Bringier on the Region of the Mississippi, §&c. 19 
I will give a few more examples of this kind, before i 
are the sg for I consider it to be of great impor- 
leave, for the observation of the Mississippi 
naigator, a beds of drift wood collected on the heads of 
lands, which they pass in coming down the Ohio, and 
more particularly the Mississippi. I will, therefore, advertto — 
the large raft of the Red river, which is sixty miles in i length, 
and, in many places, fifteen in breadth. On this, in some 
places, cedars are heaped by themselves, and in others, 
pines. At the foot of a hill, where nothing else grows, the 
flood sweeps them into a. pile, where they are matted to- 
gether, with their leaves, and with the pods or capsules of 
their seeds, forming as most compact kind of rafts. If these 
leaves ever enter into fermentation, or any other decompo- 
- ion,» is mus sf certainly. pindnee. piusinoun aubetences 
kewiie, by the same cause, with av ery large proportion of 
minute vegetables, may produce other bituminous bodies in 
smaller quantity ; but I conceive that mineral coal would be 
formed in greatest snondance, as the rafts of mixed wood 
are inexhaustible. 
Tn this raft of the Red river, 1 numerous small streams are 
seen to disappear under the raft, and show themselves again, 
er having passed several miles mater the surface, and un- 
der the sand banks, which are, probably; oie at 7 oa 
buried under the sand.* ots 
* This account being communicated i in MS. to N. A. War £, Esq. an 
telligent and scientific gentleman, from Alabama, he gave me the fllowing 
opinion of ¢ the statement of facts s— Editor. 
To ‘Paonp azo SILLIMAN. 
Sir, 
ae. Bringier's onlin of of the aif, and is dhcuail ot viet de 
vaft in the Achafalaya, is too |: ae ogy ag 
- gives the best accouut of it: 1 to to wget Prt ou, pp. 15, 52, 53, and 54. 
Darby’s far a " Louisiana, is very minute, 
in the aforesaid nahi doth and is the best aecouut extant.f 
The passa 2 sabiehed te aby Me Ware, are as ad talk 
= hon aoe spectacle of being | ho 
