CHAP. XXX.] BURIED TREES, PORT HUDSON. 177 



there is only a few feet high. The next bluff is at 

 Port Hudson, 25 miles higher up the river, and 165 

 miles above New Orleans. I had been urged by 

 Dr. Carpenter to examine the geology of this bluff, 

 which I had also wished to do, because Bartram, in 

 his travels in 1777, discovered there the existence of 

 a fossil forest at the base of the tall cliff, and had 

 commented with his usual sagacity on the magnitude 

 of the geographical changes implied by its structure. 

 The following are his words, which deserve the more 

 attention, because the particular portion of the cliff 

 described by him, has long ago been undermined and 

 swept away by the Mississippi. &quot; Next morning,&quot; 

 says Bartram, &quot; we set off again on our return home, 

 and called by the way at the cliffs, which is a per 

 pendicular bank or bluff, rising up out of the river 

 near one hundred feet above the present surface of 

 the water, whose active current sweeps along by it. 

 From eight or nine feet below the loamy vegetative 

 mould at top, to within four or five feet of the water, 

 these cliffs present to view strata of clay, marl, and 

 chalk of all colours, as brown, red, yellow, white, 

 blue, and purple ; there are separate strata of these 

 various colours, as well as mixed or parti-coloured : 

 the lowest stratum next the water is exactly of the 

 same black mud, or rich soil, as the adjacent low 

 cypress swamps above and below the bluff; and here, 

 in the cliffs, we see vast stumps of cypress and other 

 trees which, at this day, grow in these low, wet 

 swamps, and which range on a level with them. 

 These stumps are sound, stand upright, and seem to 

 be rotted off about two or three feet above the spread 



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