188 Miscellanies. 



posed shells and calcareous deposits, from marine animalcule, prob- 

 ably resembling those about the Florida Keys. That the prairies 

 are of oceanic origin, or had, at least, a connexion with the sea, ap- 

 pears from the oyster shells, sharks' teeth, and similar reliquiae, 

 which are here of frequent occurrence. I have, also, in my pos- 

 session some of the vertebrae of an animal as large as the elephant, 

 and some of the petrified muscles, apparently belonging to a fish. 

 It seems to have been worm-eaten before it was mineralized. The 

 animal perished too in a vertical position, as the vertebrae shew, hav- 

 ing been first discovered, ranged one above another, in the steep 

 bank of a rivulet. A few feet under the top of the soil, and some- 

 times on its surface, is invariably found a whitish, soft limestone rock, 

 easily cut with a knife, and very smooth and friable. It is here call- 

 ed familiarly rotten limestone, to distinguish it from the hard blue 



li 



This rotten 



limestone is sometimes sawed out in blocks, with a common cross- 

 cut saw, and if kept out of the weather becomes hard, but if ex- 

 posed, immediately after taking it out of the earth, to the rains and 

 frosts, it falls into powder and becomes soil. In all our prairie re- 

 gion, water is scarce, and sometimes all efforts to obtain it fail, al- 

 though the rock has been bored into, in some instances, upwards of 

 five hundred feet. There seem to be no natural fissures or clefts in 

 the rock, through which water can approach the surface. It is, in 

 most instances, more or less mixed with shells, even to the extre- 

 mest depth to which it has been penetrated. Sometimes small balls 

 of the sulphuret of iron are found in it, and, in some instances, the 

 6hells form distinct strata. It effervesces with acids, but, when ex- 

 posed to heat, does not make lime fit for the ordinary purposes. 

 There is one variety of it, however, which is found on some of the 

 hills below this place, in detached, porous, honey-comb fragments, 

 which makes lime strong enough for common use. 



On these hills, we have cedars vying with those of the forests of 

 Lebanon; sometimes three feet in diameter, and towering to a great 

 height. 



This belt of prairie country extends from the eastern part of this 

 state, quite across it, into Mississippi, being from thirty to forty miles 

 in breadth. It is generally more or less covered with timber, al- 

 though sometimes it is entirely destitute of trees, and then it is des- 



gnated 



The soil is generally black, and 



very productive in.com and grain ; but where there is no timber, it 

 is not adapted to the growth of cotton, nor of fruit trees or the legu- 



