CHAP. XXX.] BURIED TREES, PORT HUDSON. 137 



sissippi, the two arms next above that of La Fourche. One of 

 those natural rafts of floating trees which occasionally bridge over 

 the western rivers for many years in succession, becoming covered 

 over with soil, shrubs, and trees, blocked up till lately the Bayou 

 Plaquemine. The obstacle was at length removed at the expense 

 of the state, and the rush of water through the newly cleared 

 channel was so tremendous, that several engineers entertained 

 apprehensions, lest the whole of the Mississippi should take its 

 course by this channel to the sea, deserting New Orleans. Mr. 

 Forshey assured me there was no real ground for such fears, 

 because the Mississippi, as before hinted,^ takes at present the 

 shortest cut to that part of the Gulf where it can find a basin 

 deep and capacious enough to receive it. 



During the night we passed Baton Rouge, the first point above 

 New Orleans where any land higher and older than the alluvial 

 plain comes up to the bank to constitute what is termed a bluff. 

 The cliff there is only a few feet high. The next bluff is at Port 

 Hudson, 2 5 miles higher up the river, and 165 miles above New 

 Orleans. I had been urged by Dr. Carpenter to examine the 

 geology of this bluff, which I had also wished to do, because 

 Bartram, in his travels, in 1777, discovered there the existence 

 of a fossil forest at the base of the tall cliff, and had commented 

 with his usual sagacity on the magnitude of the geographical 

 changes implied by its structure. The following are his words, 

 which deserve the more attention, because the particular portion 

 of the cliff described by him, has long ago been undermined and 

 swept away by the Mississippi. &quot; Next morning,&quot; says Bartram, 

 &quot; we set off again on our return home, and called by the way at 

 the cliffs, which is a perpendicular bank or bluff, rising up out 

 of the river near one hundred feet above the present surface of the 

 water, whose active current sweeps along by it. From eight or 

 nine feet below the loamy vegetative mold at top, to within four 

 or five feet of the water, these cliffs present to view strata of clay, 

 marl, and chalk of all colors, as brown, red, yellow, white, blue, 

 and purple ; there are separate strata of these various colors, as 

 well as mixed or parti-colored : the lowest stratum next the water 

 * Ante, p. 132. 



