352 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



Lower Louisiana, says Mr. Everett, was settled too soon, and conse- 

 quently the lands brought thus too early under cultivation cannot be re- 

 claimed. Before the settlement of the country, when the river was allowed 

 to inundate the whole delta, it left upon it deposits of alluvium which is now 

 carried down to the mouth, where immense deposits are now formed by 

 eddies produced by the meeting of the waters of the river with those of the 

 gulf. While these deposits encroach at the rate of ten rods annually upon 

 the gulf, large deposits accunmlate on the lands where it has not been leveed. 

 This natural process of raising the land not being available in cultivated dis- 

 tricts, drainage is suggested as a practicable means of producing the same 

 result. Large as would be the expense, it would prove remunerative. 



"When/' says Mr. Everett, " we consider that all the available agricul- 

 tural resources of Lower Louisiana consist of little strips of land, running 

 along the rivers and some of the larger outlet bayous, of an average width 

 of only a mile, or at most a mile and a half, and still that these resources 

 are immense, we cannot forbear asking, What will they be when this 

 strip is extended to the width of eight or ten miles ? The present genera- 

 tion may not see it, but the time is not distant. It is vain to expect that this 

 will be done by appropriations from the State. It will be done by private 

 enterprise, for the sake of private advantage. Then will be presented in the 

 great delta of the Mississippi, the spectacle that has long been presented in 

 Holland, where the ocean even, has been forced to retire before the enter- 

 prise of man. Then the extensive districts, which are now inhabited only 

 by huge reptiles, will swarm with a happy population. 



The geological formation of Lower Louisiana has till recently been an 

 unsolved problem. The boring of an Artesian well in New Orleans has 

 furnished a solution of this problem. The thickness of the several strata 

 perforated has been ascertained, and may be stated approximately as fol- 

 lows : In penetrating to a depth of 600 feet, five different strata were en- 

 countered; first alluvion, seventy feet; second dark sand and mud, 

 one hundred feet ; third impervious blue clay, twenty feet ; fourth sand, 

 one hundred and forty -five feet ; fifth impervious clay. This stratum, at 

 the time of the last report which I have seen, was not perforated. The 

 second stratum contained a great abundance of shells and roots, and the 

 fourth contains sufficient water to emit from the tube six gallons per minute. 



ON THE SUBSIDENCE OF LAND ON THE SEA COAST OF NEW JERSEY 



AND LONG ISLAND. 



The following is an abstract of r. paper on the above subject, read before 

 the A A. A. S., Montreal meeting, by Prof. G. II. Cook, of New Jersey. 



In the course of some geological examinations along the coast of South- 

 ern New Jersey, my attention was frequently called to various facts indicat- 

 in" 1 a change in the relative level of the land and water, at some recent 



o *? * 



period. An attentive examination of these facts has led me to the conclu- 

 sion, that a gradual subsidence of the land is now in progress throughout the 

 whole length of New Jersey and of Long Island ; and from information de- 



