CHAPTER V. 



FROM all the cases which I have enumerated, together 

 with many more that 1 could mention if it were neces- 

 sary; it appears that those vegetable and other re- 

 mains, are found either upon the soil on which they 

 grew, or on the ancient bed of the ocean or rivers. 



Jn the state of Maine, it appears that they find, at 

 the distance of twenty miles from the sea, and at the 

 depth of twenty feet below the surface, " numerous bi- 

 valve, and some univalve shells, now found on our sea- 

 shore,'' enveloped in a stiff' blue clay, ** perfectly re- 

 sembling that which is taken from the borders of creeks 

 and bays of salt water, in its odour and other proper- 

 ties." Besides these " rolled stones of granite, or 

 gneiss with those little shells adhering which seamen 

 call barnacles." 



In Baltimore, these substances are found upon a bot- 

 tom resembling marsh mud. At Fort M'Henry, in 

 sinking a well, in the Star Fort in 1814, the workmen 

 came upon a mass of carbonated wood, being part of a 

 tree, as is supposed, lying across the well, at the depth 

 of fifty feet or more, in a boggy marsh. This is two 

 miles south of the granite ridge, or northern border of 



the great alluvial district. 



15 



