ee Ie i 
‘ a F ; on z 
: these s ec lations without being thought presumptuous. 
n, 
e greater part of the western states, and over nearly 
disiana, Were primitively occasioned, and have been 
= continued, combustion of vegetables, that water 
had no agency in their formation. 
In order ‘to prove the high prairies of the state of Ohio to 
have been once covered by the waters of Lake Erie, Mr. A. 
maintains, that the channel of the Niagara river has been 
worn down “several hundred feet” by the attrition of its 
~waters. Mr. A. should have shown, that the banks of the 
Niagara are, at this time, several hundred feet high, or, like 
the Potomac, at Harper’s Ferry, has broken through amoua- 
tain “several hundred feet” .bigh; but neither the one nor 
the other is. the fact; the face of the country, on either side 
of the river, is comparatively low and champaign; and were it 
possible for the waters of the lake to rise considerably above 
their presentilevel, they would meet with no obstruction oF 
impediment, for man miles on either side the river; but 
would be precipitated over the cataract, into Ontario, and 
down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. But supposing there 
had been a mountain running between Lakes Erie and Ontario 
of sufficient height to prevent the water of the former from 
rth 
places through which to escape, and before it would rise 
high enough to overflow the elevated region of Madison ao 
Fayette counties, in Ohio,.it would have passed ove? int 
_ heads-of the~Alleghany. But. it is impossible to imagine thiss 
mnless we suppose the Atlantic to have been Six OF seven 
hundred feet higher than. at present, which, according 1° 
Mr. A. would have made prairie of all the Atlantic states. : 
_ The fact of shells and other marine substances having been 
found in a few places, by digging in the prairies, proves 
nothing, or proves.too much, for they are found in equal oF 
greater quantities all over America, in the sides and neat she 
summit of the Alleghany mountains; on the Andes, in South 
