CALCAREOUS MANUliES— APPENDIX. 289 



sages in each of all the volumes, in connexion with articles on marshes, 

 mill-ponds, and canals, &c. But as it would be requiring too much of read- 

 ers that they should either remember, or carefully refer to those various 

 articles, a general, though slight view of the whole subject will be here 

 presented, sustained by additional facts, which have been recently learned 

 by personal inquiry and observation. 



That the common autumnal or bilious diseases of eastern Virginia, and 

 especially of the tide-water portion, which is most subjected to them, are 

 principally caused by the effluvia rising from wet lands, is a matter in 

 which all concur. The general difference between the presence of these 

 disorders, in low, wet, or marshy countries, and their absence, or scarcity, 

 in mountainous and dry regions, is so great, that none can mistake, or 

 differ about, the general 'causes and effects. But from this geiieral opinion, 

 which is true in the main, (though having numerous and important excep- 

 tions,) there is deduced the erroneous conclusion, that these opposite gene- 

 ral effects produced on health, in extensive regions either generally low and 

 wet, or generally hilly and dry, are produced by these opposite natural 

 features, and cannot be very materially altered by art ; as art cannot mate- 

 rially alter the natural character of the land. Or, in other words, that 

 nature has made one great region low and sickly, and another high and 

 healthy; and that man cannot do much to counteract the law of nature in 

 either case. Perhaps none may maintain this position, in argument, without 

 admitting partial exceptions in numerous particular cases and localities. 

 Indeed, every man will say that care may lessen the causes and mitigate 

 the operation of malaria, in a sickly region^ or increase both in a healthy 

 one. But, judging- from the action of both the people and their laws, which 

 speaks more strongly than words, it may be inferred that it is a general 

 belief that such bondings of nature from her course can be but slight, in 

 particular cases, and scarcely worth estimating on a broad scale, or through 

 an extensive country. In entire conformity with this supposition, it is a 

 notorious fact that very i^ew individuals in Virginia have done any thing 

 considerable, or on system, to protect their dwelling places from malaria ; 

 and the government has not only done nothing for general protection, but 

 has actually caused the worst of the existing evils, and is encouraging their 

 continued increase and aggravation, by the fixed legal policy of the country; 

 which permits the raising of mill-ponds, that are productive of little else 

 than malaria and disease; and indirectly, but effectually, forbids the drain- 

 age of extensive swamps. The production and deadly effects of malaria, 

 in eastern Virginia, for the greater part, is to be charged, not to the laws of 

 God, but to the laws of man ; which, in this respect, operate to put away or 

 sacrifice some of the most precious of God's blessings, offered to all, to 

 gratify the whims, or the blind and often mistaken avarice, of a few indivi- 

 duals. There are, doubtless, great natural differences as to the sickliness 

 of differently situated regions; as between the low tide- water region of 

 Virginia, the central or hilly, and also the mountainous region. But, in 

 their natural state, before damaged by mill-ponds and other of man's mis- 

 called improvements, the low-country was probably less afflicted by malaria 

 than the hilly parts now are, or may be rendered by the full extension of 

 these injurious operations of man. This is a matter of mere supposition, 

 and cannot possibly be subjected to the rigid test of proof by known facts. 

 But, from reasoning, and inferences from such facts as are known, it seems 

 most probable that some of the now most sickly counties on tide-water 

 were, at the first settlement of the country, less sickly than the hilly and 

 originally very healthy county of Brunswick, for example, has been in 

 latter years. 



