10 HISTORY OF OHIO. 



the eye of the beholder. The spectator beheld tall trees, 

 covered with vines of the grape, and of wild roses, hanging m 

 clusters from near the ground to the topmost boughs. He 

 saw, too, a beautiful shrubbery of flowering plants, tall grasses, 

 and a great profusion of wild flowers in full bloom, of every 

 shade of color. All was silent and still, except the singmg 

 birds of every variety, of wild fowls;— the paroquette, bob-of- 

 lincoln, quail,'turkey, pigeon and mocking bird. If he ascended 

 the second bank of lake Erie, he saw, what appeared before 

 him, a boundless ocean, or bounded, only by the distant horizon. 

 "Wlicn the lake was calm, he heard the same solemn, sublune 

 hum, that the Atlantic rolls to its shore. When the spectator 

 approached near to the lake in mid summer, he felt the land 

 and the lake breezes succeed each other, and felt all the in- 

 conveniences produced by sudden changes of temperature. 



While he stood on some lofty summit fronting the Ohio, and 

 near it, he saw that delightful stream moving slowly, but ma- 

 jestically along, noiseless as the foot of time, and as resistless. 



But, we will proceed, directly to our object, which is, to 

 consider for a moment our 



GEOLOGY. 



The whole valley of the Mississippi, is what Geologists de- 

 nominate " a secondary formation." Those who have written 

 on Geology, may be divided into two classes, Huttonians and 

 Wernerians, from Hutton and Werner, the founders of the two 

 sects of naturalists. The former, refer all the changes ob- 

 served on the earth's surface, to the action of heat, the latter 

 to that of water. We may say, with great propriety to those 

 theorists: " Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites." 

 It belono-s not to us to settle such disputes between you. 

 That both these causes, have operated on this globe, to pro- 

 duce changes in its external surface, at different periods of 

 time; — and, that both these causes are still operating, is 

 equally certain. But, the great valley of the Mississippi, ex- 

 hibits very few marks of volcanic action, whereas every thing 

 shows its Neptunian origin. From the Erie, Huron, Michi- 



