234 EXCURSION TO SKIDDAWAY. [CHAP. XVII 



tain in his boat secured it with a noose, and disengaged it from 

 the oyster. He flapped his wings violently as they approached, 

 but could not escape. 



Dec. 29. Savannah has a population of 12,000 souls, but 

 seems rather stationary, though some new buildings are rising. 

 The mildness of its climate is attributed partly to the distance 

 to which the Alleghany Mountains retire from the sea coast in 

 this latitude, and partly to the proximity of the Gulf-stream. But 

 many of the northern invalids, who are consumptive, and had 

 hoped to escape a winter by taking refuge in this city, are com 

 plaining of the frost, and say that the houses are inadequately 

 protected against cold. The sun is very powerful at mid-day, 

 and we see the Camellia Japonica in the gardens flowering in 

 the open air ; but the leaves of the orange trees look crisp and 

 frost-bitten, and I am told that the thermometer lately fell as low 

 as 17 Fahr., so that even the salt water froze over in some of 

 the marshes. 



While at Savannah I made a delightful excursion, in com 

 pany with Dr. Le Conte, Captain Alexander, and Mr. Hodgson, 

 to Skiddaway, one of the sea-islands, which may be said to form 

 part of a great delta on the coast of Georgia, between the mouths 

 of the Savannah and Ogeechee rivers. This alluvial region con 

 sists of a wide extent of low land elevated a few feet above high 

 water, and intersected by numerous creeks and swamps. I gave 

 some account in my former tour of my visit to Heyner s Bridge,* 

 where the bones of the extinct mastodon and mylodon were found. 

 Skiddaway is five or six miles farther from Savannah in the same 

 southeast direction, and is classical ground for the geologist, for, 

 on its northwest end, where there is a low cliff from two to six 

 feet in height, no less than three skeletons of the huge Megathe 

 rium have been dug up, besides the remains of the Mylodon, 

 Elephas primigenius, Mastodon giganteus, and a species of the 

 ox tribe. The bones occur in a dark peaty soil or marsh mud, 

 above which is a stratum, three or four feet thick, of sand, charged 

 with oxide of iron, and below them and beneath the sea level, 

 occurs sand containing a great number of marine fossil shells, all 

 * Travels in North America, vol. i. p. 163. 



