330 TRAVELS IN THE UNITED STATES : 
indeed that the snow lies on the ground much 
longer than six or seven weeks: but notwith¬ 
standing this circumstance, and that the face of 
the country is so much diversified with rising 
grounds, yet the whole of it is dreadfully un¬ 
healthy, scarcely a family escapes the bane¬ 
ful effects of the fevers that rage here during 
the autumn season. I was informed by the 
inhabitants, that much fewer persons had been 
attacked fev the fever the last season than dur- 
1/ 
ing former years, and of these few a very small 
number $ied, the fever having proved much 
less malignant than it was ever known to be 
before. This circumstance led the inhabitants 
to hope, that as the country became more 
cleared it would become much more healthy. 
It is well known, indeed that many parts of 
the country, which were extremely healthy 
while they remained covered with wood, and 
which also proved healthy after they had been 
generally cleared and settled, were very much 
otherwise when the trees were first cut down r 
this has been imputed to the vapours arising 
from the newly cleared lands on their being 
first exposed to the burnings rays of the sun, and 
which, whilst the newly cleared spots remain 
surrounded by woods, there is not a sufficient 
circulation of air to dispel. The unhealthi¬ 
ness of the country at present does not deter 
numbers of people from coming to settle her© 
