100 



to travel with his mind awake, and his eyes open, that 

 most of the rivers east of the Alleghany Ridge, and 

 north of the alluvial district upon the borders of the 

 Atlantic, must have once run through small, but 

 beautiful lakes, interspersed at different intervals of 

 their distances, from their sources to their influx ; in a 

 manner similar to that of the St. Lawrence, which, in 

 its course runs through Lakes Superiour, Huron, Erie 

 and Ontario. But these numerous reservoirs, in whose 

 tranquil surfaces, surrounding nature, in all her varied 

 hues, has been a thousand and a thousand times reflect- 

 ed, have long since been effaced and filled up with allu- 

 vion, and that too most probably deposited by the cur- 

 rent of which I am speaking. 



On the gradual subsidence of the general inunda- 

 tion, the rivers, from necessity, being compelled to 

 flow, resumed the several channels which they had 

 previously occupied when overpowered by a superiour 

 force, and where the alluvial deposites, being the least 

 in quantity, afforded the least resistance to their 

 currents. 



Whether this may seem the most rational mode of 

 explaining this phenomenon, I shall not, at present, 

 insist ; but certain it is, that the alluvial banks, as I 

 have before observed, on most of the rivers having a 

 northerly and southerly direction; are considerably 

 the widest on the Easterly and northerly side. On the 

 Connecticut river, the alluvial banks on the east side 

 are nearly twice the breadth of those on the west side, 

 except in some instances, where, in the lower banks. 



