CHAP. XXIL] COLUMBUS. 33 



told that it was a gang of slaves, probably from Vir 

 ginia, going to the market to be sold, 



Columbus, like so many towns on the borders of 

 the granitic and tertiary regions, is situated at the 

 head of the navigation of a large river, and the 

 rapids of the Chatahoochie are well seen from the 

 bridge by which it is here spanned. The vertical 

 rise and fall of this river, which divides Georgia 

 from Alabama, amounts to no less than sixty or 

 seventy feet in the course of the year; and the 

 geologist should visit the country in November, 

 when the season is healthy, and the river low, for 

 then he may see exposed to view, not only the hori 

 zontal tertiary strata, but the subjacent cretaceous 

 deposits, containing ammonites, baculites, and other 

 characteristic fossils. These organic remains are met 

 with some miles below the town, at a point called 

 6 ( Snake s Shoals ; &quot; and Dr. Boykin showed us a 

 collection of the fossils, at his agreeable villa in 

 the suburbs. In an excursion which I made with 

 Mr. Pond to the Upotoy Creek, I ascertained that 

 the cretaceous beds are overlaid everywhere by ter- 

 tiary strata, containing fossil wood and marine shells. 



The last detachment of Indians, a party of no less 

 than 500, quitted Columbus only a week ago for 

 Arkansas, a memorable event in the history of the 

 settlement of this region, and part of an extensive 

 and systematic scheme steadily pursued by the Go 

 vernment, of transferring the Aborigines from the 

 Eastern States to the Far- West. 



Here, as at Milledgeville, the clearing away of the 

 woods, where these Creek Indians once pursued 



c 5 



