1838] 



farmf:rs' register, 



225 



one direction, and s'ill more it" its course be con- 

 fined to an openin<r by or between woods, or to a 

 narrow valley between liiifh hillr^, it may well be 

 imagined that the poisonous air iinirlu injuriously 

 adect persons perhaps five miles ii-om tlie pond, 

 and who would not suspect tiie operation of so 

 distant a source; while olhers, close to its border, 

 but in a difi'erent direction, or on a dilferenl level, 

 raifrht escape its influence. 



Objection 2. — There is not enourrh difTerence in 

 (he usual or average healthiness of families the 

 most exposed, and o'.hers the least exposed to 

 mill-ponds, to aitribule much of the elfects to 

 tliese causes. Whole neighborhoods, in some au- 

 tunu^.s, are very healthy, and in olhers very sick- 

 ly, wiihout either condition seeming to be con- 

 nected with any certain and known state of the 

 nearest mill-ponds. 



^^laswcr. — The extreme liixhtness of the poi- 

 sonous air, and great and frequent variations in 

 the direction, force, and continuance of the winds 

 on which it is borne, make it generally impossible 

 for it to be known from which particular pond or 

 ponds the malaria rises, or where it is carried. It 

 ia most probable that the exhalations of twenty 

 ponds, of which the most remote may be thirty 

 miles apart, may be mingled together, even by the 

 winds of a single daj^, and thus combine and ave- 

 rage the etiiects of all. Further— if all the mill- 

 ponds of a county furnish one hiilf of the active 

 and injurious malaria, and the other half is thrown 

 ott', nearly equally, by the whole surface of the 

 land, (though some parts would receive the strong- 

 est doses, and others escape with having only tlie 

 weakest,) it would be impossible to understand the 

 mode, and estimate the intensity, of operation of 

 the known general causes; or to refer, with cer- 

 tainty, any one elTect to its special or principal 1 

 cause. Tnus, a farm, relieved from all malaria of i 

 its own product, by marling and by drying its \ 

 mill-pond, though evidently showing the benefit! 

 in increased general healthiness, might still be i 

 sorely visited by the seeds of disease from other 

 and remote sources, directed and concentrated by 

 a steady wind. 



Having presented these views of the origin, ac- 

 tion and effects of malaria in this country, I can 

 better exhibit the progress of the causes which I 

 believe to have operated, and which are still con- 

 tinuing to operate, to produce the change from a 

 healthy, to an unhealthy state. 



When our ancestors first reached this shore, 

 nearly the whole country was in a state of nature. 

 Tlie savages had cleared for cultivation but a few 

 fertile spots on the banks of the rivers; all the rest 

 of the land was under one great forest. The 

 streams had not been obstructed by the cutlins' 

 down of trees across their beds, (by which, in 

 many cases, streams have since been choked, 

 and swamps thereby formed, or greatly extended.) 

 No dams had obstructed the free and regular 

 course of the streams, and therefore no great arti- 

 ficial floods were formed. The soil not having 

 been cultivated, was not exposed to be washed 

 away by the rains into the rivers. The waters 

 therefore were generally clear, instead of beins 

 generally muddy, as since all these circumstances 

 have been changed. In this former state of 

 things there could have been existing but k\v 

 sources of malaria. 



The first sources formed by the civilized sel- 

 Vol. VI— 29 



tiers, was in making ponds to supply water-mills. 

 But while these were yet few in number, the con- 

 si meters ofcour.se chose the best and most unliul- 

 iiig streams; and the ponds were also, lor a long 

 time, surroimdcd by dense and tall fijrests. Such 

 hilly land as the margins of the ponds would cer- 

 tainly not be brought into cultivation, while so 

 much that was far better, and easier to till, re- 

 mained unoccupied. Jlence, such ponds produced 

 but little malaria, and that little was wardetl off 

 from the settlers, or taken up, by the forest 

 •rrowth. The general wooded state of the coun- 

 try, also, for a long time, rendered the supplies of 

 water more regular, and prevented the severe 

 droughts, which would have altered greatly, as is 

 usual now, the levels of the ponds. 



The clearing, cultivation, and consequent wash- 

 ing of the lands of the upper country, greatly in- 

 creased the muddiness, and quantity of alluvial 

 (ie[)osite of the rivers, and thereby increased the 

 marshes both in breadth and in height. More 

 mills continued to be built, and on streams worse 

 and vvorse lor water-power, as the choice became 

 less open, and the mill-mania began to grow; and, 

 in the general, each successive construction of a 

 pond was less productive of profit, and more pro- 

 ductive of disease, than its predecessors. The 

 number of mills not only continued to increase, 

 and is increasing to this day, and in the oldest 

 settled parts of this state, as well as the newest, 

 but gradual changes also took place in the condi- 

 tion of the old mills which greatly increased their 

 fitness to produce disease. By the long continued 

 deposite of mud from the streams, and the washing 

 of the now cleared and tilled hill-sides, the ponds 

 became more shallow, and the waste of water by 

 evaporation therefore became greater; while the 

 supply was lessened, in consequence of the extend- 

 ed clearings of the great forest which had be- 

 fore covered the whole country. To remedy the 

 increasing deficiency of water, the owners of old 

 mills, who were not prohibited by circumstances, 

 raised the level of their ponds; which by increasing 

 their surface and their contents, still more in- 

 creased the daily evaporation, and also the vio- 

 lence of floods, and the variable height and sur- 

 face of the water; all of which again combined 

 to increase, still more than before, the product of 

 malaria. The consideration ofthc progress of all 

 these circumstances, and their bearing on each 

 other, will serve to explain why a particular 

 neighborhood might formerly have been healthy, 

 though having two or three mill-ponds within or 

 around it; and why it might gradually have be- 

 come very unhealthy, in the course of time, by 

 the malaria produced by the ponds of the same 

 mills, or perhaps by the addition of one more new 

 pond, to the former number. But, in such cases, 

 so gradual would be the general change, and so 

 irregular and variable the attacks and virulence of 

 the autumnal diseases, that the sufferers would 

 not attribute the change, (even if they admitted 

 it to have taken place,) in their average degree of 

 healih, to causes which had so longexisted, with- 

 out being charged with doing mischief; and in 

 which causes, no change of condition had been 

 observed. Add to this, that self-love makes every 

 man reluctant to believe, and to confess, that his 

 own farm, or his own neighborhood, has become 

 more sickly; and the change for the worse is attri- 

 buted to transient causes, until the former state of 



