AND ITS DELTA. 1 69 



the appearance of the banks, and the natural serpentine form 

 of its course, inatmany persons have been deceived thereby, and 

 recognized their error only by the discovery of the stagnant 

 state of the water, the appearance on its borders of the Nym- 

 ph aea Nelumbo, and other aquatic plants; no person therefore 

 doubts that those lakes have all, in their turn, served to convey 

 the waters of this father of rivers, and now during the season 

 of the inundation still flow with a full current, contributing 

 their aid to the evacuation of the waters of a thousand rivers 

 which precipitate themselves into the valley of the Mississippi. 

 When we take a survey of this valley, upwards of 30 miles 

 wide opposite to the Natchez, diverging very obtusely as we ap- 

 proach the sea-coast, where it is perhaps not less than 3° in 

 long, and that in no part of it do we discover any other soil 

 than such as is now daily deposited by the waters of the Missis- 

 sippi, it is impossible not to believe that this valley has, in the 

 beginning, been a branch or inlet of the ocean, which recei- 

 ved into its bosom this great river, similar to the River de-la- 

 Piata, the Gulph of St. Laurence, Delaware bay, and many 

 others not remarkable for the alluvial properties of their rivers. 

 When, on the other hand, we contemplate the effects of the cre- 

 ative power of the Mississippi, which has filled up this prodigious 

 space with soil, more or less solid, and which must at Natchez 

 exceed 100 feet perpendicular above the level of the sea, sloping 

 gradually like an immense glacis to the coast of the bay of 

 Mexico, where nevertheless it does not terminate, but shelving 

 off by continual accumulation frequently embarrasses vessels 

 out of sight of land, along the coast, to the west of the Missis- 

 sippi; I say when we survey this immense work performed by 

 the hand of nature, we cannot accord with the opinions of cer- 

 tain visionary philosophers, who have been pleased to amuse 

 themselves with the pretended infantile state of our continent, 

 compared to their trans-atlantic world ; but, on the contrary, we 

 must grant to it an incalculable antiquity. When the inunda- 

 tion is at its height, the whole valley is replenished with water 

 every where in motion, making its progress towards the ocean; 

 so that at that season the river may be said to be 30 miles or 

 more in breadth at Natchez; the waters which pa^s over the 



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