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UNITED STATES. 



ed with pine, white oak, red oak, live oak, gum, 

 hickory, dogwood, sassafras, elm, laurel and bay ; 

 while their undergrowth is covered with a profu- 

 sion of shrubbery ; and jassmines {bignorda semjier- 

 virens) are abundantly strewed along the ground, 

 or ciasp the trees above them, in beautiful festoons. 



From these islands, the main land presents a level 

 country, with a surface of light black earth, on a 

 stratum of sand ; and that sometimes resting at a few 

 feet below, on a stratum of marie or clay. In some 

 places the sand deepens, and at the distance of fif- 

 teen or twenty feet below the surface, it rests upon a 

 bed of small and broken sea-shells, and other marine 

 productioiiS. At first sight they present the appear- 

 ance of a light porous rock, like Bermudian stone ; 

 but, on examination, they prove to be nothing more 

 than a variety of broken shells, attached to each 

 other by particles of marsh clay and sand. These 

 lands generally produce extensive pine forests ; 

 known by the name of fiine barrens, because of their 

 unproductive nature. They are without any stones 

 on their surface, for eighty miles or more, from the 

 sea ; rising by an almost imperceptible ascent to that 

 distance, where the elevation is said to be near two 

 hundred feet above the level of the ocean. Through 

 this tract of country, the pine barrens have little or 

 no underwood, some species of shrub-oak excepted ; 

 the ground being generally covered with coarse wild 

 grasses. This is probably not its natural appear- 

 ance, but is caused by the custom of burning the dry 

 grass in the spring, in order to hasten early pastur- 

 age, at the same time destroying the young shrubs, 

 which would otherwise^ shoot up a growth of under- 



