364 BLACK WATERS. 



thus marked. These waters, when several feet in depth, appear to the 

 eye quite black or very dark brown. The same if viewed in a drink- 

 ing glass would appear of the colour of Sherry wine, and might 

 present some shade between the palest and deepest tints of such 

 wine. This colour has nothing of muddiness; for these waters are 

 as clear from suspended clay or mud as any other waters not so 

 coloured in the slightest degree. In the county in which nearly 

 all my life has been passed, Prince George, these different kinds of 

 waters are to be seen in stronger contrast, because of their close 

 neighbourhood. All the streams which flow into Blackwater river, 

 as well as the main stream which that name so well describes, 

 from its head to its outlet, are coloured deeply, and it is believed 

 without exception. On the contrary, the streams which flow into 

 James river are all without the least tint of colour, though they 

 often rise from sources very near to some of the others, the head- 

 springs being on opposite sides of the same dividing ridge of level 

 table land, and in lands precisely alike. Some of these lands are 

 of close and stiff soil, and some more sandy and quite light ; but 

 all are level, poor, and acid lands, and are mostly still under forest 

 growth. 



All persons, whether of the most or the least observant class, 

 would concur in the opinion that this colour proceeds from vegeta- 

 ble matter. This is obvious even in the waters of heavy rains f 

 which when more than the level ridge lands can absorb, flow off, 

 and are sometimes for a day or more thus passing in temporary 

 streams to the nearest valley, or other descent. These surplus- 

 waters, while yet on the highest woodland, are coloured to a greater 

 or less depth of tint; and just as much in those which take their 

 course towards James river, as the others which flow in the opposite 

 direction to the Blackwater. The difference is that the former soon 

 lose all such colouring matter, and in no case carry it to or even 

 near James river, whilst the other waters increase in depth of 

 colour with the length of their course, or the duration of time they 

 remain in the mill-ponds they pass through, or in the sluggish Black- 

 water river. 



The supply of colouring matter is principally furnished by the 

 dead and fallen leaves in the poor forest land, and is doubtless in- 

 creased afterwards, both by the partial evaporation of the water, 

 and by its dissolving still more of the soluble vegetable extract in 

 the flat swampy grounds through which the streams flow into the 

 Blackwater. This might indeed' satisfactorily account for these 

 waters being more deeply coloured than those which pass by a more 

 rapid descent to James river. But these different circumstances 

 do not serve at all to explain why the latter waters should soon 

 lose, if they had it at first, the slightest trace of colour. 



The like circumstances are probably to be found to more or less 



