152 TORNADO AT NATCHEZ. [CHAP. XXXI. 



old ; whereas, if it was really found in situ at the base of the 

 precipice, its age would more probably exceed 100,000 years, as 

 1 shall endeavor to show in a subsequent chapter. Such a posi 

 tion, in fact, if well authenticated, would prove that man had 

 lived in North America before the last great revolution in the 

 physical geography of this continent had been accomplished ; in 

 other words, that our race was more ancient than the modern 

 valley, alluvial plain, and delta of the Mississippi nay, what is 

 more, was antecedent to the bluffs of Port Hudson and Natchez, 

 already described. Now that elevated fresh-water formation, as 

 I shall by and by endeavor to show, is the remnant of a river- 

 plain arid delta of extremely high antiquity ; and it would follow, 

 if the human race was equally ancient, that it co-existed with 

 one group of terrestrial mammalia, and, having survived its 

 extinction, had seen another group of quadrupeds succeed and 

 replace it. 



In our excursion through the forest, from Washington to the 

 Mammoth ravine, I crossed the path of the last tornado, which 

 occurred May 17, 1840, one of three which have devastated 

 this region since the year 1809. They all came from Texas, 

 moving along from southwest to northeast, and laid waste a 

 long strip of country, about a mile wide. The courses of each 

 of the three whirlwinds were within a few miles of the other, 

 and the last threw down many houses at Natchez, unroofed 

 others, and leveled to the ground a railway terminus, causing 

 the abandonment of a scheme for a rapid communication between 

 Natchez, Vicksburg, and the State of Tennessee. On each side 

 of the path of the tornado the land was finely timbered ; but 

 where its force had been expended, old trees lay uprooted, and a 

 growth of young wood w r as rising. Many large trunks had been 

 broken off ten or twelve feet above the ground, and portions of 

 the solid wood, torn and twisted into shreds, were still waving 

 in the air. 



This tornado checked the progress of Natchez, as did the 

 removal of the seat of legislature to Jackson ; but it has suffered 

 still more, since steam navigation has been so much improved, 

 by the all-absorbing importance acquired by New Orleans as the 



