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remarked, the Arctic sea, defying all bounds, overran 

 its* ancient limits, and uniting its waters with those of 

 Hudson's bay, lakes Superior, Huron, and Michigan, 

 urged their united forces into this immense valley, the 

 actual channel of which is the Mississippi river. 



In such a state of things, which is, by no means, 

 improbable, who, that is endowed even with the most 

 transcendant energies of the human mind, can form 

 any adequate conceptions of a scene so awfully sub- 

 lime, and so tremendous in its operations ? Or who, 

 that has witnessed the effects of an incessant and co- 

 pious fall of rain for twenty-four hours, will not admit 

 that the alluvion, with which the waters were doubtless 

 saturated, must have been propelled by such a force, 

 beyond the limits of the adjacent coast, so as to form a 

 projection similar to the one under consideration ? But, 

 it will be said perhaps that as the floods rose, so as to 

 overflow the ordinary mountains, the currents of all ri- 

 vers were merged in that of one vast sea, which, during 

 its prevalence, must have deposited its alluvion on the 

 sea coast and adjacent shores of rivers, as well as at 

 their mouths ; thereby making, with some local excep- 

 tions, one uniform line of coast. 



It will readily be admitted, that there is some de- 

 gree of plausibility in this remark. But it must be re- 

 collected, that the same operations that were going on 

 in the great vallies, in the channels and at the mouths 

 of rivers, from the commencement of the universal de- 

 luge, to the period at which continents were nearly 

 submerged and overrun by a general current, were re- 



