450 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [August 



The whole of the Atlantic slope of the 

 United States, so far as I have been enabled 



nity occurred of my seeing these or any similar 

 lands. In all that time the subject was otf my 

 minu, and never expected to be resumed. It 

 may then be believed, even by those who do not 

 know the fact thai niy memory is greatly im- 

 paired by age, tliat I had entirely forgotten 

 many particulars which I had formerly studied 

 and published, and partly of my own writing, 

 when this first opportunity offered to test and 

 verify my opinions formed and presented so 

 long ago. And when going to another p.art of 

 Alabama, being still without intention of visit- 

 ing the calcareous region, or giving any time to 

 personal explorations, I did not carry with me, 

 and could not there procure, for reference, any 

 of my former publications, or any other, on the 

 subject. Even the very necessary and very 

 portable aids of a thermometer and a pocket 

 map of the country I could not obtain, after the 

 need for them was presented. 



While in Marengo county, I heard that the 

 lately deceased Professor Tuomey, the State 

 Geological Surveyor, had visited and examined 

 this region, and that the report, made up from 

 his papers, had not been then printed. From 

 my knowledge of the great ability and industry, 

 and fidelity to every trust and duty, of this zeal- 

 ous and successful votary of the natural sci- 

 ences, I expectetl that his labors would supply 

 much, on geological and chemical questions, 

 that I was not qualified to investigate thorough- 

 ly. Therefore, in addition to other reasons 

 for delay, I withheTd this article from publica- 

 tion, until after the publication of the second 

 and last report of Professor Tuomey's Survey — 

 which was made late in 185S. Much earlier, I 

 had read what he said on the calcareous lands 

 in his first report, published in 1850. But the 

 little there embraced on this subject had also 

 left no impression on my memory — and I could 

 not again have access to this first report, un- 

 til when the last appeared. The lamented 

 death of the author had doubtless served to 

 cause many important omissions in this portion 

 of his subject which, if he had lived, v/ould 

 have been fully and well sujiplied. And be- 

 sides other stated oniissions, of parts either not 

 written or lost, his editor. Prof. J. W. Mallet, 

 states that "at least one additional chapter 'On 

 the results of the Geological Survey in their 

 application to Agriculture' was included in the 

 design of Professor Tuomey's Report — but of 

 this no manuscript l)as been found.''' (p. 168.) 

 This chapter, if it had been prepared, would 

 probably have contained much of the particular 

 observations which I sought in vain in what is 

 left to the public of Professor Tuomey's latest 

 and always valuable labors. Of the compara- 

 tively little that his reports furnish in regard to 

 the agricultural characters of the cretaceous bed 

 and soils, I will add, in notes, with due acknow- 

 ledgement of the source, some information, ad- 

 ditional to mine — and also acknowledge some 

 matters in which our deductions, or opinions of j 

 facts, are opposed. j 



to examine, and to study by analogy and 

 inference, differs from the best known culti- 

 vated lands in the old world, in the remark- 

 able fact; that all these soils of eastern 

 America are naturally and entirely destitute 

 of carbonate of lime, or of that most usual 

 combination, or form, of lime which is so 

 common, and often so abundant, in most of 

 the longest known and formerly described 

 soils of England and France. Indeed, so 

 common was this ingredient of soil in 

 Europe, and often so obvious to the eye, 

 (either as chalk or limestone,) that, in the 

 general ignorance of agriculture as a sci- 

 ence which prevailed even as late as fifty 

 years ago, it was a general and undisputed 

 belief that all soils contained lime in this 

 form. And, as all English agricultural 

 opinions were then readily received by the 

 few American readers, and applied, without 

 examination, to this country, it was not 

 questioned here, but fully admitted, by the 

 few who then had cast a thought on the 

 subject, that the soils of the old States of 

 this Union were also generally or universally 

 supplied with more or less of carbonate of 

 lime.* It was nearly forty years ago, that 

 I first came to believe, and then asserted, 

 and soon after published, the then entirely 

 novel fact of the general (and almost uni- 

 versal) and entire absence of carbonate of 

 lime as a natural constituent of the soils of 

 our Atlantic slope, vfhich (and but a small 

 part of that) was the only portion of the 

 whole country with which I was then the 

 least informed by personal observation, or 

 other information. No scientific inquirer 

 had before even suspected this remarkable 

 fact. But every correct scientific observa- 

 tion, made in later times, has served to con- 

 firm my then unsupported position. Even 

 the mountain limestone lands,^' showing 

 frequently at the surface compact rock of 

 nearl}^ pure carbonate of lime, were not ex- 

 ceptions to the rule of the absence of that 

 ingredient as a constituent of soil. The 

 soils surrounding or overlying these rocks, 

 and even in contact with them, very rarely 

 contained the smallest portion of carbonate 

 of lime, of which lime-stone consists almost 

 exclusively. There were only a few and 

 limited cases of such soils, probably from 

 accidental, and certainly rare causes of dis- 



* This particular subject was first and fully 

 discussed in the Essay on Calcareous Manures, 

 and m all the editions, from first in 1821 to fifth 

 in 1853. 



