in NortJi-Easteim America. 



5 



beyond this, again, the changed forests and cultivation of the 

 higher country are determined by the change in nature and in 

 age which the rocks of this region exhibit. 



It is only necessary to observe further that the width of these 

 several belts of land varies in different parts of the long Atlantic 

 coast-line. The alluvial border is broadest in the southern 

 States and along the Gulf of Mexico, the pine belt probably in 

 Georgia, and the chalk marl in Alabama and Mississippi. The 

 latter also — the chalk — is by no means continuous. It forms 

 only a narrow belt in New Jersey and Maryland — almost dis- 

 appears in the Carolinas — is known only in patches in Georgia, 

 but becomes again broad and continuous in Alabama. Still, 

 wherever, along this great distance, any of these formations occur, 

 and of whatever extent they may at that place be, they always 

 exhibit the same general characters of soil, of natural vegetation, 

 and of agricultural capability, in so far as the climate of the 

 place permits. 



It is, indeed, very remarkable how uniform in this respect the 

 same geological formation is sometimes found to be, not only in 

 the same country, but in different countries at great distances from 

 each other. I have already alluded, for example, to the natural 

 dryness of this chalk belt on the Atlantic border of the United 

 States. The scarcity of vv^ater experienced by those who reside upon 

 it is often great. Every one knows that the same is true of our 

 own chalk region in England — that in very many places wells 

 are sunk through it with the view of reaching water, and that in 

 London great depths are gone to, and at a vast expense, through 

 the London clay and the chalk, before water can be obtained. In 

 the Paris basin the chalk is equally dry, and there are very few 

 who have not read of the remarkably deep well at Grenelle in 

 the neighbourhood of Paris, which, like the less profound London 

 wells, has been sunk to the sands below the chalk, and with 

 similar success. 



So, in Alabama, on this formation water is only to be obtained 

 by sinking through the chalk. Three years ago there were 

 already about 500 wells in that State, sunk to a depth of from 

 400 to 600 feet, there being one generally upon each plantation. 

 And thus, while the climate there, as elsewhere, determines the 

 general character of the vegetable produce, what kind of plants 

 under the meteorological conditions can arrive at perfection, and 

 also the race of men by whom that labour can be best performed,* 

 yet the geological structure determines whether or not any crops 

 shall be able to grow at all, and, of the kind of plants suitable to 

 the climate, which can be profitably cultivated upon its actual 



* Cotton is tlie staple market crop of Alabama. The State contains by the last 

 census (1852) a population of 779,000, of whom 344,000 are slaves. 



