m 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[August 



country, renders the roads almost impassable 

 by wheel carriages, in winter; and every 

 other mode of conveyance and of ordinary 

 land travel, extremely difficult and annoy- 

 ing. This quality of the soil is generally 

 ascribed to the universal and very large pro- 

 portion of lime supposed to be in all the 

 soils. This is altogether erroneous. Not 



o 



only is lime absent (or nearly so, and the 

 carbonate of lime entirely absent,) in a 

 large proportion of the surface and subsoils, 

 but carbonate of lime, if alone, or other- 

 wise the principal ingredient of other soils, 

 is very pervious to Avater, and therefore 

 operates to keep land dry. In the chalk 

 region of England, the watering ponds made 

 (in the pure chalk) for cattle, require to be 

 bottomed thickly with clay, and that well 

 puddled, or the water will fast escape by 

 downward filtration. It is very certain (of 

 lands in Virginia) that soils containing ordi- 

 nary proportions of silicious sand, if also 

 slightly calcareous, are thereby enabled to 

 to imbibe and retain more rain-water, and 

 for a longer time, without its being excessive 

 or hurtful — and also to discharge any in- 

 jurious excess of rain-water, by evaporation 

 or percolation, or both, more quickly than 

 adjacent and sandy soils, not calcareous. 

 The remarkable stickiness of these Alabama 

 soils when wet, or their strong retentiveness of 

 water in excess, as I infer, is owing to the 

 absence or great deficiency of silicious sand, 

 and the great quantity of unusually pure 

 clay in these soils and their subsoils or un- 

 der-beds. This clay absorbs and holds a 

 very large quantity of rain-water in its 

 outer and pulverized and pervious coat — 

 (and therein is aided by the lime — ) but, 

 despite of the counteracting operation of the 

 intermixed chalk, or carbonate of lime,its com- 

 pact partisimpervioustothe deep penetration 

 of the water, and its passage and escape by 

 downward filtration. Thus, all the excess 

 of water, which cannot flow off over the 

 surface to lower levels, is held absorbed, and 

 serves to make a mire of the upper soil, 

 until it is carried off by evaporation. And 

 the very large calcareous ingredient of the 

 soil, which increases the absorbent power of 

 the clay, also acts to aid and hasten the sub- 

 sequent discharge by evaporation of the 

 superfluous and hurtful water, as well as to 

 retain, (even when the soil seems dry est,) 

 much moisture that mere clay could not ab- 

 sorb. After the rain has ceased, and fair 

 weather sets in, the too wet or miry soil 



dries rapidly, and, if tillage land, soon be- 

 comes friable and is easily pulverized. Com- 

 pared to other soils with like uneven sur- 

 face, and with such heavy rains, but little 

 of the superfluous rain-water passes off over 

 the surface and down the slopes, to the bot- 

 toms, there to form what are called creeks — 

 which are large streams that flow only in 

 wet seasons or after heavy rains — and some- 

 times even overflow the bordering flats — 

 but are not permanent even in winter, and 

 are usually dry in all other times, except as 

 to a few stagnant pools remaining in the 

 lowest parts of the channels. Thus, natu- 

 rally, there was not a spring, or a permanent 

 stream in all this great region of generally 

 calcareous soil, and universal calcareous un- 

 der-beds. 



But these beds, whether the upper or 

 lower, are not so entirely impervious as they 

 would seem at first, and as is generally sup- 

 posed. The soil cracks deeply in dry wea- 

 ther. And if there were deep under-drains, 

 (as in the most improved modern system of 

 thorough draining in England,) I have no 

 doubt that these cracks and fissures of the 

 earth would serve as aids to keep it drained 

 — and free from the present evils of heavy 

 rains — to nearly as great a depth as the 

 bottoms of the drains, or say 4 to 5 feet. 

 Also, the inferior bed of compact blue lime- 

 rock is not always or entirely impervious to 

 the passage, and escape of water, though it 

 is to its downward filtration. This is proved 

 by the following we^l-established and long- 

 known fact. Before such occurrences pro- 

 duced caution, it had often happened that 

 the " seep wells,'^ which were dug but a 

 little into the compact lime-rock, and were 

 supplied with water by the very slow lateral 

 percolation, or <^ seeping" of rain-water from 

 the earth above, were afterwards deepened ; 

 and it frequently followed, that by this deep- 

 ening reaching some unsuspected fissures ia 

 the rock, the water escaped below, and the 

 well became dry and useless. But this ef- 

 fect was not caused by the texture of the 

 blue or solid marl being the least permeable 

 to the filtrating action of water, but to 

 minute passages formed by fissures, between 

 layers of the rock. The upper portion of 

 this bed is usually in layers parallel with 

 the original horizontal plane of the bed, 

 and of course now having the same very 

 slight dip towards the south. These " joints" 

 are scarcely perceptible in the covered and 

 moist bed. But where exposed to the air, or 



