ISfew Jerfey, Raccoon. 355 



at this depth. Query, Is it not probable, 

 that the burnt wood which has been thus 

 dug up, was only blackened by a fubterra- 

 neous mineral vapour ? People however 

 have concluded from this, that America 

 has had inhabitants before the deluge. This 

 man (Peter RamboJ further told me, that 

 bricks had been found deep in the ground ; 

 but may not the brickcoloured clay (of which 

 the ground here chiefly coniifts, and which 

 is a mixture of clay and land) in a hard ftate 

 have had the appearance of bricks ? I have 

 feen fuch hardened clay, which at firn: light 

 is eafily miftaken for brick. He like wife 

 aliened, that the water in rivers was ilill as 

 high as it ufed to be, as far back as memory 

 could reach > but little lakes, ponds, and 

 waters in marfhes are vifibly decreafed, and 

 many of them dried up. 



Maons Keen, a Swede above feventy 

 years old, alferted, that on digging a well 

 he had feen at the depth of forty feet, a 

 great piece of chefnut wood, together with 

 roots and ftalks of reed, and a clayey earth 

 like that which commonly covers the mores 

 of fait water bays and coves. This clay 

 had a fimilar fmell and a faline tafte. Maons 

 Keen and feveral other people inferred from 

 hence, that the whole country where Rac- 

 coon zndPenns neck are fituated, was ancient- 



Z 2 ly 



