SOLON ROBINSON, 1847 87 



iron. No saw mills — banks of streams so loose that they 

 don't admit of sawing; beside being a mile apart, [i.e. 

 the banks of the bottom lands.] Beds of streams very- 

 fine sand. In all the side hills, as soon the timber is 

 removed, immense gullies occur. Face of the country 

 exceedingly uneven, and the soil so fine and light, that 

 unless hill sides are cultivated upon the level system with 

 side hill ditches, it runs off almost as free as water. Upon 

 some of the highest peaks of these volcanic hills are 

 large masses of heavy, red stone, in cubical form, having 

 the appearance of melted sand, mixed with iron. Occa- 

 sionally the hills are covered with pitch pine. Around 

 Raymond the country is more level and more clayey — 

 sometimes the color of this clay approaches nearly to 

 white. Towards Natchez, the streams seem to run in 

 beds of loose sand, and in places where the roots have 

 decayed, channels of immense width are cut out, and 

 which are widening with every freshet 



"The country around Natchez is well worthy the 

 attention of Geologists. The town is built upon a bluff 

 some 300 feet high, of an alluvial deposit that appears 

 to been formed at one time in an eddy of water of that 

 depth." 



If you, sir, or your correspondent, will make a trip to 

 Natchez, and then come by land about 100 miles up to 

 Vicksburgh, you will find more to interest you, than upon 

 any other 100 miles of alluvial deposit in the west. 



And if you will call on Col. Wales,^ at Washington, 6 

 miles east of Natchez, you will not only find a very inter- 

 esting cabinet, but a gentleman, willing and qualified to 

 give a fund of information in relation to that locality. 



' B. L. C. Wailes, state geolog-ist of Mississippi. The Wailes 

 family originally emigrated from Maryland and settled near Nat- 

 chez. Wailes wrote numerous articles on agriculture including in- 

 digo cultivation, the adoption of the cotton gin, and the introduction 

 of Mexican cotton in Mississippi. Also made a report on the 

 Agriculture and Geology of Mississippi, in 1854. Rowland, Dun- 

 bar, History of Mississippi. The Heart of the Sotith, 1:39-40, 289- 

 91, 342; 2:512, 515-17, 666 (S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago- 

 Jackson, 1925) ; Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Missis- 

 sippi, 1:13. 



