268 SCENERY OX THE OHIO. [CHAP. XXXV. 



any of the advantages afforded by this floating palace 

 more like an eastern tale of enchantment, than the 

 thought, as we went to our berths, that before we 

 rose next morning to breakfast we should be trans 

 ported more than a hundred miles on our route 

 northwards against the current of a mighty river. 

 March 29. Passed Cairo in the ni&amp;lt;&amp;gt;ht, and next 



^&amp;gt; * 



morning were at Smithland on the Ohio, at the mouth 

 of the Cumberland river, having Kentucky on our 

 right hand, and Illinois on the left. Limestone 

 cliffs, bounding the valley, were a welcome sight, 

 after the eye had been dwelling for so many weeks on 

 fiat and level regions. Although we had not yet 

 ascended the river to a height of much more than 

 200 feet above the level of the sea, the climate had 

 changed, and we were told that snow had fallen the 

 day before. We observed that the red-bud, or Judas- 

 tree, was not yet in flower. 



On reaching the mouth of the &quot;Wabash river, which 

 divides Illinois from Indiana, I learnt that when the 

 ice breaks up there in the spring, it is often packed 

 into such masses that, before melting, they float down 

 with gravel frozen on to them as far as New Ma 

 drid. This fact may explain the coarseness of the 

 materials observable in the shoals of the Mississippi, 

 fit low water, near Natchez, and still farther dow r n ; 

 and may perhaps throw light on some large boulders, 

 of a former period, in the ancient gravel below the 

 shelly loam of Natchez. 



At Mount Vernon we landed, and I collected there 

 many fossil shells, of freshwater and land species, from 

 a terrace of yellow loam, elevated many yards above 

 high-water mark, on the Ohio. Returning from my 



