476 



UNITED STATES. 



ter. Thirty-two gallons of thisj and some of the 

 other wells, make one bushel of salt. Two hundred 

 bushels have been made in a day. It is equal to 

 Liverpool salt. Mr. Preston can supply the state of 

 Tenessee and the south-west of Virginia, with this 

 essential article.* 



Among the curiosities of the Mississippi Terri- 

 tory, particular mention is made of chasms and , 

 sinkings of the earth, in various places; of the rapid 

 encroachments of the river upon its eastern bank, 

 wasting it away very fast ; and of large portions of 

 undermined ground tumbling into the water. This 

 goes on so violently, that the very place on which the 

 town of Natchez stood, as lately as the year 1780, is 

 now under water at some distance in the river, as 

 the inhabitants, who then lived there^ and are still 

 alive, assert. Corresponding to this, the low land 

 on the west side of the river, subject to be flooded 

 by the rise of its waters, is above thirty miles wide, 

 and seems to be a direliction of the river, as its chan- 

 nel has gradually shifted by encroachment to the 

 eastward.! 



At the upper part of Charleston district, in the 

 neighbourhood of Nelson's ferry, a stratum of fossil 

 oyster shells stretches in a south-westwardly course, 

 nearly parallel with the sea, towards the Three 

 Runs, on Savannah river ; and are probably con- 

 nected with those which Mr. Bartram describes, as 

 being fifteen miles below Silver Bluff, on the Georgia 

 side. These shells are uncommonly large ; towards 



* Morse. 



t Rev, Mr. Hall's Tour to the Mississippi Tetritoty. 



