NORTH AMERICA. 
3*5 
by water, the Savanna uninterruptedly flows with 
a gentle meandring courfe, and is navigable for vef- 
fels-of twenty or thirty tons burthen to Savanna, 
where fhips of three hundred tons lie in a capacious 
and fecure harbour. 
Augufta thus feated at the head of navigation, 
and juft below the conflux of feveral of its moft 
confiderable branches, without a competitor, com- 
mands the trade and commerce of vaft fruitful 
regions above it, and from every fide to a great 
diftance ; and I do not hefitate to pronounce as my 
opinion, will very foon become the metropolis of 
Georgia.* 
I chofe to take this route up Savanna river, 14 
preference to the ftraight and fhorter road from 
Char left on to the Cherokee country by fort Ninety 
Six, becaufe by keeping near this great river, I had 
frequent opportunities of vifiting its fteep banks, 
vaft fvvamps and low grounds ; and had the advan- 
tage without great delay, or deviating from the 
main high road, of obferving the various foils and 
fituatiohs of the countries through which this fa- 
mous river purfues its courfe, and of examining their 
various productions, minera], vegetable and animal: 
whereas had I purfued the great trading path by 
Ninety fix, I mould have been led over a high, dry, 
fandy and gravelly ridge, and a great part of the 
diftance an old fettled or reforted part of the coun- 
try, and confequently void of the varieties of origi- 
nal or novel productions of nature. 
Before I leave Augufta, I mail recite a curious 
phenomenon, which may furnifh ample matter for 
* A few years after the aboye remark, the feat of government was re^ 
aaovcd from Savanna to Angmla. 
philofophical 
