Travels Through North America 



The tract of country lying between this ridge and 

 the coast, is supposed, and with some appearance of 

 probability, to have been gained from the ocean. 

 The situation is extremely low, and the ground every 

 where broken into small hills, nearly of the same 

 elevation, with deep intermediate gullies, as if it 

 were the effect of some sudden retiring of the waters. 

 The soil is principally of sand; and there are few, if 

 any pebbles, within a hundred miles of the shore; 

 for which reason the Virginians in these parts never 

 shoe their horses. Incredible quantities of what 

 are called scallop-shells are found also near the sur- 

 face of the ground; and many of the hills are entirely 

 formed of them. These phenomena, with others 

 less obvious to common observation, seem to in- 

 dicate that the Atlantic, either gradually, or by 

 some sudden revolution in nature, has retired, and 

 lost a considerable part of that dominion which 

 formerly belonged to it. 



The Blue Ridge is much higher than the Pignut: 

 though even these mountains are not to be compared 

 with the Alleghany. To the southward, I was told, 

 they are more lofty; and but little, if at all, inferior 

 to them. The pass, at Ashby's Gap, from the foot 

 of the mountain on the eastern side to the Shenandoah, 

 which runs at the foot on the western, is about four 

 miles. The ascent is no where very steep; though 

 the mountains are, upon the whole, I think, higher 

 than any I have ever seen in England. When I got 



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