182 LANDSLIP. [CHAP. XXX. 



the course of the last eight years, lost ground no less 

 than 200 feet by the encroachment of the river. 



To prove that the present site of the buried forest 

 before alluded to, must be far from the point where 

 Bartram or even Carpenter saw it, an account was 

 given me by the residents here, of several recent land 

 slips near Port Hudson; one in particular, a few years 

 ago, when by the caving in of the bank, three acres 

 of ground, fifty or sixty feet high, composed of clay 

 and sand, arid covered by a forest, sank down bodily 

 into the river, and were then gradually washed away. 

 One of the eye-witnesses related to me that the trees 

 were at first seen to tremble, then large rents began 

 to open in the soil deeper and deeper, after which 

 the movement was such that the boughs of the trees 

 lashed each other, and acorns and beech nuts were 

 showered down like hail. A herd of pigs was so 

 intent in devouring these, that they allowed them 

 selves to be carried down vertically fifty feet, the 

 subsidence occupying about five minutes. The outer 

 edge of the bluff, with some of the swine, fell into the 

 river, but these swam to the sunk part of the bluffi 

 and joined their companions. The owners watched 

 them anxiously till dusk, unable to go to their rescue ; 

 but at length, to their surprise, they saw a leader, 

 followed by all the rest, wind his way along narrow 

 ledges on the face of the precipice, from which the 

 fallen mass had been detached, and climb up to the 

 top. Next morning, to their no less astonishment, 

 they found the herd feeding again on the same peri 

 lous ground, and saw them again return by the same 

 path at night. 



