CHAP. XXXIII.] &quot; SUNK COUNTRY.&quot; 235 



new acquaintance then took me to see several fis 

 sures still open, which had been caused by the un- 

 dulatory movement of the ground, some of them 

 jagged, others even and straight. I traced two of 

 them continuously for more than half a mile, and 

 found that a few were parallel ; but, on the whole, 

 they varied greatly in direction, some being ten and 

 others forty-five degrees west of north. I might 

 easily have mistaken them for artificial trenches, if 

 my companion had not known them within his 

 recollection to have been &quot; as deep as wells.&quot; Sand 

 and black shale were strewed along their edges. 

 They Avere most of them from two to four feet 

 wide, and five or six feet deep ; but the action of 

 rains, frost, and occasional inundations, and above all 

 the leaves of the forest blown into them every au 

 tumn in countless numbers, have done much to fill 

 them up. 



Continuing my ride, I came to the house and farm 

 of Mr. Love, who had long resided in this district, 

 and he took me to part of the forest, on the borders 

 of what is called the &quot; sunk country,&quot; where all the 

 trees of a date prior to 1811, although standing erect 

 and entire, are dead and leafless. They are chiefly 

 oaks and walnuts, with trunks three or four feet in 

 diameter, and many of them 200 years old. They are 

 supposed to have been killed by the loosening of the 

 roots during the repeated undulations which passed 

 through the soil for three months in succession. The 

 higher level plain, where these dead trees stand, ter 

 minates abruptly towards the Bayou St. John, and 

 the sudden descent of eight or ten feet throughout 



