Library 



^-^ California 

 CHAPTER XV. 



Washington to Richmond. Legislature of Virginia in Session. Substitu 

 tion of White for Slave Labor. Progress of Negro Instruction. Slave- 

 dealers. Kindness to Negroes. Coal of Oolitic Period near Richmond. 

 Visit to the Mines. Upright Fossil Trees. Deep Shafts, and Thick 

 ness of Coal Seams. Explosion of Gas. Natural Coke. Resemblance 

 of the more modern Coal-measures to old Carboniferous Rocks. Whites 

 working with free Negroes in the Mines. 



Dec, 16, 1845. FROM Washington we went to Richmond, 

 and were glad to find that the great southern line of railway from 

 Acquia Creek had been completed since we were last here, by 

 which we escaped twelve miles of jolting over a rough road, de 

 scribed with so much humor by Dickens. 



At Richmond T went into the Supreme Court of Appeal, and, 

 as I entered, heard the counsel who was pleading, cite a recent 

 decision of the English Court of Chancery as bearing on his case. 

 The Houses of Legislature of Virginia were in session, and I 

 heard part of a debate on a proposed railway from Baltimore to 

 the valley of the Great Kanawha, in Western Virginia. Much 

 jealousy was expressed lest the metropolis of Maryland, instead 

 of Richmond, should reap the chief fruits of this project, at which 

 I was not surprised ; for Virginia, with a population of 1,100,000 

 inhabitants, has no towns larger than Richmond and Norfolk. 

 Beverly, and the early writers on this state, say, &quot; that the peo 

 ple were prevented from congregating in large towns by the en 

 joyment of an extensive system of river navigation, which ena 

 bled merchant ships to sail up every where to the warehouses of 

 each planter and receive their freight. Hence there was less 

 activity and enterprise, and a want of the competition, which the 

 collected life in cities promotes.&quot;^ 



One of the senators, whom I had met the day before at a din 

 ner party, conversed with me on the publication of the geological 

 * See &quot;Graham s History,&quot; vol. i. p. 145. 



