CHAP. XXXL] FONTANIA. 185 



CHAP. XXXL 



Fontania near Port Hudson. Lake Solitude. Floating Island. 

 Bony Pike. Story of the DeviVs Swamp. Embarking by 

 Night in Steam-Boat. Literary Clerk. Old Levees under- 

 mined. Succession of upright buried Trees in Bank. Rac- 

 courci cut off. Bar at Mouth of Red River. Shelly Fresh 

 water Loam of Natchez. Recent Ravines in Table- Land. 

 Bones of extinct Quadrupeds. Human Fossil Bone. Ques 

 tion of supposed co-existence of Man with extinct Mammalia 

 discussed. Tornado at Natchez. Society, Country-Houses 

 and Gardens. Landslips. Indian Antiquities. 



AFTER I had examined the bluff below Port Hud 

 son, I went down the river in my boat to Fontania, 

 a few miles to the south, to pay a visit to Mr. 

 Faulkner, a proprietor to whom Dr. Carpenter had 

 given me a letter of introduction. He received me 

 with great politeness, and, at my request, accom 

 panied me at once to see a crescent-shaped sheet of 

 water on his estate, called Lake Solitude, evidently 

 an ancient bed of the Mississippi now deserted. It 

 is one of the few examples of old channels which 

 occur to the east of the great river, the general ten 

 dency of which is always to move from west to east. 

 Of this eastward movement there is a striking monu 

 ment on the other side of the Mississippi immediately 

 opposite Port Hudson, called Fausse Riviere, a sheet 

 of water of the usual horse-shoe form. One of my 



