Bringier on the Region of the Mississippi, ^c. 19 



I will give a few move examples of this kind, before I 

 change the subject; for I consider it to be of great impor- 

 tance. I will leave, for the observation of the Mississippi 

 navigators, the beds of drift wood collected on the heads of 

 the Islands, which they pass in coming down the Ohio, and 

 more particularly the Mississippi. I will, therefore, advert to 

 the large raft of the Red river, which is sixty miles in length, 

 and, in many places, fifteen in breadth. On this, in some 

 places, cedars are heaped by themselves, and in others, 

 pines. At the foot of a hill, where nothing else grows, the 

 flood sweeps them into a pile, where they are matted to- 

 gether, with their leaves, and with the pods or capsules of 

 their seeds, forming the most compact kind of rafts. If these 

 leaves ever enter into fermentation, or any other decompo- 

 sition, this must certainly produce bituminous substances 

 in great quantity; whilst the other kinds of wood mixed 

 likewise, by the same cause, with a very large proportion of 

 minute vegetables, may produce other bituminous bodies in 

 smaller quantity; but I conceive that mineral coal would be 

 formed in greatest abundance, as the rafts of mixed wood 

 are inexhaustible. 



In this raft of the Red river, numerous small streams are 

 seen to disappear under the raft, and show themselves again, 

 after having passed several miles under the surface, and un- 

 der the sand banks, which are, probably, part of the raft 

 buried under the sand.* 



* This account being communicaled in MS. to N. A. Wake, Esq. an in- 

 telligent and scientific gentleman, from Alabama, he gave me tlie following 

 ©pinion of the statement of facts. — Editor. 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 



Sir, 



Mr. Bringier's estimate of the drift, and his account of the extent of (he 

 raft in the Achafalaya, is much too large. Darby, in his Emigrant's Guide, 

 gives the best account of it : to which I refer you, pp. 15,52, 53, and 54. 



Darby's account, as far as regards the state of Louisiana, is very minute, 

 and very correct, in the aforesaid work; and is the best accouut extant. t 



^ The passages referred to by Mr. Ware, are as follows : " This river (the 

 Achafalaya) exhibits the singular spectacle of being choked with timber, 

 brought by the floods from the Mississippi. Some extraordinary facts have 

 been published respecting this mass of timber, such as being sufficiently 

 compact to admit of horses and men passing, as on a bridge ; of having 

 large trees growing upon it, and finally, of having been passed unperceived 

 The falsity ot this the author ran avpr from his own persona! observe- 



