176 October 1748* 



parts of Europe are more populous. The In-> 

 dians have fold the country to the Europeans, and 

 have retired further up : in moft parts you may 

 travel twenty Sivedifh miles, or about a hundred 

 and twenty Engli/b miles, from the fea-fhore be- 

 fore you reach the firft habitations of the Indians, 

 And it is very poffible for a perfon to have been 

 at Philadelphia and other towns on the fea fliorc 

 for half a year together, without fo much as fee- 

 ing an Indian. I intend in the fequel to give a 

 more circumftantial account of them, their reli- 

 gion, manners, ceconomy, and other particulars 

 relating to them : at prefent I return to the fe- 

 quel of my journal. 



ABOUT nine Englijh miles from Trenton, the 

 ground, began to change its colour; hitherto it 

 confided of a confiderable quantity of hazel-co- 

 loured clay, but at prefent the earth was a red- 

 dim brown, fo that it fometimes had a purple 

 colour, and fometimes looked like logwood. 

 This colour came from a red limeftone, which 

 approached very near to that which is on the 

 mountain Kinnekulle in Weft Gothland, and makes 

 a particular ftratum in the rock. The American 

 red limeftone therefore feems to be merely a va- 

 riety of that I faw in Sweden, it lay in ftrata of 

 two or three fingers thicknefs -, but was divifible 

 into many thinner plates or fhivers, whofefurfacc 

 was feldom flat and fmooth, but commonly rough : 

 the ftrata themfelves were frequently cut off by 

 horizontal cracks. When thefe ftones were ex- 

 pofed to the air, they, by degrees, fhivered and 

 withered into pieces, and at laft turned into duft. 

 The people of this neighboorhood did not know 



how 



