352 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



I5' their age is easily ascertained, from the con- 

 cenlric rin<is indiciiting the iirowlli of each year. 

 I have examined some ol' the?e, apparently as old 

 as any, and tlieir age does not exceed three hun- 

 dred and fiiiy years. In speakinix of the soil, I 

 should have iTKMilioned that aboui five and a half 

 miles below VVinchester, there are a number of 

 li-agments of light sandstone, Irom the size of a 

 nia'n's hand to that of his head, and some larger 

 still, and that throughout the whole basin, bro- 

 ken pieces of flint, li-om the size of a gun flint 

 to that of an iron pound weight, are to be found 

 on the hill sides and in the streams, on the surface 

 and near it, and that what is called shot iron ore, 

 is disseminated every where in the soil, and 

 abounds most in low concavities where the soil is 

 blackest. The nearest rantre of flint stone in 

 place, that I have seen, is in Montgomery, beyond 

 or eastward of Mount Sterling. 



The relative situation of the high lands, east of 

 this remarkable basin, of the rivers, on its flanks, of 

 the hills below it, the appearance of its exterior 

 edges on the upper side, denuded of soil and pre- 

 senting an inclined rock-covered surface, with the 

 stratified rocks of recent formation, and the rich 

 deposit of soil having on and near its surface, 

 frai2;menis of the rock formation above, mingled 

 with the soil, induce me to hazard a conjecture as 

 to the Ibrmer condition of this country. 



If, as it has been supposed, the vast area be- 

 tween the Alleghany and the Rocky mountains 

 was once an inland sea, which has been drained 

 oflby the rivers runnins into the Guifs of Mexi- 

 co aiid St. Lawrence, and the Lakes_ Superior. 

 Michigan, Erie, &c. are lower basins of the same, 

 no! yet emptied by these channels, which, as their 

 beds become lower by the attrition of the waters, 

 will ultimately reach these remaining lakes, and 

 drain ofl' their waters, leaving their rich basins dry 

 land, this operation may have been, and indeed 

 must have been completed in regard to all the rich 

 basins of land within that area which are now dry 

 land. No person can, I think, visit tiie falls of Nia- 

 gara, and examine the river and its banks, liom the 

 lalls to Queenstown, without arriving at the conclu- 

 sion that the falls were once at Queenstown, seven 

 miles below the liills. An advance of the falls, 

 twenty five miles up the river, will bring them 

 to Lake Erie. That rapids similar to those now 

 above the falls, will precede them in their ad- 

 vance towards the lake, will hardly be doubled, 

 and that, therefore, the lake will not be sudden- 

 ly, but gradually emptied. Indeed, the nature of 

 the rock lormation on the Niagara, leads to the 

 formation of inclined planes first, by the passage 

 of water over it. Limestone constitutes the bed 

 of the stream overlaying the shale. This is eofl- 

 er than the limestone, and as it is washed out 

 from beneath the lower edge of every break in liie 

 harder limesione, the latter, at its lower edge, is 

 pressed down into the cavity below, while the up- 

 per portion of the same stratum rests upon the 

 shale, as yet undisturbed by the action of the 

 water. The bottom of a lake drained ofl', and re- 

 mainins; dry some liiree or four hundred years, in 

 the posTtion of the country around Lexington, be- 

 tween the Licking and Kentucky rivers, would 

 present just such appearances as are actually pre- 

 sented. I therefore think ttiat the Elkhorn Para- 

 dise was once the bottom of a lake of fresh water, 

 holding a great quantity of lime in solui ion. That ; 



its waters, after producing, by deposition, the 

 newly formed stratified rocks, and leaving on ihem 

 the soil carried down liom its borders, which, 

 minirliiiiT vviih the vegetable matter grown since 

 on this mud and the disintei^raied limestone has 

 ibrmed so rii-h a soil, have passed ofl' by the Lick- 

 ing and Kentucky rivers, culling down their 

 channels to the hard Kentucky marble. That in 

 the passage of the waters liom the east the frag- 

 ments of sandstone and flint have been brought 

 down into this basin from their places above, and 

 I hat the minute panicles of iron ore washed down, 

 have given color to the soil, making it blackest 

 where there is most vegetable matter ; that some 

 time must have elapsed, after the rupture of the 

 vein of silex, in Montgomery, by the passage of 

 the waters belore the final draining of the lake, 

 seems to be proved by deposites of limestone 

 around f asments of flint. Some of these very 

 soli limestones, encircling pieces of flint which jut 

 out above the surface of the limestone, are two or 

 three inches thick. Very few water- worn pebbles 

 of quariz are to be found in this basin, except in 

 the alluvions of Licking and Kentucky rivers. 

 In the wide deposit of sand between Licking and 

 Slate rivers, they are very abundant, and in the 

 sandy talus westward of the mountains, in Estill 

 county. That there are few pebbles, so little sand 

 and sandstone here, I attribute 10 the high range 

 of land running across from Kentucky river to 

 Licking, which turned aside these rivers Irom the 

 cenire of the lake, and caused ihem to drain it by 

 its flanks; the deep ravines leading laterally Irom 

 it into Licking and Kentucky rivers, favor this 

 supposition. I am told that the high ranjje of land 

 mentioned above, is at some points, (Owiniisviile 

 for instance,) more than five hundred feet higher 

 than the land at tlie mouth of Big Sandy river, on 

 the Ohio. The admirable adaptation of the soil 

 of this portion of Kentucky, to crops of grain, 

 grass and hemp, is well known. It is ihouiiht by 

 many experienced fiirmers to be comparatively 

 cheap, even at its present prices, (from §50 to #;8U 

 per acre,) and certain it is, that alter the exhaus- 

 tion produced by many years' successive cultiva- 

 tion of the same crop, it recovers iis original fer- 

 tility with wonderful celery. The return of vege- 

 table matter to it by clover, for a few years, or rye 

 led down on the land to stock turned on it when 

 ripe, or even by covering it into timothy meadow, 

 restores it to a condition suitable to crops requiring 

 the richest lands to produce them. It is not to be 

 wondered at then, that the Kentuckians occasion- 

 ally overstock their markeis with agricultural pro- 

 ducts-much in demand. Those who own and cul- 

 tivate farms in this basin, belbi-e they exchange 

 them for other lands in Kentucky, or lurther west- 

 ward, will act wisely not to depend on the mere 

 appearance of the soil, but to ascertain its nature 

 and composiiion belore they buy. Otherwise, they 

 may find it illy adapied to iheir purposes, and be- 

 much disappointed in the result of their operations,. 



John Lewis. 

 Llangollen, Franklin Co., ? 

 M%Lg\ist 2Uh, 1837. 3 



