CHAP. XVIII.] MR. COUPER S VILLA. 253 



distance, on one of the outer islands ; and it is well known that 

 the Indians were in the habit of returning with what they had 

 taken, from their fishing excursions on the coast, to some good 

 hunting ground, such as St. Simon s afforded. 



We found Mr. Couper s villa, near the water s edge, shaded 

 by a verandah and by a sago tree. There were also many lemon 

 trees, somewhat injured by the late frost ; but the olives, of 

 which there is a fine grove here, are unharmed, and it is thought 

 they may one day be cultivated with profit in the sea islands. 

 We also admired five date palms, which bear fruit. They were 

 brought from Bussora in Persia, and have not suffered by the 

 cold. The oranges have been much hurt. Some of the trees 

 planted by Oglethorpe s troops in 1742, after flourishing for ninety- 

 three years, were cut off in February, 1835, and others, about a 

 century and a half old, shared the same fate at St. Augustine in 

 Florida. So long a period does it require to ascertain whether the 

 climate of a new country is suitable to a particular species of plant. 



The evergreen or live oaks are truly magnificent in this island ; 

 some of them, 73 feet in height, have been found to stretch with 

 their boughs over an area 63 feet in diameter. I measured one 

 which was thirty-five years old, and found the trunk to be just 

 35 inches in diameter near the base, showing an annual gain of 

 three inches in circumference. Another, growing in a favorable 

 situation, forty-two years old, was nine feet six inches in girth at 

 the height of one and a half foot above the ground. 



The island of St. Simon s is so low, that the lower part of it 

 was under water in 1804 and 1824, when hurricanes set in 

 with the wind from the northeast. Nearly the entire surface 

 was submerged in 1756. In that year the sea rose, even as far 

 north as Charleston, to the height of six feet above its ordinary 

 level, and that city might have been destroyed, had the gale last 

 ed in the same direction a few hours longer. 



I went with Mr. Couper to Long Island, the outermost bar 

 rier of land between St. Simon s and the ocean, four miles long, 

 and about half a mile wide, of recent formation, and consisting of 

 parallel ranges of sand dunes, marking its growth by successive 

 additions. Some of the dunes on this coast have been raised by 



