CHAPTER XXXV. 



Departure from New Madrid. Night-watch for Steamers. Scenery of the 

 Ohio River. Mount Vernon, Ornithology. No Undergrowth in Woods. 

 Spring Flowers. Visit to Dr. Dale Owen, New Harmony. Fossil 

 Forest of erect Trees in Coal-measures. Movers migrating Westward. 

 Voyage to Louisville. Professional Zeal of one of &quot; the Pork Aristo 

 cracy.&quot; Fossil Coral-reef at the Falls of the Ohio, Louisville. Fossil 

 Zoophytes as perfect as recent Stone-corals. 



March 27, 1846. -WE took up our quarters in the wharf- 

 boat at New Madrid in readiness to sail by the first steamer 

 bound for the Ohio, for I wished to visit New Harmony in In 

 diana, and there was some risk of being detained several days. 

 The first steamer we hailed, was bound for St. Louis, the next 

 for the Cumberland river, Tennessee, and a third which might 

 have taken us to Mount Vernon, in Indiana, where I meant to 

 disembark, was unwilling to lose time by stopping, the captain 

 shouting out that she was full of passengers, and heavily laden. 



Before retiring to rest, I engaged with the keeper of the boat 

 that he should appoint a good night-watch, and an hour after 

 dark, I was awakened by the loud puffing and splashing of a 

 steamer, evidently close at hand. Going on deck, I found the 

 faithless black sentinel fast asleep. It was already too late to 

 hail the vessel, but we made out that she was the Nimrod, and 

 I afterward learnt, that in the course of her voyage she was 

 snagged, both her chimneys thrown down, and her boiler pierced, 

 so that we had a narrow escape. I now gave the keeper of the 

 wharf-boat to understand that the whole town of New Madrid 

 should be informed next day in what manner their night-watches 

 were kept, which piqued him, and he then lighted a large fire on 

 the bank ; but having no longer any faith in the sentinel, I could 

 not sleep, so I determined to keep a look-out myself. Fortunately 

 another steamer soon appeared ; and, almost before she was fairly 

 alongside, a party of active negroes leapt upon our deck, each 



