INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. 213 



machinery, and thus manufactories spring up wher- 

 ever, in their expressive phraseology, there water- 

 power; and steam supphes local deficiencies of mo- 

 ving force. Ingenuity, conspiring with a general sys- 

 tem of education, is excited under such culture to 

 produce numerous inventions, and hosts of young 

 men seek their fortunes successfully abroad as me- 

 chanics, seamen, traders, instructers, and politi- 

 cians, who thus act powerfully, and, we trust, bene 

 ficially on other communities. 



" The immense tracts of rich alluvium in the 

 Southern States, the mildness of the climate, the 

 coasts less abounding with safe inlets, and often 

 modified by the action of the existing ocean, with a 

 population not originally commercial, give a decided 

 impulse to a vast agriculture, and a few great staples 

 form the chief reliance of the landholders. It is 

 easy to see that this state of things grows out of 

 the recent secondary, the tertiary, and the alluvial 

 formations, which constitute the ocean barrier from 

 Staten Island to Florida, and from Florida to Texas, 

 extending inland towards the mountains. In the 

 West, the boundless fertile prairies and other tracts 

 of productive soil conspire, with remoteness from 

 the ocean, to indicate agriculture and pasturage as 

 the main employment of the inhabitants, while ex- 

 haustless beds of coal, limestone, plaster of Paris, 

 and rich deposites of lead and copper, and salt fount- 

 ains both numerous and copious, furnish means for 

 a manufacturing, as well as an agricultural popula- 

 tion. These pursuits occupy the greater number 

 of the people, while many find a profitable employ- 

 ment in navigating those immense inland seas, the 

 great lakes, and the vast rivers, which run thou- 

 sands of miles before they mingle with the ocean. 



" What geologist fails to perceive that this state 

 of things is the result of the immense lower sec- 

 ondary and transition formations which cover the 

 Western States, sustaining portions of tertiary and. 



