363 



but above the influx of tbe tide, and the highest annual 

 flood, must have acquired an addition of matter from 

 some other store of materials, or has been elevated by 

 other causes." Page 102. 



The existence of these facts, and the deductions 

 which Mr. Darby has drawn, and which, by the by, 

 have been but very seldom taken notice of, are too 

 plain and palpable, to admit of the least shadow of 

 doubt : viz. that alluvial or other lands, being above 

 the highest tides of the sea, and the annual or semi-an- 

 nual inundations of rivers, cannot owe their formation, 

 to deposites of alluvion from either. It is a circum- 

 stance by which I have endeavoured to prove, that the 

 great alluvial region on our Atlantic coast, was never 

 formed by the sea or rivers, and it is an argument made 

 use of by Baron de Tott to prove that cape Beleros, oil 

 the coast of Egypt, was not formed by the alluv ion of 

 the Nile, as is generally supposed : and one I trust, 

 that will stand the test of the most scrupulous investi- 

 gation, without the slightest fear of weakening its va- 

 lidity. 



Taking this fact for granted, and knowing at least 

 from respectable authority, that lands of this descrip- 

 tion extend a very considerable distance south of the 

 thirtieth degree of latitude, or below New Orleans, 

 lands, over which the Mississippi has no control, and 

 with which it has not, and, perhaps, never had any di- 

 rect communication, we may reasonably ask, to what 

 source then are we to look for the cause, by which this 

 extensive district has been formed ? 



