Cadwallader Colden with Peter Collinson, Sfc. 127 



for you and your family. Crown Point I may call in your neigh- 

 borhood : if we are so fortunate to take it, it will be well ; but 

 unless we can maintain it and support the country round it, it is 

 probable the French Indians, as well as troops, may come to dis- 

 tress the country round it in revenge. 



John Bartram's ingenious son William has sent a pretty map 

 of the Drowned lands, including the mountains and a branch of 

 the Delaware on one side, and North River and the Wallkill on 

 the other ; near which, between two rivers, you are pleasantly 

 as well as securely settled, which may preserve you from sudden 

 excursions. As inhabitants increase, the Drowned lands will by 

 degrees be drained and become a most fertile spot. 



J. B. has made many curious observations on all the country 

 round, and the course of the rivers, &c. He says the limestone 

 in the vale near the last run in the Wallkill, that is, between the 

 Blue Mountains and Katskill Mountains, is composed of sea- 

 shells, cockles, clams, &c. : but the most remarkable is below 

 Gosion, [Goshen,] where the limestone has the most perfect 

 cockle-shells that ever he saw. If any of these happen in thy 

 way, I should like one or two specimens, as confirmations of the 

 universality of the deluge ; and seemingly not a great way from 

 thy house are found the oddest kind of scollop-shells in stone 

 that ever he saw : a sample of these will be acceptable. I have 

 the pleasure to tell you that the Saracenas are now in flower, by 

 planting them in moss, in artificial bogs. I had your cranberries 

 fruited last year by the same method. * * * I am, my dear friend, 

 truly yours, P. Collinson. 



Mr. Collinson's explanation of the occurrence of marine shells 

 in rocks and strata elevated far above the sea, absurd as it now 

 appears to us, was the prevalent, if not the undisputed hypothesis 

 of that day. Dr. Colden's views, as briefly expressed in the fol- 

 lowing letter, are far in advance of the age in which he lived. 

 Indeed, I suspect that the records of science, down to a consid- 

 erably later period, will not be found to furnish an explicit state- 

 ment on this subject so perfectly in accordance with modern ge- 

 ology. 



Dr. Colden to Mr. Collinson. 



We have had a very extraordinary summer, the dryest in the 

 latter part of it and hitherto, that ever was known, at least these 



