180 TRADITION OF EARTHQUAKES. [CHAP. XXXIII. 



The sunk country is not confined to the region west of the 

 Mississippi ; for, on my way up the river, I learnt from Mr. 

 Fletcher, a farmer, who had a wooding station in Tennessee, that 

 several extensive forest tracts in that state were submerged during 

 the shocks of 181112. and have ever since formed lakes arid 

 swamps, among which are those called Obion and Reelfoot. He 

 had observed, in several of these, that trees which had been killed, 

 and had stood for a long time partially submerged, had in many 

 places rotted down to the water s edge. In some swamps caused 

 by the earthquake, they had all decayed to within a few inches 

 of the base of the trunk. It is therefore evident, that should the 

 turbid waters of the Mississippi overflow that region, and deposit 

 their sediment on such stumps, they would present to the geologist 

 a precise counterpart of the buried stools of trees with their roots 

 before described as occurring at the bottom of the b]uff at Port 

 Hudson.* Mr. Fletcher also told me, that he knew several fis 

 sures in Tennessee, formed in 181112, where the ground on one 

 side of the rent remained higher by two feet than that on the 

 other side. 



I was informed at New Madrid that the Indians, before 

 year 1811, had a tradition of a great earthquake which h 

 previously devastated this same region. Yet there is so wide an 

 area of forest without sink-holes, or any great inequalities of sur 

 face, and without dead trees like those above alluded to, that w r o 

 can not suppose any convulsion of equal magnitude to have 

 occurred for many centuries previous to 1811. 



Having explored the margin of the Great Prairie, and seen 

 the sunk country several miles west of New Madrid, I returned 

 by a different path through the woods, often losing my way, till 

 I fell into the main road for the last six miles, which was cut 

 straight through the forest, and was at this season singularly 

 monotonous and dreary. It was furrowed with long, deep ruts, 

 cut in black mud. and full of miry water. The sky was cloudy, 

 and the plain as level as if it had never been disturbed by the 

 slightest subterranean movement since it originated. The trees 

 were, for the most part, leafless, and almost all of the same height, 

 * Ante, pp. 137-140. 



