•28i AGRICULTURAL MUSEUM 



just perception of them. Before, however, Ave proceed 

 to attempt to set hoiiricls to ihe princiijul (livisions of this 

 region, it will be satisfactory to give some idea of its 

 formation, and this 1 cannot do better than by commen- 

 cinj^ with the description given by Mr. Vohiey, in speak- 

 ing of what he calls the alluvia! or river formed soil of the 

 United States, in the following words ; — 



"■ The remainint;: region is the country which undulates 

 beyond ihe ndge of Talc, to the foot of the Sand Stone, 

 or granitic mountains. This limit is traced with most 

 dilBcu'tv in Western Georgia, where the vein of Tale 

 does not shew itself Ths surface is distinguished by 

 its risings, sometimes in long waves, and sometimes into 

 round and insulated eminences ; by the variety of its 

 earths and stones, sometimes confused, and some- 

 times arranged with regularity, and which appear and 

 disappear many times successively, from the mountains 

 to tlie maritime plain ; always hearing the appearance of 

 hiving been brought gradually down by the rains and 

 rivers, from the heights, and such in truth, is the origin of 

 all this country. When we calculate the volimie, the ra- 

 pidity, and the number of these streams ; of the Dela- 

 ware, Schuylkdl, Snsquehannnh, Potomak, Rappa- 

 hannock, York and James Rivers, &c — when we ob- 

 serve that long before their mixture with the ocean, they 

 spread themselves to a breadth of from half a mile to 

 three miles, over a bottom from twenty to sixty feet 

 deep ; that m their annual floods, they rise sometimes to 

 a h.-ight of twenty feet above their ordinary level, we 

 shall easily perceive what immense portions of earthy 

 matter nnist be carried about, especially as informer 

 agf's ih;; mountains must have had a greater elevation 

 and .»f course given greater swiftness and force to the 

 torrents ; that the forest trees torn up and eairied ofi" by 

 thousands, added to (heir destructive course ; that the 

 ice accumulated by six months of winter, forms vast 

 moniids. such as took place in 178-1, in the Susqnehan- 

 nah, at '*[ Call's feri-y, near Columbia, where a barrier 

 of this kind more than thirty feet high_, waslormed by 



