i 
322 - Mineralogy of Orange County, N. Y. 
over an undulatory country, under a high state of cultivation, until 
I entered the Drowned Lands. ‘The country thus denominated is a 
morass of unusual extent for the Northern States, and celebrated for 
the yearly inundation to which it is subject, and the malaria to which it 
gives rise during the latter part of summer. _ Its length is twenty miles, 
and its breadth, in different places, varies from one mile to five, 
Through it, flows the Walkill with a scarcely perceptible current; to 
whose waters, when swollen by the spring freshets, it owes its annual 
inundations. It consists of an immense accumulation of vegetable 
matter, whose surface is imperfectly converted into a soil, abounding 
with carbonaceous matter, empyreumatic oil, and gallic acid, and cov- 
ered, in midsummer, with a rank and luxuriant vegetation. Wherever 
it has been ditched to any considerable depth, as has been the fact in 
several places in the construction of the roads that cross it, peat of an 
excellent quality has been brought to light. Several islands rise at va- 
rious intervals above its surface, the largest of which is two hundred 
acres or more in extent, consisting of excellent land, which is im- 
proved for agricultural purposes; the smaller islands are uninhabited 
and, for the most part, covered with wood, among which I observed 
the beautiful flowering shrub, Rhododendron maximum growing in 
the greatest abundance. The rocks in view upon these islands, as 
well as those observed about the borders of this extensive morass, 
reveal the formation on which it reposes to be, the Blue, cherty Lime- 
stone. The small island near Woodville (see map) 1s the only ex- 
ception to this remark, which consists of primitive Limestone, the 
rock of the adjoining country. 
In an economical point of view, it is doubtful whether the Drowned 
Lands have received the degree of attention which they merit. Atpres- 
ent, with the exception of here and therea strip bordering upon the high 
land, they are abandoned as mere pasturing ground to cattle, which, 00 
the subsidence of the spring inundation, range over its wide surface 
for a few weeks only, leaving it for the rest of the year a desolate 
waste. The canal of three miles in length, now cutting at immense 
expense, with a view, primarily, to avoid a bar of rocks in the Wal 
kill, it is confidently believed will redeem a large portion of t 
lands from inundation,—a result to be desired, no less on accoun 
its bearing upon the health of the vicinity, than upon the agricultural 
resources of the country. Nature herself offers an inducement 0” i 
small consideration to the completion of this enterprize, in the facility 
with which she will enable the agriculturalist to command the mate- 
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