CHAP. XXXIII.] BLUFFS AT MEMPHIS. 225 



CHAP. XXXIII. 



Bluffs at Memphis. New Madrid. No Inn. Undermining of 

 River Bank. Examination of Country shaken by Earthquake 

 0/1811-12. Effects of Passage of Waves through Alluvial 

 Soil. Circular Cavities or Sand-Bursts. Open Fissures, 

 Lake Eidalie drained by Shocks. Borders of Sunk Country, 

 West of New Madrid. Dead Trees standing erect. A 

 slight Shock felt. Trade in Peltries increased by Earth 

 quake. Trees erect in new-formed Lakes. Indian Tra 

 dition of Shocks. Dreary Forest Scene. Rough Quarters. 

 Slavery in Missouri. 



March 24. 1846. AT length we reached Memphis., 

 in the State of Tennessee. The town on which this 

 ancient and venerable name is conferred appears the 

 newest of the large places we have yet seen on the 

 Mississippi. It is growing with great rapidity, stand 

 ing on a bluff now fifty-two feet above the level of 

 the water when the river is high. The cliff is the 

 abrupt termination of deposits similar to those of 

 freshwater origin, which I have before alluded to at 

 Natchez and Vicksburg. A mass of yellow loam, 

 forty- feet thick, reposes on sand with quartz pebbles, 

 which rests on clay, not visible at the time of my 

 visit. Such a site for a town, in spite of the slow 

 undermining of the cliffs, is permanent, by comparison 

 with the ordinary banks of the river for hundreds of 

 miles continuously ; for, as a general rule, the stream 



