MODE OF DRYING MARSHES. 



N". XXIX. 



On the Mode moji eafily and effeEiiially praEllcable of drying 

 up the Majjhes of the maritime Parts of North Ame- 

 rica. By Thomas Wright, Licentiate of the Col- 

 lege of Surgeons in Ireland ^ and Treacher of Anatomy. 



Read Nov. T TAVING for fomc ycai's during the Ame- 

 21, 1794- \f\_ rican war (here fo called) traverfed that 

 continent in the exercife of my profeffion, I ulually noted 

 fuch local circumftances as it occurred to me might be 

 improved upon, or in fome manner applied to ufcful 

 purpofes. The health of the foldiery being my particular 

 obje£t, I neceffarily contemplated the caufes of ficknefs, 

 fome of which were fo univerfal, that few, either natives 

 or others efcaped their baleful influence ; but chiefly the 

 effluvia of fwampy lands in producing ague almofl: as an 

 epidemic. 



It is ufelefs to know caufes, it is idle to defcant on 

 them, unlefs with the intention by their removal to 

 obviate their effedl* : there are but two modes of drying 

 up the great marflies of y\merica ; the moft effed:ual 

 would be by draining them, but that is not an cafy tafk, 

 as the dead level of the coaft country between the Apa- 

 lachian Mountains and the Atlantic feems to defy 

 the moft determined induftry ; this I relinquifli as im- 

 pradlicable except by many years labour. I fliall there- 

 fore propofe what I hope will prove a more prompt re- 

 medy, and pofTibly not lefs effedual. 



Following the moft obvious appearances of things, it 

 is evinced in the moft legible characters of nature, the 

 fhoaling coaft, fandy beach, fwampy plains, large rivers, 

 fandy hills raifed over heaps of the exuvia: of marine 

 animals, that the eaftern coaft of North America has been 



of 



