Valley of the Mississippi 



" July the 10th, harvest at Rockfish gap, on the summit of Blue 

 Hidge, at an elevation of eleven hundred and fifty feet. It was two 

 days earlier in the valley of Staunton, about two hundred and thir- 

 ty feet lower. 



" July the 12th, harvest on Jackson's mountains, at an eleva- 

 tion of more than two thousand two hundred feet. 



" July the 20th, harvest on the Alleghanies, at an elevation of 

 two thousand six hundred feet. 



" In this ascending lino we find it uniformly more backward in 

 proportion to the height of the level. 



" On descending the other slope of the Alleghanies, that to the 

 west, I found, that at Green Briar, situate in a low plain, it took 

 place five days earlier, on the 15th of July. 



" In the valley of the Great Kenhaway, at the mouth of Elk riv- 

 er, it began on the 6th. 



" At Gallipolis, a French settlement on the Sciota, on the 11th. 



"At Cincinnati, farther north, on the 15th. 



" I found no wheat at Fort Vincents on the Wabash, where a 

 preference is given to Indian corn, tobacco, and cotton, products 

 characteristic of a hot country. 



4 6 On the first of July harvest had commenced at Kaskaskias on 

 the Mississippi, as it had done at Monticello." 



In the above quotation, the only fact that has any bearing upon 

 this question, is one that is directly in opposition to the theory 

 which it is intended to confirm, viz : that the harvest commenced at 

 the same time, at Monticello, east of the Alleghanies, and at Kas- 

 kaekia, on the Mississippi ; places which, as he afterwards observes, 

 are both in the same latitude and at an elevation nearly the same. # 

 The trifling differences in vegetation which he noticed as he as- 

 cended the Alleghanies will not appear at all surprising to those who 

 are acquainted with the effect of elevation upon the temperature of 

 a climate ; and those still more trifling ones on the Ohio, are such 

 as would naturally occur on a stream having a southern course. 

 Indeed our author himself, in reviewing the phenomena which he 

 has detailed, is not satisfied of their importance, and even admits 

 that they can all be accounted for in the manner above mentioned. 

 " Still I am far from denying/' says he, " that in the western coun- 

 try several phenomena of temperature and vegetation occur, which 

 neither the elevation nor the aspect is sufficient to explain Among 



