CHAP. XVIII. ] BUTLER S ISLAND. 249 



six feet. The negro houses were neat, and whitewashed, all 

 floored with wood, each with an apartment called the hall, two 

 sleeping-rooms, and a loft for the children ; but it is evident that 

 on these rice farms, where the negroes associate with scarcely 

 any whites, except the overseer and his family, and have but 

 little intercourse with the slaves of other estates, they must re 

 main far more stationary than where, as in a large part ot 

 Georgia, they are about equal in number to the whites, or even 

 form a minority. The negroes, moreover, in the interior, are 

 healthier than those in rice plantations, and multiply faster, al 

 though the rice grounds are salubrious to the negroes as com 

 pared to the whites. In this lower region the increase of the 

 slaves is rapid, for they are w r ell fed, fitted for a southern cli 

 mate, and free from care, partly, no doubt, because of their low 

 mental development, and partly because they and their children 

 are secured from want. Such advantages, however, would be 

 of no avail, in rendering them prolific, if they were overworked 

 and harshly treated. 



As we approached the sea and the brackish water, the wood 

 bordering the river began first to grow dwarfish, and then, 

 lowering suddenly, to give place entirely to reeds ; but still we 

 saw the buried stumps and stools of the cypress and pine con 

 tinuing to show themselves in every section of the bank, main 

 taining the upright position in which they originally grew. The 

 occurrence of these in the salt marshes clearly demonstrates that 

 trees once flourished where they would now be immediately killed 

 by the salt water. There must have been a change in the rel 

 ative level of land and sea, to account for their growth, since, 

 even above the commencement of the brackish water, similar 

 stumps are visible at a lower level than the present high tide, 

 and covered by layers of sedimentary matter, on which tall cy- 

 prosses and other trees are now standing. From such phenomena 

 we may infer the following sequence of events : first, an ancient 

 forest was submerged several feet, and the sunk trees were killed 

 by the salt water ; they then rotted away down to the water 

 level (a long operation), after which layers of sand were thrown 

 down upon the stumps ; and finally, when the surface had been 



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