STATEN ISLAND. 393 



undulating upland, where I saw it, consisted of a yellow 

 ish or reddish sandy clay, bearing a natural forest of 

 oak, hickory, gum, and beech, and an after-growth of 

 poor scrubby red cedar. At a late meeting of the 

 Farmers Club of this island, it was unanimously re 

 solved, &quot; That under no circumstances was it expedient 

 to plough deeper than six inches!&quot; This will give an 

 idea, if not of the state of farming, at least of the state of 

 a tract of land which bears naturally a forest of thriving 

 oak. Draining, subsoiling, and better manuring with 

 the fish of the Sound and the refuse of New York, would 

 soon change the appearance of the surface, and, I believe, 

 the opinions of the cultivators as to the most profitable 

 mode of ploughing. 



On the highway in this island, I met a strongly built 

 broad low truck drawn by two horses, and rolling along 

 on very low broad wooden wheels. It was one of those 

 carriages on which it is customary here to remove houses 

 from place to place. 



Boston, Monday llth. I left New York on Saturday, 

 spent the Sunday at Newhaven, and came in here 



which was abundant. This petroleum is carburetted hydrogen con 

 densed, and mineral coal is petroleum crystallised&quot; 



4th. A stranger fancy is that which he propounds as to the origin 

 of the saline impregnation in the salt springs at Onondaga in New 

 York State, and in the great salt lake of Utah in Central America. After 

 describing that from each locality three streams take their rise, running 

 in different directions to different seas, he adds, &quot; Here are three 

 bodies of water through which, and the vapour arising from them 

 respectively, the saline contributions are conveyed by the electric 

 energies of the ocean, and are impelled and conducted to a focus, and to 

 which the saline properties are borne with the force of every struggle 

 of the mighty deep, and the storms of lightning which labour among 

 the clouds at this trio of fountains flowing from one combined 

 centre ! &quot; 



Such a passage as this seems to carry one back again to the magnilo 

 quent days and reasonings of Paracelsus. But the reader must not 

 judge of the appendix I have called so valuable from these two last bits 

 of trash. 



