selves are sealed, as it were, in the bosom of the earth. The story 

 as it is written on the everlasting hills is more interesting than the 

 annals of a people, more pleasing than the most wonderful creation 

 of human fancy. The Rosetta stone gave Campollion no better key 

 by which to decipher the history of the dynasties of Egypt than the 

 shells afford for telling the stories of mountains and oceans. In- 

 deed, why should we wish to read from crumbling monuments trivial 

 stories of kings and nations, when we may, in these pleasant shades, 

 read in the rocks and the hillsides the history of lakes and rivers, 

 tales far older and more wonderful than those written in Karnac. 



These channels, once conduits of ante-diluvian waters, we now 

 find, like old abandoned canals, are choked throughout their entire 

 length, and, in most places deeply buried beneath vast masses of 

 gravel stones and sand. The waters, which once flowed through 

 them into northern oceans, are now turned southward into the 

 Mississippi. What brought this loose material here to fill the val- 

 leys, dam these ancient channels, turn their waters southward, and 

 to spread it over the hills in such vast quantities, is a curious and 

 interesting subject for speculation. 



If we turn to a large map of North America, we will observe 

 that it has remarkable features. Its shores north of the forty-second 

 parallel of latitude, corresponding with the northern boundary of 

 Pennsylvania, is indented by deep and narrow bays, or fiords, 

 which often extend between bold and rocky shores, sometimes fifty 

 miles inland. In the higher latitudes of the continent high and 

 broken coasts and ragged peninsulas bound the adjacent seas, and 

 numerous misshapen islands lie along the shores. North of this limit, 

 over the vast region away to the Arctic Ocean, besides the largest 

 lakes of the world, are also scattered a multitude of lesser ones, 

 which are often distributed in chains and systems. New Brunswick, 

 New York, the New England States, Michigan, Wisconsin and 

 Minnesota, all of which lie north of the forty-second parallel of lati- 

 tude, are gemmed with lakes. In the latter state alone there are 

 estimated to be ten thousand. Like sparkling beads strung on silver 

 threads, they are joined together by a common stream affording a 

 curious means of communication between distant parts. In all the 

 territory that lies south of this limit, there is a mery marked contrast. 

 In Iowa, Illinois and Indiana and all the southern part of the United 

 States, scarcely a lake exists. There the seacoast extends in wide 

 and sweeping curves, the bays and inlets lie between low and sandy 

 shores. No foreign masses of earth and boulders overlie the natural 

 rocks. The soil is solely formed from the mouldering strata upon 

 which it rests. This region often extends in wide and level plains, 

 veined throughout its whole extent with innumerable water courses, 



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