380 



a large portion of this region is overflowed, and con- 

 stantly becoming more elevated by annual deposites 

 of alluvion, &c. 



That fossil wood may be found in many places in 

 this district, and at various depths below the surface, 

 is by no means improbable. In speaking of deposites 

 of fossil wood, in the early part of this work, it has 

 been admitted that remains of wood are sometimes 

 found in marshes, or low sunken places, at the depth 

 of several feet below the surface : but this does not in- 

 validate the assertion that an uniform, general, and 

 extensive deposite of fossil wood may exist at a still 

 greater depth, throughout the district, and, at the same 

 time, be the result of a very different cause. 



It will likewise be admitted that at certain seasons 

 of the year, a very large proportion of this part of th* 

 country is actually inundated, and by which there is an 

 annual increase of soil by alluvial deposites. Neither 

 does this prove that the very districts thus annually 

 inundated, and which are becoming more and more 

 elevated by deposites of alluvion, may not have been 

 formed by the operations of a current, flowing from the 

 Arctic sea, or Hudson's bay, through the valley of the 

 Mississippi : for it does not follow, that because they 

 are in this age annually overflowed, they have always 

 been thus deluged. On the contrary, it may be safely 

 alleged, that the time has been, and that too, proba- 

 bly, long since the Christian JEra, when the same 

 lands that are now annually inundated, were elevated 

 above the overflowings of the Mississippi, and other 



