relating to the Vale of the Mississippi. 63 
the appearance of a moving forest. . This extraordinnry motion of 
the water, so wedged together the logs, that a complete bridge was 
formed across, and along the river as far as the eye could reach. 
In the above case, the backward current, alternating with the 
dewnveard stream, produced by the repetition of the Heavings, which 
took place in the river, each Throw brought upon its back, from a 
vast depth, sand, fossil coal, and the river, and carried all to a con- 
siderable height before the confined air escaped, and the convul- 
_. Sion ceased. While this mountain of sand, coal and water was 
going up, and during its stay, the river was running down the sides, 
alike, to the north, and to the south; the boats and the timbers, on 
the ‘south side experienced ecensicnel vollies which continued to 
drive them with irregular velocity in the same direction; but it 
was otherwise on the northern or upper side; here the current, 
when it had descended, united with the accumulated waters above, 
and with inconceivable violence returned back, upon the yielding 
of the heave. These billows of convulsive nature, repeatedly oc= 
occurred in the course of bins. or forty minutes 5 when: the boats, 
trees, coal, and sand that wer 
wave, retreated and pitched headlong 4 into the yawning abyss be- 
neath, where they now sleép in silence and darkness. Had a thick 
stratum of rock above the confined air formed the bed of this 
river, a mountain would have been made ; and a rampart formed 
which would have driven the Mississippi out of its bed, and caused 
it to have sought a channel beyond the limits of this mighty bulwark. 
~~ Will this river ever lose its primitive character? Should the vale and 
adjacent country, be raised by future upheavings of earthquakes, so 
as to give the Mississippi its second and final heave, and should it thus 
become, like the other rivers of America, fixed within impassible 
, the principal mountain may be formed in the fork of the Ohio, 
and Mississippi, throwing these rivers out of their present channels, 
extending the throw along the vale, obliterating the Mexican Gulf, 
and Carribean sea, and receiving into her bosett the great Antilles. 
The coal beds then exhibited here, would probably equal those 
of Pittsburg in quality ; and for quantity would more than equal all 
the beds of the United States. 
But waving hypothetical considerations as to what may be 3 and 
considering what now exists, or soon will be; we shall suppose the 
day not distant, when this river will be perfectly subdued, and its 
vale brought within the control of man ; that parallel and’ cross ©& 
