Rocky Mountains. 441 



units may, in many places, be made the residence of an agri- 

 cultural people. 



Neverthtless it cannot be denied, that the valley of the 

 Mississippi, both by its geological conformation and by the 

 germs of the civil and political constitutions already plant- 

 ed and taking root there, seems destined to become the seat 

 of a powerful, and agricultural empire. The gradual destruc- 

 tion of the forests along the Mississippi, Missouri, and other 

 rivers, whose banks are not permanent, will, at length, re- 

 move one of the greatest obstacles to the navigation of those 

 rivers; but their commerce must all centre at one port, and 

 that an inconvenient one. The attention of the people will, 

 therefore, be directed less to their foreign relations and the 

 maintenance of commerce, than to the development of the 

 inexhaustiljle resources of their own soil. 



'I'he sickliness of the more depressed portions of the val- 

 ley of the Mississippi may, for sometime, retard the pro- 

 gressive increase of population, but cannot prevent its ulti- 

 mate arrival at its maximum, which is to be limited only by 

 the immense internal resources of the country. The ancient 

 inhabitants of this continent, if we may judge by their remain- 

 ing monuments, were most numerous in the low and fertile 

 parts of this valley. So were the ancient Egyptians on the 

 Delta of the Nile, and below the city of Thebes, where, as 

 Herodotus informs us " before the time of Menes was one 

 extended marsh;'' so were the ancient Romans in the vi- 

 cinity of ihe Pontine marshes, and the Venetians in those low 

 and almost inaccessible swamps at the bottom of the Adria- 

 tic Gulf, to which the remnant of the Veneti fled for re- 

 fuge from the fury of Attila. Unfortunately the alluvion of 

 large and small rivers often accumulates at the mouth, and is 

 deposited in their channels, until tracts, formerly habitable 

 and populous, are drowned and deserted. 



It may be hoped the persevering industry of men will here- 

 after do much towards protecting the alluvion of the lower 

 Mississippi from the annual inundations; but as the river it- 

 self must be the only natural agent, whose operations can ever 

 do any thing towards elevating the general surface of the 

 Delta, and since any elevation of this surface, effected by de 

 positions from the waters of the river, must be attended by 

 a corresponding elevation of its bed, there appears no rea- 

 son to hope, that the situation of the immediate valley of the 

 Mississippi will ever be more favorable to human life and 

 health than at present. Nevertheless we have seen popu- 

 voL. II. 56 



