198 TORNADO AT NATCHEZ. [CHAP. XXXI. 



this continent had been accomplished ; in other words, 

 that our race was more ancient than the modern 

 valley, alluvial plain, and delta of the Mississippi, 

 nay, what is more, was antecedent to the bluffs of 

 Port Hudson and Natchez, already described. Now 

 that elevated freshwater formation, as I shall by and 

 by endeavour to show, is the remnant of a river- 

 plain and delta of extremely high antiquity ; and it 

 would follow, if the human race was equally ancient, 

 that it co-existed with one group of terrestrial mam 

 malia, and, having survived its extinction, had seen 

 another group of quadrupeds succeed and replace it. 



In our excursion through the forest, from Wash 

 ington to the Mammoth ravine, I crossed the path 

 of the last tornado, which occurred May 17. 1840, 

 one of three which have devastated this region since 

 the year 1809. They all came from Texas, moving 

 along from south-west to north-east, and laid waste 

 a long strip of country, about a mile wide. The 

 courses of each of the three whirlwinds were within a 

 few miles of the other, and the last threw down many 

 houses at Natchez, unroofed others, and levelled to 

 the ground a railway terminus, causing the abandon 

 ment of a scheme for a rapid communication between 

 Natchez, Vicksburg, and the State of Tennessee. 

 On each side of the path of the tornado the land 

 was finely timbered ; but where its force had been 

 expended, old trees lay uprooted, and a growth of 

 young wood was rising. Many large trunks had 

 been broken off ten or twelve feet above the ground, 

 and portions of the solid wood, torn and twisted into 

 shreds, were still waving in the air. 



