CHAP. XXII.] CRETACEOUS STRATA. 41 



they know that the rate acquired by the train will be dangerous. 

 T never witnessed an accident, but as the locomotive usually runs 

 only fifteen miles an hour, and is some time before it reaches half 

 that pace, the urchins are not hurried as they would be in En 

 gland. One of them was calling out, in the midst of the pine- 

 barren between Columbus and Chehaw, &quot; A novel, by Paul le 

 Koch, the Bulwer of France, for twenty-five cents all the go ! 

 more popular than the Wandering Jew,&quot; &c. Newspapers 

 for a penny or two-pence are bought freely by the passengers ; and, 

 having purchased them at random wherever we went in the 

 northern, middle, southern, arid western states, I came to the 

 conclusion that the press of the United States is quite as respect 

 able as our own. In the present crisis the greater number of 

 prints condemn the war party, expose their motives, and do jus 

 tice to the equitable offers of the English ministry in regard to 

 Oregon. A large portion of almost every paper is devoted to lit 

 erary extracts, to novels, tales, travels, and often more serious 

 works. Some of them are specially devoted to particular relig 

 ious sects, and nearly all of this class are against war. There 

 are also some &quot; temperance,&quot; and, in the north, &quot; anti-slavery&quot; 

 papers. 



We at length arrived at Montgomery, on the river Alabama, 

 where I staid a few days to examine the geology of the neighbor 

 hood. From the high ground near the town there is a distant 

 view of the hills of the granitic region around Wetumpka. But 

 the banks of the river at Montgomery are composed of enormous 

 beds of unconsolidated gravel, thirty feet thick, alternating with 

 red clay and sand, which I at first supposed to be tertiary, from 

 their resemblance to strata near Macon and Augusta in Georgia. 

 The fossil shells, however, of the accompanying marls (Inocera- 

 mus and Rostellaria arenarum), soon convinced me that they 

 belonged to the cretaceous formation. About three miles south 

 of the town there is a broad zone of calcareous marl, constituting 

 what is called the prairie, or cane-brake country, bare of natural 

 wood, and where there is so great a want of water, that it was 

 at first difficult for settlers to establish themselves upon it, until, 

 by aid of the Artesian auger, they obtained an abundant supply 



