being uncertain how soon an invader might 
 come and dislodge them from their unfortified habi- 
 tations ; and as they thought they might every where 
 find their daily necessary support, they hesitated but 
 little about shifting their seats. And for this reason 
 , they never flourished in the greatness of their cities, 
 or any other circumstance of power. But the richest 
 tracts of country ever were more particularly liable 
 to this frequent change of inhabitants, such as that 
 which is now called Thessaly, and Bceotia, and Pelo- 
 ponnesus mostly except Arcadia, and in general every 
 the most fertile part of Greece. For, the natural 
 wealth of their soil encreasing the power of some 
 amongst them, that power raised civil dissensions, 
 which ended in their ruin, and at the same time ex- 
 posed them more to foreign attacks. It was only the 
 barrenness of the soil that preserved Attica through 
 the longest space of time, quiet and undisturbed, in 
 one uninterrupted series of possessors. One, and not 
 the least convincing, proof of this is, that other parts 
 of Greece, because of the fluctuating condition of the 
 inhabitants, could by no means in their growth keep 
 pace with Attica. The most powerful of those, who 
 were driven from the other parts of Greece by war or 
 sedition, betook themselves to the Athenians for secure 
 refuge, and as they obtained the privileges of citizens, 
 have constantly, from remotest time, continued to en- 
 large that city with fresh accessions of inhabitants, in- 
 
412 
 
 somiich that at last, Attica being insufficient to sup- 
 port the numbers, they sent over colonics into Ionia. 
 
 " The custom of wearing weapons once prevailed 
 all over Greece, as their houses had no manner of 
 defence, as travelling was full of hazard, and their 
 whole lives passed in armour, like barbarians. A 
 proof of this is the continuance still in some parts of 
 Greece of those manners, which were once with uni- 
 formity general to all. The Athenians were the first 
 xvho discontinued the custom of wearing their swords, 
 and who passed from the dissolute life into more polite 
 and elegant manners. 
 
 " Sparta is not closely built, the temples and pub- 
 lic edifices by no means sumptuous, and the houses 
 detached from one another, after the old mode of 
 Greece. 
 
 " Such are the discoveries I have made concerning 
 the ancient state of Greece, which, though drawn 
 from a regular series of proofs, will not easily be cre- 
 dited : for it is the custom of mankind, nay even 
 where their own country is concerned, to acquiesce, 
 with ready credulity, in the traditions of former ages, 
 ^\ ithout subjecting them to the test of sedate exami- 
 nation. Thus, for instance, it is yet a received opi- 
 nion, that the Lacedtcmonian kings had each of them 
 a double and not a single vote in public questions ; 
 and that, amongst them, the Pittanate was a military 
 band, which never yet existed. So easy a task to 
 numbers is the search of truth, so eager are they to 
 catch at whatever lies at hand ! 
 
413 
 
 " And as for the actions performed in the course 
 of this war, I have not presumed to describe them 
 from casual narratives or my own conjectures, but 
 either from certainty, where I myself was a spectator, 
 or from the most exact informations I have been able 
 to collect from others. This indeed was a work of 
 no little difficulty, because even such as were present 
 at those actions disagreed in their accounts about 
 them, according as affection to either side or memory 
 prevailed. My relation, because quite clear of fable, 
 may prove less delightful to the ears. But it will 
 afford sufficient scope to those who love a sincere ac- 
 count of past transactions, of such as in the ordinary 
 vicissitude of human affairs may fully occur, or at 
 least be resembled again. 
 
 *' After the engagement at sea, the Corcyreans 
 having erected a trophy upon Leucimna, a promon- 
 tory of Corcyra, put to death all the prisoners they had 
 taken, except the Corinthian, whom they kept in 
 chains*." 
 
 In this picture there is not a single line that is not 
 verified in the history of the American tribes, except 
 only what relates to Attica, whose peculiar advantages 
 were too remarkable to be omitted. 
 
 A very interesting and instructive parallel might 
 be drawn between the savage nations of America and 
 the primitive states of Italy and Greece. It would 
 dissipate a great number of illusions, by which our 
 
 * Smith's Translation of Tliucydides. 
 
414 
 
 judgment is misled in the ordinary modes of educa- 
 tion. W^ should be enabled to form just notions of 
 the golden age, when men roamed about naked, in 
 the woods of Thessaly and Hellas, feeding upon 
 herbs and acorns. W^e should see, in the early 
 Greeks, just such savages as those of America, pla- 
 ced in a similar country : for Greece, when over- 
 spread with trees and bogs, was much colder than at 
 present. We should learn that the Pelasgi, a race 
 dispersed from the Alps to Taurica, were merely the 
 primitive wild hordes, wandering and hunting for 
 their bread, like Hurons and Algonquins of the pre- 
 sent age, or the Celts and Germans of old. It would 
 be easy to perceive that colonies of more enlightened 
 strangers, from the Phenician and Egyptian coasts, 
 settling among them, had nearly the same intercourse 
 with them, as the first New England and Virginian 
 colonists had with the untutored natives. Thus we 
 should be able to explain the revolutions among these 
 people ; the spirit of their tribes, where every stranger 
 was an enemy, and every robber a hero ; when force 
 was the only law, and the only virtue bravery ; when 
 every troop was a sovereign state, and every jumble 
 of huts was a city. We should see the origin of 
 that pride and ostentation, treachery and cruelty, sedi- 
 tion and tyranny, which the Greeks display, in every 
 period of their history ; the sources of those fallaci- 
 ous notions of virtue and glory, sanctioned by their 
 priests, and blazoned by their poets, which make war 
 and its bloody trophies the only aim of manly ambi- 
 
415 
 
 tion, the true road to fame, and the proper object of 
 idohitry to the blhid and dehided multitude. Since, 
 of late, we have been seized with a passion for imi- 
 tating these people, and regard their morals and man- 
 ners, like their poetry and arts, as the models of all 
 perfection, we should, finally, perceive that we are 
 worshipping the spirit of a rude and barbarous age. 
 
 This analogy even extends to the religion and phi- 
 losophy of Greece : for the Indian has reduced to 
 practice all the precepts of the stoic school. If any 
 should infer, from this similitude, that the Indians are 
 sages, I should take leave, with as good reason, to 
 infer, that such sages were no better than Indians. 
 The true conclusion would be, that the state of soci- 
 ety in which such harsh philosophy was propagated, 
 for the sake of making life supportable, could not be 
 superior to the miserable condition of Creeks and 
 Chactaws. My inference would be justified by the 
 whole history of the Greek tribes, even at their bright- 
 est periods, by the long series of their wars and sedi- 
 tions, till their conquest by the Romans, another race 
 of sa'vages from Italy, who, in their morals^ policy ^ 
 and aggrandizement^ bear a striking resemblance to the 
 Six Nations^. 
 
 * The above observations w'M raise a smile in most readers. 
 Volney's ab'.orrence of Rousseau, and his ifian oj' nature, has hur- 
 ried him to the contrary extreme. These two extremes, like all 
 others, are nearly allied, and we here find him maintaining, that 
 the most polished nations of mankind are not a whit wiser, better, 
 or happier, than the IJurons and Algonquins.— .Trans, 
 
416 
 
 There is no^ regular system of religion among the 
 Indians, because each one employs the liberty allowed 
 him, of making a religion for himself. The introduc- 
 tion of christian missionariesappearsto have somewhat 
 modified their primitive opinions. As far, however, 
 as we can collect consistent accounts, from early his- 
 torians and late travellers in the north-west, the fol- 
 lowing appear to be the outlines of Indian mythology: 
 
 First, they believe in a great Manho, or genius, 
 who rules the world or universe, that is, the air and 
 the earth, for these constitute their universe. This 
 being, dwelling somewhere above them, governs the 
 world, though with little trouble to himself; sends 
 wind, rain, or fair weather, according to his fancy ; 
 sometimes makes a noise, which is thunder, for his 
 own pastime ; takes as little heed of men as of other 
 animals ; dispenses good or ill by chance or at ran- 
 dom, leaving the world meanwhile to fate or necessity, 
 whose laws are absolute over all things. They com- 
 monly call this being the Master of life, or He wbo 
 made us, though this title they may have gotten from 
 the missionaries. 
 
 Under this supreme power are numberless Ma?iitos, 
 who traverse earth and air, and govern all things, 
 each having his separate province. Some of them 
 are good, and all the good that happens comes from 
 them ; while others are bad, and all the evil that 
 befals us is their work. All the worship they know is 
 offered to the latter, whose wrath they strive, by their 
 offerings or prayers, to appease or avert, as men en- 
 
417 ^ 
 
 cleavoiir to soothe the envious or morose among them- 
 selves. They pay little or no homage to the good 
 Manitos, because these act from their own benign 
 nature, and would do just as they do without the 
 prayer. 
 
 " Primus in orbe deos fecit timor." 
 
 The dread of these mischievous deities is their 
 most constant companion and greatest tormentor. 
 The boldest warriors are, on this head, as timid as 
 the women and children. A dream, a phantom, a 
 mysterious cry, equally alarms them ; but as there 
 are always knaves where there are dupes, every tribe 
 has a juggler, whose trade is to expound dreams, and 
 to negociate between the Manito and the votary. 
 Like valets in old comedies, he carries messages be- 
 tween parties invisible to each other ; and this office, 
 we may well suppose, is not unattended with profit. 
 The missionaries and these jugglers are particularly 
 odious to each other, and each stigmatises his oppo- 
 nent as a knave and impostor. Though so familiar 
 with these genii, they cannot describe their form or 
 nature. They suppose them to be bodies of a light, 
 volatile, shadowy texture. Sometimes they and their 
 disciples will select a particular one, and give him, 
 for a dwelling, a certain tree, serpent, rock, or water- 
 fall, and him they make their Fetish, like the Africans 
 
 of Congo. 
 
 3 G 
 
418 r ■ \V.>i i^^<ff- 
 
 They generally admit the notion of another life*. ; '^^ 
 After death, they shall go, they think, to a country 
 where game and fish abound, where they can hunt 
 without toil, walk without danger of an ambush, re- 
 gale upon fat meatf, and, in short, pass their time 
 amid ihose enjoyments which they valued here. The 
 northern tribes place their heaven in the south-west 
 quarter, because their fair and mild weather comes 
 from thence. The missionaries tell us, that they 
 have notions of reward and punishment, but this, to 
 deserve credit, demands more impartial testimony. 
 
 These outlines are sufficient to show the strong 
 analogy between the mythological notions of the 
 American Indians and the Asiatic Tartars, as the 
 latter have been described by the recent Russian tra- 
 vellers. The analogy between them and the notions 
 of the Greeks is no less apparent. We discover the 
 chief Manito in Homer's Jupiter. The latter, how- 
 ever, leads not the poor, unsettled, melancholy life of 
 the Indian Jove, but enjoys all the magnificence of 
 the court of Ethiopia, or rather of the hundred- 
 gated Thebes, whose gorgeous secrets have been un- 
 
 * This does not quite agree with an assertion which occurred 
 before, that tlie Indian captive at the stake is not supported, like 
 the christian martyr, by the hope of another life. — Trans. 
 
 t People who frequent the woods come to prefer fat to lean. 
 The lean digests too quickly, on which account the Canadians 
 term it viande-/;a/;i^ meat-bread. I have experienced this myself, 
 and, like hem, soon began to like a slice from a bear better than 
 the wing of a turkey. 
 
419 
 
 folded to us by the enterprise and curiosity of the pre- 
 sent age*. 
 
 In the other Manitoes we perceive, no less clearly, 
 the subordinate divinities of Greece, the nymphs and 
 demons of the waters and the land. I mean not to 
 insinuate that the Indians have borrowed their doc- 
 trines from Scythia or Greece. Shamanism, or the 
 system of Buddtha, may possibly have spread itstif 
 throughout the old world, where it is found even at 
 the extremities of Spain, Scotland, and Denmark ; 
 but it is quite as possible that it is a native product 
 of the human mind, since it everywhere bears an in- 
 timate relation to the habits and condition of the peo- 
 ple who profess itf. 
 
 * See Denon's Travels. 
 
 t The christian missionaries, catholic and protestant, among 
 the Indians, have exerted great pains to convert them. The art- 
 ful system of the Jesuits was the most successful in bringing them 
 to an outward form of worship, but the filain good sense of these 
 people could never admit incomprehensible dogmas. They went 
 to mass, and said the formularies prescribed, for the sake of the 
 bread bestov/ed upon them, by which their hunger was gratified 
 without labour ; but I never heard, in the United States, of a sin- 
 gle Indian truly become a christian. When, therefoie, a cele- 
 brated author among us builds a recent romance on the nun -dke 
 devotion of a young squaw, he has violated all the laws of proba- 
 bility. If, indeed, he only aimed at pl'^asing a party, and effect- 
 ing a certain purpose, he has adopted the right method. — V. 
 It is amusing to compare this passage, in which the author gives 
 to his savages a. filai7i good sense, superior to the v/isest Europearis, 
 for such have adopted the dogmas he speaks of, with the picture 
 before given of their gross superstition, credulity, and ignorance. 
 
420 
 
 The great difficulty in believing a transmission of 
 religious ideas through many generations, consists 
 in the total absence, among savages, of records or 
 writings of any kind. They know of nothing past but 
 by oral tradition, and, in this form, the truth is strange- 
 ly distorted in its passage from mouth to mouth. 
 Very recent facts are totally disguised when propa- 
 gated in this manner. In treating of the Arabs*, I 
 have shown to what degree traditions are distorted 
 and changed by the people of the east, though a con- 
 triiry opinion is cherished by some learned men, es- 
 pecially theologians. I have shown that among these 
 people, few even remember their own age, or the in- 
 cidents of childhood : a negligence and forgetfulness 
 common to the ignorant of every nation ; nay, these 
 are qualities inseparable from human naturef. 
 
 He never heard, it seems, of what is familiarly known to all who 
 have taken the trouble to attend to the history of the moravian 
 missions in America. But V'olney's zeal against Rousseau on one 
 hand, and the preachers of religion on the other, has led him, in 
 this part of his work, into many contradictions and absurdities.— 
 Trans. 
 
 * See Travels in Syria and Egypt. 
 
 t The most unlettered American, and one who easily forgets 
 his own age, or his brother's christian name, yet knows with cer- 
 tainty, though no book contains it, from what part of Germany or 
 England his ancestor came, a luindred and fifty years ago. Vol- 
 ney infers too much from a man's negligence or forgetfulness in 
 his own concerns, which are not impressed upon his mind by fe- 
 quent repetition, as to his aptness to forget or distort national 
 events, which are the themes of eternal talk and public recitals. 
 —Trans. 
 
421 
 
 The Indians of America afford additional evidence 
 of this truth, for every body I consuhed agreed in as- 
 suring me, tliat they have no clear remembrance or 
 tradition of a fact which happened a hundred years 
 ago. And, indeed, what else can be reasonably ex- 
 pected from their roving life, the calamities of war, 
 emigration, and famine, to which they are so liable, 
 and from their incurable negligence ? 
 
 There is only one species of memorial among them, 
 
 which consists in linking phrases together, which are 
 
 equal in their syllables, and rhyme together. These 
 
 may be styled verses, and are either spoken or sung. 
 
 By means of measure and rhyme, a consistency and 
 
 ' permanence is given to meanings, which they would 
 
 otherwise want. To this rude and artless original 
 
 may the divine art of poetry be traced, and hence its 
 
 ' first and most ancient essays are extravagant tales of 
 
 gods and ghosts, of battles and piracies, adventure 
 
 and revenge. Such are the songs of the bards of 
 
 Odin, Fingal, and Achilles: though the latter was 
 
 i superior to the rest in genius and knowledge, their 
 
 I stories accord with the spirit of that barbarous age, 
 
 ; ignorant, superstitious, and ferocious, in which they 
 
 iwere first compiled. 
 
 It may be said, that the Indians are not without a 
 'sort of hieroglyphics, by which they transmit ideas to 
 I a distance. They depict a Frenchman by the figure of 
 »a man with his arms a-kimbo, a prisoner by a figure 
 wi'h his arms bound, but the defects of such repre- 
 sentations are obvious. The truth is, that they have n© 
 
•I 
 
 422 
 
 means of distant communication, no monuments nor 
 traces of antiquity. There is not, in any part of North 
 America, but Mexico, any building, or remains of 
 building in brick or stone, to testify the existence of 
 ancient arts. A few earthen barrows, or tumuli, 
 which serve as tombs, and some lines, or entrench- 
 ments, including from one to thirty acres, are all that 
 exist at present. I have seen three of these mounds : 
 one at Cincinnati, and two in Kentucky, on the road 
 from Cincinnati to Lexington. They are merely 
 mounds of ditches, four or five feet high, and eight 
 or ten broad at bottom. Their figure is irregular, 
 sometimes oval, sometimes round, and afford no indi- 
 cation of skill in the military or in any other art. The 
 largest of these is at Muskingum, and is square, and 
 of great dimensions, but from the account of it given 
 by Dr. Barton, in his Observations on Natural His- 
 tory*, it possesses neither bastions nor towers, as has 
 once been said. They must have been mere entrench- 
 ments, made for defence, such as Oldmixon reports 
 to have been usual among the natives, at the first ar- 
 rival of the Europeans, when their dwellings were 
 more fixed, and their numbers greater and more 
 equal. They have all been proCiUced by the same 
 causes, and appear to have required no tools but bas 
 kets and hoes. 
 
 As to the tumuli, I examined one near Cincinnati, 
 about half a mile west of the fort. It is covered with 
 
 * Part I, Philadelphia, 17S7. 
 
423 
 
 trees of spontaneous growth. It reminded me of the 
 barrows I had seen on the borders of Syria, though the 
 latter are stronger, being formed to support towers. 
 Many are found, bearing a nearer resemblance to the 
 Indian, in Russia and Tartary. Many of these tumuli 
 have been opened : they are found to contain nothing 
 but human bones, with the bows, arrows, and toma- 
 hawks of the savage warrior. General St. Clair cut 
 down one of the largest trees growing on them, and 
 found it to contain upwards of 432 annual rings, 
 which would argue a date as early as 1300 or 1350. 
 
 More accurate enquiries must, however, be left to 
 the learned in America, who enjoy the best opportu- 
 nities of settling the truth. 
 
 Language is the most instructive and unerring of 
 all the monuments of rude nations. Dr. Barton has 
 published a curious dissertation on this subject*, in 
 which he compares several of their dialects with each 
 other, and with those of the Tartarian nations of 
 Asia. He was aided in this task by the collections, 
 made by Dr. Pallas, of words in near three hun- 
 dred Asiatic languages, by order of the empress 
 Catherinef. 
 
 * See New Views of the Origin of the Nations and Tribes of 
 America, London, 1798. 
 
 t This work, whose object was to infuse some light and order 
 into the chaos of lanp:ua?^es, was printed in Russian characters, 
 by which the utility of the work is considerably ciicuniscribed, as 
 these characters are confined to a naiion not very rich in bnoks, 
 and but little advanced in the sciences. The Roman character 
 
424 
 
 These disquisitions have led Dr. Barton to several 
 important conchisions, thou |^h all of them do not ap- 
 pear to be equally well-founded. I cannot discover 
 the affinity inferred by him between the language of 
 the Caribbeans, Brazillians, and Peruvians, and those 
 of the Putewoatamies, Delawares, and Six Nations, 
 merely from a likeness between two or three words. 
 I agree with him more fully in the resemblance he 
 traces between the latter and the dialects of north- 
 eastern Asia. Much credit, however, is due to him 
 for opening a mine of valuable and curious know- 
 ledge, a mine which ought to be explored more 
 deeply, and by the united efforts of many learned men. 
 It is extremely desireable that the American govern- 
 ment, impressed with the importance of the subject, 
 would institute a society or college of five or six ac- 
 complished linguists, to be employed solely in collect- 
 ing and forming iiocabularies and grammars of the In- 
 dian languages. In a few ages, the red men will pro- 
 bably perish for ever. Vast numbers have already 
 disappeared, and if the present opportunity be lost, 
 the only clue to the affinity between the natives of 
 
 is diiTused throxigh the greater part of Europe, and will soon sup- 
 plant the Gotliic character in Germany, and become universal in 
 America. Will it not be eligible for the Russians to adopt it 
 likewise, and thus join themselves to the enlightened part of man- 
 kind ? For the sounds peculiar to themselves, they might adopt 
 the same mode pursued by the French, in naturalising the Ara- 
 bic, Turkish, and Peisian alphabets, that is, by giving new letters 
 to such sounds. Much trouble and expence would thus be 
 avoided. 
 
425 
 
 America and those of the north-east of Asia will be 
 lost. The expence of such an institution would be 
 of little moment to a fruc^al and wealths people, 
 and, indeed, would be ultimately a source of crain, 
 by the benefits it would afford to the trade in books*. 
 In submitting this scheme to the members of the 
 government, the friends of science and literature, I am 
 the more in earnest, because there prevails throughout 
 their nation a strong prejudice against affording any 
 public or political encouragement to literature. This 
 the people generally imagine should be left, like other 
 arts or pursuits, to the choice and resources of the 
 individual. The parallel they suggest between this 
 and the common arts of subsistence is extremely fal- 
 lacious, since to cultivate the sciences with spirit and 
 
 * The Amevican cilizen will smile at this proposal. Tht great 
 importance here bestowed on the business of collecting; the dia- 
 lects of barbarous tribes, who are hastening to oblivion, for the 
 sole purpose of throwing a faint light on the question whether 
 these tribes originally came from the north of Asia, will hardly be 
 felt by the busy merchant, artizan, or farmer, or by their public 
 representatives or secretaries. Ttis is an amusing instance of 
 the way in which men like Volncy would employ political autho- 
 rity and the public revenue, and of the pursuits which a govern- 
 ment ought, in their opinion, to deem it an important duty to pro- 
 mote. It reminds us of the virtuoso who petitioned parliam-^rit to 
 hold its future sittings at Stonehenge, to call the k-r.t- Pendragon, 
 and oblige the universities to confine all their instructions, and the 
 courts of law to conduct all their processes in the pure old dialect 
 of Wales. But though Volney will be thought by many to over- 
 rate the importance of his subject, enlightened minis must ac- 
 knowledge that it is a curious and instructive one.-— Trans. 
 
 3 H 
 
426 
 
 success requires the total devotion of a man*s time, 
 and the renouncing of all other means of fortune or 
 subsistence. He must be exempt from the cares both 
 of riches and of poverty. For this end he must be 
 above want, and have a competence provided for him. 
 The salaries allowed by princes, and the funds appro- 
 priated to collegiate institutions answer these ends. 
 France is indebted for all her intellectual superiority 
 in Europe to this system, and the beneficial influence 
 of the sciences on commerce and manufactures, on 
 public and private prosperity, has been so evident,. that 
 this system remained inviolate through all the shocks 
 and changes of her government. The United States 
 may acquire the same illustrious pre-eminence in the 
 new world, by adopting the same system. A hun- 
 dred thousand dollars a year is a moderate expence 
 for so opulent a people : yet this would create a 
 college of sages*, by whose intellectual labours, not 
 only iheir native country but the world might be ex- 
 tensively benefited. They would do an eminent ser- 
 vice, were it merely in freeing their nation from the 
 reproach of having grown visibly indift'erent to the 
 sciences and useful arts, since its revolution, and of 
 suffering the education of youth to sink into disorder 
 and neglect. This charge has been made upon this 
 nation, not only by strangers, but by the most judi- 
 cious and enlightened of its own citizens. 
 
 * It would be an ample subsistence to a hwidred /lersojis^ who 
 iTiight each gratuilously educate twenty youths, in all /wo thousand 
 pupils. What a cheap, yet what a glorious institution 1 — Trans. 
 
427 
 
 I shall here add a vocabulary of the Miami tongue, 
 a dialect which appears to belong to the language of 
 the ChippewSn tribes, who, Mackenzie tells us, be- 
 lieve themselves to have originally come from the 
 north-east of Asia. The collection is very imperfect, 
 bat it is perhaps sufficiently extensive to supply the 
 learned linguists of Germany and Russia, who are 
 versed in the Asiatic dialects, with the means of com- 
 paring them together. If it serve to facilitate some 
 discoveries in that quarter, or awaken the liberal zeal 
 of the government of the United States to pursue this 
 interesting subject, my wishes will be accomplished. 
 
VOCABULARY 
 
 THE MIAMI LANGUAGE. 
 
 IN the following list, I have given the sound 
 of the Spanish j to the x. 
 
 H has a strong aspiration. 
 
 Th is English m path. 
 
 I have added to the sounds of these words, accord- 
 ing to the French alphabet, some examples of the 
 English mode of pronouncing the same sounds, to 
 show the confusion arising from the different powers 
 assigned by different nations to the same letters. 
 
 Where the English pronunciation has a b subjoined 
 to it, it was taken from Dr. Barton j in other cases, 
 from Mr. Wells*. 
 
 * I have retained Volney's orthography, because to attempt to 
 substitute English sounds instead of them would have been an 
 arbitrary and capricious method. — Tkans. 
 
430 
 
 
 Miami after the Miami after the 
 
 English. 
 
 Fr.m^h Ortho 
 
 Ungtidh. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 
 grafihij. 
 
 
 t .L\\/ '>l\,'\*_' 
 
 I 
 
 Nelah 
 
 Nalaugh 
 
 e is equivalent to 
 
 Thou and you 
 
 The you is used 
 
 tlie I rench ee, 
 
 
 for both. 
 
 
 that is, to the 
 
 He, she 
 
 See they 
 
 Awaleaugh 
 
 long e. 
 
 We 
 
 Kelonah 
 
 Calonaugh — Re/K:^*^'^ 
 
 You 
 
 Kelah 
 
 Calaugh 
 
 • 
 
 They 
 
 Aoueloua (oua 
 
 ^^^ftn■''^L\^/a. 
 
 
 short) 
 
 Awalewaugh 
 
 
 Mine 
 
 Nelah-neneh 
 
 Nalaugh-nenigh 
 
 ■ ^.-VV 
 
 Thy 
 
 Ki. See Your 
 
 
 
 His, hers 
 
 Aouela-neneh 
 
 Awalelah-nen- 
 negh 
 
 
 Our 
 
 Kelonah 
 
 Calonaugh 
 
 
 Your 
 
 KClela-neneh 
 
 Kalelaugh- 
 nennagh 
 
 
 Their 
 
 See His 
 
 
 
 Father (my) 
 
 Noxsahe 
 
 5 Nosh saugh 
 tNoch sau B. 
 
 ^.^^.^Ur^ 
 
 
 Oxsema 
 
 
 Fathers (the) 
 
 
 
 Mother (your) 
 
 Kekiah 
 
 Kakecaugh 
 
 • VccKcv 
 
 Mothers (the) 
 
 Akememah 
 
 Aukeemeemauh 
 
 '>V€^\X<^'. 
 
 Son 
 
 Akouissima 
 
 B. / 
 
 oKy^e-t^^^" 
 
 His son 
 
 Akouissaleh 
 
 Augwissaulay 
 
 7^W6-^"*^'\^ 
 
 His daughter 
 
 Atanaleh 
 
 
 7\;-Vv^i <^" 
 
 My brother 
 
 Ouedsi milane 
 
 Sheemah, taken 
 for sister b. 
 
 . i ;: Tf 
 
 Our brother 
 
 Ouedsa-mon- 
 
 
 
 
 
 . c -.vC - a.fi^'»»>'' 
 
 i? V 
 
 
 koua 
 
 
 
 My sister 
 
 Ningo chema 
 
 
 
 Their sister 
 
 Agoz-chimouale 
 
 Augoshim wau- 
 ley 
 
 
431 
 
 
 Miami after the 
 
 Miaini after the ' If- i"^- 
 
 English. 
 
 French Ortho- 
 
 English. 
 
 Remarkf, 
 
 
 graphy. 
 
 
 'i^\VA\<X^£f,vv 
 
 My husband 
 
 Nena pema. Li 
 
 - 
 
 
 terally master 
 
 of weakness. [ ^o4tl^) ^ 
 
 
 My wife 
 
 Ninoueouah 
 
 Neeweewah b, 
 
 » VC-n, " 
 
 A woman 
 
 Metamsah 
 
 ^H'l-Kw*^. 
 
 In Delaware, 
 Lenno, Chippe- 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 way, Lennis, 
 
 
 
 >.- \\\^:..\\^ 
 
 Shawnese, Linni. 
 
 A man 
 
 Helaniah 
 
 Hellaniare < 
 
 Why were the 
 ancient Greeks 
 called Hellenes? 
 And a Tartar 
 ^tribe Alani? 
 
 A little boy 
 
 Apilossah 
 
 Apeelotsaugh 
 
 V<\'V^NN~e>rB2.\V^ 
 
 An old man 
 
 Keocha 
 
 Kaowshaw V^ 
 
 
 One 
 
 Ingote 
 
 Ingotay 
 
 M-cfvo. 
 
 Two 
 
 Nichoue 
 
 Neshsway 
 
 
 Three 
 
 Nexsoue 
 
 Nessweh 
 
 -. " cL 
 
 Four 
 
 Nioue 
 
 Neeway 
 
 ,,,.^.5. wri.-- 
 
 Five 
 
 Yalanoue 
 
 Yallawnwee "- 
 
 - />VCVjCMX' 
 
 Six 
 
 Kakotsoue 
 
 Cau cutsweh-'AJiLvvA(6\>6'^^ 
 
 Seven 
 
 Souaxtetsoue 
 
 Swattetssweh 
 
 A\-' - - -•:■ 
 
 Eight 
 
 Pollane 
 
 Pullawneh 
 
 '>v~*;. 
 
 Nine 
 
 Ingote-meneke 
 
 Ingotim manee 
 
 ka ":^Wi»>vuVCci.A^ 
 
 Ten 
 
 Matatsoue 
 
 Mautotssweh 
 
 Head 
 
 Indepekone 
 
 ^ ** 
 
 f;.tcVCwcV.', 
 
 Eye 
 
 Kechekoue 
 
 
 >.>;^'Cv<L.\< 
 
 Nose 
 My nose 
 
 Kiouane 
 Nin-kiouane 
 
 
 
 Your nose 
 
 Ki-kiouane 
 
 ^. 
 
 e - 
 
 Ear 
 
 Taouake 
 
 O'^ 
 
 P«v\W "<xVC-1\Lya\ 
 
 Forehead 
 
 Margaouinguilc 
 
 fC <f u t^ci^^rvS^rv 
 
 Hair (of the 
 head or body) 
 
 > Nelissah 
 
 > V 
 
 e/\^e^jeA^^ 
 
 
 
 ^l'C'>'v€-6-ed 
 
432 
 
 Miami after the 
 English. French Ortho- 
 
 graphy. 
 
 Toneneh 
 
 Ouelane 
 
 Ouipitah 
 
 Messetoningue 
 
 Onexka 
 
 Katah 
 
 Lokaie 
 
 Ouioxse 
 
 Mouth 
 
 Tongue 
 
 Tooth 
 
 Beard 
 
 Hand 
 
 Foot 
 
 Skin 
 
 Flesh 
 
 Blood (See i?erf)Nixpekenoue 
 
 Heart 
 Belly 
 
 Life 
 Death 
 
 Sleep 
 
 To kill 
 Day 
 The sun 
 
 Night 
 The moon 
 
 Tahe 
 
 Moigue or Moit 
 cze . ■ 
 
 Remarktt 
 
 AcW 
 
 ni^A\'VCi>^c^-~ '^Pronounced in 
 ToLowrx^ the Russian man- 
 ner _^ 
 Mahtsaneouingue ^^'VN^^^Svsre*^ 
 
 Nahpingue Nipon (He is It is pgculiar 
 
 dead) to the, northern 
 
 Nipangue Nipahanoue trihes \o associ-- 
 
 ate ihe three ide- 
 
 Anguecheouingue 
 Ispete / ■' 
 
 Ispete-kilixsoua 
 (Light of day) 
 Pekonteoue 
 Pekonteoue-kilix- 
 soua (Light of 
 . Night) 
 Morning Cheipaoue 
 
 Evening Elakouikex 
 
 A star Alangoua 
 
 The firmament Kechekou6 
 Wind Alamthenoue 
 
 Thunder Tchingouia 
 
 Rain Petilenoue 
 
 (Coldness) , 
 
 as of steep, cold, 
 and death 
 
 ^^C4>e^ 
 
 
 
 Wc.VC^^"v 
 
433 
 
 £ngliah. 
 Snow 
 
 Ice 
 Hot 
 Cold 
 Summer 
 Winter 
 The earth 
 An island 
 Water 
 Fire 
 Flame 
 A river 
 A lake 
 A rivulet 
 The sea 
 A mountain 
 A hill 
 A tree 
 Trees 
 Wood 
 A forest 
 A track 
 
 game) 
 To hunt 
 The chace 
 A bow 
 An arrow 
 The leaves 
 
 (that) fall 
 (A man) falls 
 Game 
 Fish 
 
 (of 
 
 .> t? 
 
 
 
 
 7> \^,c\. 
 
 .^vva. 
 
 Miami after the 
 French Ortho- 
 gruphy. 
 
 Mone toua (a ge- 
 nius or spirit) 
 Achonk6ni6h 
 Chiliteoue 
 Nipihanoue 
 Nihpenoue 
 Piponoue 
 Akinkeoue 
 Menahanou6 
 Nepe 
 Kohteoue 
 Paukoualeoue 
 
 Sipioue I 
 
 NipiHsi ^/<Jc\j\-yve^ '^ ^ cLW ec2.\i,a^v^ 
 
 Maxtchekoraekfe ~_ .^^'^^'^^^f'^ ^^> 
 
 Kitchi-kame -,*l^=^te \Nr«l^V '•''«-■> ^Y^^^^^^ *^ 
 
 Atchioue 
 
 Ispotehkike 
 
 Meteiikoue 
 
 Met^'ikonah 
 
 Taoulne 
 
 Mtenkoke 
 
 
 
 Pamehkaouanguc '^ €,^^^«*VCK^^r 
 
 DonaTjaHoua ':'^-'vC^^J^%Yv\..'<<K'■ - 
 
 NaHtonamaouingtie "* > 
 
 Metehkouapa 
 
 Taouanthalou^ 
 
 Mechipakoua 
 
 Papintingue 
 
 Mejechenou^ 
 
 Aouissah 
 
 Kikonassah 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 .^C.'Vvfv. 
 
 'VCCjtv ^f^^ A'^^ i>^ 
 
 "Iv 
 
434 
 
 English, 
 
 A warrior 
 
 War 
 
 To i^o to war 
 
 A tomahawk 
 
 Miami after the 
 French Ortho- 
 graphy. 
 
 Atithia 
 
 Mejekatoue 
 
 Dopaicouah 
 
 Taka-kane 
 
 .\y\C 
 
 Remarks, 
 
 ^^rnk•<^^' 
 
 To paint the face Ouechihouingue 
 A knife. Knives Malse. Malsa 
 
 To scalp 
 
 A prisoner 
 
 A path 
 
 A tobacco-pipe 
 
 (cahimet) 
 Smoke 
 A house 
 A boat 
 
 Laniok-koue Koue (the hair of the head.) 
 
 Kikiouna .^ vvXia^^ AIn vtxVCcvvv 
 
 - t . . 
 Mioue i:tCV<. 
 
 Poakane 
 
 Axkoleoue 
 
 Ouikame 
 
 Missole, in the /ilur, 
 Missola 
 A net Sapa, plural Sapake 
 
 Dried meat Pohtekia 
 Smoked meat Oxkole Saminguia 
 A tomb Eouissi-kane 
 
 Peace Pehkokia (good, 
 
 abundance.) 
 Good (the subs.) Pehkoke 
 Bad (the subs.) Meleoxke ', ^'nft>l-f^^ 
 ('i) Good (man) Tipeoua 
 Wicked (Forte) Matchi* 
 
 Sweetf Ouekapanke 
 
 Cv.6-(\, V 
 
 
 ^ » 
 
 vwvi 
 
 ■■[■ 
 
 -O 
 
 * In general, all words implying beautiful and good begin Avith a 
 p, and, on the contrary, those that signify bad or ugly with an m. ' 
 
 t They call the bee the fly that makes sweet : they say that it is 
 not a native of the country, and precedes the settlers a year, ^mo- 
 houia is applied to all the genus. Honzaouc-amohouia, yellow fly, 
 signifies a hornet. 
 
435 
 
 Vj s^ 
 
 Miami after the 
 English. French Ortho- 
 
 graphy. 
 
 Bitter Ouessakangue 
 
 Long Kenouake 
 
 Short Ixkouake 
 
 (a) High (hill) Ifpatingue 
 High (in the sky)Ifpatingue 
 
 Low Mataxke 
 
 Slow, easy Quehkeoue 
 
 Ready Kinsehkaoue 
 A cloud (rapid) Kintche seoue 
 (a) Deep (river) Kenonoue 
 
 Smooth Tetipaxkeoue 
 
 Great Manchoke, kitchi 
 
 Little Apilike 
 
 Broad Metchahkeoue 
 
 Narrow Apassiaoue 
 
 Heavy Ktchokouane 
 
 Light Nanguetcheoue 
 
 Iron Kepikatoue 
 
 Copper Naxpekacheke 
 
 Gold Honzaouechoule 
 
 Silver Choule or Tsoule 
 
 Lead Lontsah 
 
 A stone Sane 
 
 White Ouapekingue 
 
 Black Mankateouekingue 
 
 Red Neapekekingue 
 
 Blue ^ Ixkepakingue 
 
 Yellow Honzaouekingue 
 
 Green Anzanzekingue 
 A wild ox, or 
 
 buffalo Alanantsoua 
 A beaver, or lit- 
 tle deer MoHsoke 
 
 
436 
 
 
 -€.v*e.-w 
 
 
 Miami after the 
 English. French Ortho- 
 
 graphy. 
 A bear Moxkoua, Maxkoke in the filur. mvcJ^AA'Cv.vY— V 
 
 A dog Alamo, /z^ur. Alamok6 cc^^e-^-^voyi vv 
 
 Indian corn Mintchepe ;^-yv<vA-<v-nv2-rt^ 
 
 A bird Ahouehsensa - "*'" --ife V'^\ T?'^^*^^.; ^t'W^b^} 
 
 A friend Aouinkanemah .-•^i f — 
 
 An enemy Kitaakiainouna 
 
 Love Tepaletingu^ 
 
 Lnii^^hter Keouelingue 
 
 To laugh Keoueleou.Ui 
 
 To weep Sehkouingue 
 
 A tear Sthpingouah 
 
 To speak Kiiakilaxkouingufe 
 
 A discourse Atchimouna 
 To walk Pampelingue 
 
 To run Mahmikouingue 
 
 To breathe Nessingue 
 
 To blow Alamsenou6 
 
 To sigh Kfcoucneoua 
 
 To fear Kouahtamingue 
 
 The mind, spirit, 
 
 or soul Atchipa'u. That is, a flying phantom. '"^ ' "" 
 
 God Kitchi Manctoua (the Great Spirit J, ov Kajehelan* 
 
 gouS. CHe nvho made Ms^Ke.\U%':>V\/'c\n€\ bvN/5<V> 
 Genii or spirits Manctoud., analogous to the 7nanea, mani-um of the 
 
 Romans 
 The devil Matclii manitou 
 
 B:.-.utiful PeHkesina 
 
 Ugly MoltiVousina 
 
 A good rrtan Tipeoua-heleniah 
 A good woman Tipe )ua-metamsa 
 The savages Metoxtheniake (born of the soil)- ^ • 
 The Europeans Ouaokilokela (while skin)rW(:v\3-^4W'C<x'i;-V\X 
 
 
 
 
 
437 
 
 Miami after the 
 English, French Ortho- 
 
 graphy. - .^5^^ -.^tiX^X^ '"^ --'jVv ^■' 
 The French Mehtikocha ( Ou&miatergoch, a builder of ships, in 
 
 the Chippeway) ., 
 
 An Englishman Ax-lUlchima J^4vclK-'ci,'>'^<^v> y' _ ^ 
 
 An American Mitchi-Malsa (great knife' KelVxiW^-v-voKo mO 
 Yes I-y^ o. -^^ 
 
 No Moxtche ^<;cc.vsre>^ 
 
 With Mamiaoue, in Arabic m^ KS-VcS. • 
 
 They have not the verb to be. 
 
 Their adjectives are of the common gender, as in 
 English. See the example, a good man ^ a good ivoman. 
 
 In general, the plural of substantives is formed by 
 adding to the singular the final syllable ke. Metamsa, 
 a woman ; Metamsakiy the women. 
 
 The -verb To Eat. 
 
 I eat 
 
 Thou eatest 
 He or she eats 
 We eat 
 Ye eat 
 They eat 
 
 I have eaten 
 Thou hast eaten 
 He or she has eaten 
 We have eaten 
 Ye have eaten 
 They have eaten 
 
 I shall or will eat 
 Thou shalt or wilt eat 
 
 ■■\\"Cnv -YNfG ^>e-xA- 
 
 Nionissini 
 Kiouissini 
 Ouissinioua 
 Niouissini mina 
 Kiouissini moua 
 Ouissiniouake 
 
 Chaiani ouissine 
 Chaiaki ouissin6 
 Cha'i'ae ouissinoua 
 Chai'ae kiouissini-mina 
 Chaia6 kiouissini-moua 
 Chaia6 oussiniouake 
 
 Nouissini kate 
 Kiouissini kate 
 
438 
 
 English. 
 
 He or she shall or will eat 
 We shall or will eat 
 Ye shall or will eat 
 They shall or will eat 
 
 Miami after the 
 French Ortho- 
 gra/ihij, 
 
 Ouissinioua kate 
 
 Kiouis^ini mina-kate 
 
 Kiouissini-mo-kate 
 
 Ouissiniouake kate 
 
 Eating 
 
 Hunger 
 
 I am hungry 
 
 Ouessiningue 
 
 Aixouingue 
 
 Indaiexkoui 
 
 The verb To Drink, 
 
 I drink 
 
 Thou drinkest 
 He or she drinks 
 We drink 
 Ye drink 
 They drink 
 Drink 
 
 I beat 
 
 Thou beatest 
 He or she beats 
 We beat . 
 Ye beat 
 They beat 
 
 Nemene 
 
 Kimene 
 
 Menoua 
 
 Kimene mena 
 
 KiniSn^ moua 
 
 MSno-ke 
 
 M^ningue 
 
 The verb To Beat. 
 
 ii \k.^-ijiA'<^>J^c^ 
 
 ixjL'W 
 
 Indane ehoue 
 Kidane ehoue 
 Ane ehoue 
 Kidane ehouemena 
 Kidane kioue (or hioue) 
 An6he ehouake 
 
 b^VCfi.v*?e? 
 
 The jiassivc voice. 
 
 I am beaten 
 Thou art beaten 
 He or she is beaten 
 
 Indane ekoua 'V\ivv4»ii.UlX'7Sfe\^'< 
 Kidane ekoua 
 
 Ane haoua 
 
439 
 
 English. 
 
 We are beaten 
 Ye ai'e beaten 
 They are beaten 
 
 Miami after the 
 French Ortho- 
 graphy. 
 
 Kic'ane ekoua 
 
 Kiclane ekoha 
 
 Ane haouake 
 
 I have been beaten 
 Thou hast been beaten 
 He or she has been beaten 
 We have been beaten 
 Ye have been beaten 
 They have been beaten 
 
 Incane nehekoua 
 Kidane nehekoua 
 Anene haoua 
 Kidane nehekomena 
 Kidane nehekoua 
 Anene haouake 
 
 I shall or will be beaten Indane heko-kate 
 
 Thou shalt or wilt be beaten Kidane heko-kate 
 He or she shall or will be beaten Ane haoua-kate 
 We shall or will be beaten Kida«ie hekomena-kate 
 Ye shall or will be beaten Kidane hekoua-kale 
 
 They shall or will be beaten Ane haouake-kate 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 Page 364. Children never suffer from dentition, 
 
 THIS is a mistake. The Indian children seem to suffer 
 fiot much less from dentition than the children of the Europo- 
 Americans. This assertion is stated on the authority of Indians 
 themselves, and of persons who have resided among the Indians. 
 Some of my information, on this head, has been derived from the 
 Miami and Putewoatamie Indians, who seem to have been better 
 known to Mr. Volney than almost any of the other tribes. I Ci^v^^? A \ 
 
 Page 416. They commonly call this being the Master of life, or 
 He who made us, though this title they may have gotten from the 
 missionaries. 
 
 By some of the tribes, he is called the Ujiholder of the skies, and 
 the Maker of the soul. The last of these appellations has, I am 
 persuaded, been derived from the missionaries and traders; the 
 former seems more purely Indian. The words kitchi, kitschi, 
 kutche, Sec. which are prefixed by many of the tribes to the word 
 Manito, or Manitou, signify great : and it is woi'th observing, that 
 Kootcha, or Kutxa, is one of the appellations for God in the lan- 
 guage of some of the people of Kamtschatka. 
 
 3 K 
 
 , o>-^ 0^- '^ '^■-" \<Ailw^fN# ..-- 
 
442 
 
 Pa^c 418. The missionaries tell us, that theij have notions of reivard 
 and jiunishment i, but this, to deserve credit., demands more impar- 
 tial testimojuj. 
 
 The idea of rewards and puniihments seems not less natural to 
 the human mind than the notion of a future state. There is, I 
 think, little cause to doubt, that the American Indians, independ- 
 ently of any intercourse with the missionaries or traders, had 
 embraced both of these opinions, which seem to form a funda- 
 mental part of the religious system of the savages, in every part of 
 North America. 
 
 Page 4 1 9. Shamanism, or the system of Buddtha, may fiossibly have 
 spread itself throughout the old world, ivhere it is found even at 
 the extremities of Sjiain, Scotland, and Denmark ; but it is quite 
 as possible tliat it is a native product of the human mind, sitice it 
 every where bears an intimate relation to the habits and condition 
 of the people who profess it. 
 
 The mythological system of the Americans is, in very many 
 respects, so similar to that of certain Asiatic nations, that the 
 most natural inference is, that the one is derived from the other. 
 A system so similar, not only in its general complexion, but also 
 in many of its individual features, could never have been " a native 
 product of the human mind," in opposite portions of the earth, 
 where all interchange of manners, of religions, and of customs, 
 was precluded. The only just theory of the physical, moral, and 
 religious condition of mankind is founded upon this solid truth, 
 that all nations are derived from a common stock, and that the 
 dispersion of nations did not take place until after the seeds of 
 those religious truths and prejudices, which ^re every where to be 
 met with, had been implanted in their minds. , 
 
443 
 
 Page 421. Every body assured me^ that they had no clear tradition 
 of a fact which ha/i/iened a hundred years ago. 
 
 Nothing can be more unfounded than this assertion. It is not 
 contended that the stream of tradition can ever be preserved pure 
 for a very considei^able time ; but when it is remembered, that 
 Indian men and women sometimes live to the age of eighty, 
 ninety, and a hundred years, and, even at this very advanced age, 
 preserve the faculties of their minds as little impaired as those of 
 the aged whites, it would indeed be a very remarkable circum- 
 stance, if there did exist among the Indians " no clear tradition 
 of a fact which happened a hundred years ago." But Mr. Vol- 
 ney's assertion might be controverted by an appeal to many of 
 the missionaries and other persons, who have resided among the 
 Indians. Some of the missionaries, in particular, have related to 
 me facts impressively calculated to show how correctly the Indians 
 often preserve the memory of events, that had taken place at a 
 period much beyond the period of one hundred years. Not to 
 insist any further upon this subject, it is a truth, that the Delawares, 
 Monsees, and other tribes, still preserve a lively remembrance of 
 the first arrival of the Europeans at New York, almost two hun- 
 dred years ago. 
 
 Page 422. ^11 these mounds have been formed by the same meansy 
 and require no tools but hoes and baskets. 
 
 For some very interesting information concerning the western 
 
 fortifications, as they ai'e commonly called, the reader is referred 
 
 '•o a paper, by the learned bishop Madison, in the Transactions of 
 
 th* American Philosophical Society, vol. VI, part 1, Philadelphia, 
 
 ISO^i 
 
44i4i 
 
 Pagf 423. Language is the most instinctive and unerring of all 
 the moninnents of rude nations. Dr. Barton has published a curi- 
 ous dissertation on this subject^ in tohich he comfiares several of 
 their dialects with each other^ a?id with those of the Tartarian 
 nations of jisia. He was aided in this task by the collections^ made 
 by Dr. Pallas^ of words in 7iear three hundred Asiatic languages^ 
 by order of the em/iress Catherine, 
 
 The comparisons have been extended to all the Tartar tribes 
 enumerated in the great work of the Russian professor, which 
 contains two hundred and one languages of Europe and j^sia, and 
 not near three hundred Asiatic languages, as Mr. Volney says. 
 My comparisons have been extended to many other Asiatic, as 
 well as European, tribes besides the Tartars : to the Semoyads, 
 the Chinese, the Japanese, the nations inhabiting the mountains 
 of Caucasus and Oural, &c. Indeed, some of the most interesting 
 instances of affinities are to be found between the languages of 
 the last-mentioned nations and those of the Americans. The 
 affinities leave no room to doubt, that the greater part of the 
 known North American nations are branches of the same great 
 stock, from whence haye proceeded the Tartars, Samoyads, Chi- 
 nese, Japanese, Kartalini, Vouguls, and many other nations of Asia 
 and Europe. And if this point be established, I presume the phi- 
 losophy of the Little Turtle (see page 363) will avail but little in 
 diminishing our confidence in the generally received opinion, that 
 the Americans are the descendants of the Asiatics, and not the 
 latter of the former. 
 
 The afi'.nities between the dialects of the Caribbees, Brazillians, 
 and Peruvians, on the one hand, and those of the Putevvoatamies, 
 Delawares, and Six Nations, on the other, are, it is readily con- 
 fessed, not very numerous : but they are sufficiently numerous to 
 eslublisli this point, that these languages (some of them at leasV 
 are not so radically distinct as has been imagined. With resT^ct 
 to the dialects of the Six N:itions, I still maintain, that th"?' ^rc 
 
445 
 
 not radially distinct from the dialects spoken by the tribes of the 
 Lenni-Lennape, or Delaware stock, viz. the Chippeways, the 
 Miamis, the Sawannoos, the Putewoatamies, and many others. 
 Later and more extended enquiries have confirmed me in the opi- 
 nion I formerly advanced on this subject (see JVew Vieivsy &c. 
 appendix, p. 17 — 19). There is a still greater resemblance be- 
 tween the dialects of the Six Nations and those of the southern 
 tribes, known by the names of Cherokee, Muskohge (or Creeks), 
 Chickasaws, Chactaws, &c. All these speak dialects of a lan- 
 guage unquestionably one and the same. Our knowledge of the 
 languages of South America is very limited ; but it is sufficient to 
 show us, that the Peruvians, Chilese, Brazillians, and other nations 
 of the southern hemisphere, do not speak languages radically dis- 
 tinct from those of certain tribes and nations in the northern hemi- 
 sphere ; and that the South Americans, as well as the North 
 Americans, still preserve considerable fragments (as well as the 
 peculiar genius) of the language of Asia. But this subject will be 
 treated at considerable length in the second part of my JVetv Fiews, 
 which is nearly ready for the press. 
 
 Page 434. In general^ all words im/dying beautiful and good begin 
 with a fij and, on the contrary, those that signify bad or ugly with 
 an ?n. 
 
 In looking over Mr. Volney's vocabulary, we shall find, that 
 there is but very little solid foundation for the preceding observa- 
 tions. It is true that some words beginning with an m do signify 
 things, &c. not very agreeable to us, such as matchi, wicked, mo- 
 leiousina^ ugly. Sec. On the other hand, however, the Miami 
 names of Indian corn (which is certainly a very agreeable article 
 to the savages), a v/onian, the forehead, an island, a rivulet, a tree, 
 ^bow, a path, a boat, a beaver, a bear, the savages themselves 
 C ^■'.'toxth.'^niak-e J, notio mention otliers, all begin with the letter m. 
 
 12388 202 
 
446 
 
 As to the letter//, it appears from Mr. Volney's own vocabularj', 
 that the words for night, rain, winter (which cannot have many 
 charms to a cold or naked savage), and others, begin with the 
 letter /2. If this were the proper place to pursue this subject, it 
 would be easy to show, that Mr. Volney's two observations have 
 as little foundation in the languages of those other North Ameri- 
 can tribes (the Chippeways, the Putewoatamies, &c.), which arc 
 most nearly allied to the dialect of the Miamis. 
 
 FINIS. 
 

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