332 R. W. Wells on Prairies. 



Missouri and Missisippi, thinks he nciay venture to oppose 

 these speculations without being thought presumptuous. He 

 is of opinion, that the vast prairies and barrens, extending 

 over the greater part of the western states, and over nearly 

 all Louisiana, were primitively occasioned, and have been 

 since continued, by the combustion of vegetables, and that water 

 had no agency in their formation. 



In order to prove the high prairies of the state of Ohio to 

 have been once covered by the waters of Lake Erie, Mr. A. 

 maintains, that the channel of the Niagara river has been 

 worn down " several hundred feef by the attrition of its 

 waters. Mr. A. should have shown, that the banks of the 

 Niagara are, at this time, several hundred feet high, or, like 

 the Potomac, at Harper's Ferry, has broken through a moun- 

 tain " several hundred feet" high ; but neither the one nor 

 the other is the fact ; the face of the country, on either side 

 of the river, is comparatively low and champaign ; and were it 

 possible for the waters of the lake to rise. considerably above 

 their present level, they would meet with no obstruction or 

 impediment, for many miles on either side the river, but 

 would be precipitated over the cataract, into Ontario, and 

 down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. But supposing there 

 had been a mountain running between Lakes Erie and Ontario 

 of sufficient height to prevent the water of the former from 

 passing into the latter, it must evidently have found other 

 places through which to escape, and before it would rise 

 high enough to overflow the elevated region of Madison and 

 Fayette counties, in Ohio, it would have passed over into the 

 heads of the Alleghany. But it is impossible to imagine this, 

 unless we suppose the Atlantic to have been six or seven 

 hundred feet higher than at present, which, according to 

 Mr. A. would have made prairie of all the Atlantic states. 



The fact of shells and other marine substances having been 

 found in a few places, by digging in the prairies, proves 

 nothing, or proves too much, for they are found in equal or 

 greater quantities all over America, in the sides and near the 

 summit of the Alleghany mountains ; on the Andes, in South 



