On the Low Country of North Carolina. 341 



The fortifications built during the last war, on the banks at 

 the mouth of Beaufort harbor, have been undermined and 

 destroyed. There may be a contrary process in a few cases — 

 thus, the wasting of the island at the mouth of the Cape 

 Fear, is said to be accompanied by a corresponding exten- 

 sion of another, and to an effect of this kind I believe the 

 action of the waves will be found to be confined. 



It is acknowledged, that to a person who casts his eye 

 over a map of the United States, and sees the long chain of 

 sandy islands that lines our coast, the idea is apt to be sug- 

 gested that they have been thrown up by the waves, and it is 

 possible, but not proved, that this may be the case. But it 

 will not follow that because the waves are adequate to the 

 erection of a low sand-bank, they can throw up a body of clay 

 and sand an hundred miles in breadth, two, three, and four 

 hundred feet in thickness, and having its ujjper surface ele- 

 vated nearly the same number of feet above the greatest 

 height at which the waves are ever known to roll. Is it with- 

 in the memory of man that a sand bank has ever been form- 

 ed upon our coast that is not covered, if not by the highest 

 spring tides, at least during every considerable storm ? In- 

 deed, if any person who is travelling through the country, 

 will notice his elevation above the bed of the Cape Fear, as 

 he crosses Clarendon bridge at Fayetteville,* and how much 

 he has to ascend to gain the summit of Hay Mount, and the 

 general level of the sandy country on the west side of the 

 town, and recollect that he is one hundred miles in a direct 

 line from the sea, he will acknowledge that of all the theo- 

 ries that have been invented, to account for the formation of 

 the low country, that which attributes it to the action of the 

 gulf stream, such as it now is, and to such waves as now 

 break upon the Atlantic coast, though at first sight, appear- 

 ing to be the most simple and rational, is in truth the wildest 

 and least capable of defence. 



Though the considerations that have been already offered 

 seem to be sufficient to establish the truth of our proposition, 

 " that the low country has not been produced by the action 

 of causes that are still in operation," it will be still further il- 

 lustrated by the remarks that are to follow. I proceed there- 

 fore to observe that — 



* I have selected this place in preference to any other, because it is in the 

 heart of the alluvial — or the great northern and southern road, and the thickness 

 and elevation of the strata are well exhibited in its neighborhood. 



