Mississippi; the whole aspect of the country shows the powerful effects
of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness. The waters of
the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of vegetable mould in the
valley, which they levelled as they retired. Upon the right shore of the
river are seen immense plains, as smooth as if the husbandman had
passed over them with his roller. As you approach the mountains the soil
becomes more and more unequal and sterile; the ground is, as it were,
pierced in a thousand places by primitive rocks, which appear like the
bones of a skeleton whose flesh is partly consumed. The surface of the
earth is covered with a granite sand and huge irregular masses of stone,
among which a few plants force their growth, and give the appearance of
a green field covered with the ruins of a vast edifice. These stones and
this sand discover, on examination, a perfect analogy with those which
compose the arid and broken summits of the Rocky Mountains. The flood
of waters which washed the soil to the bottom of the valley afterwards
carried away portions of the rocks themselves; and these, dashed and
bruised against the neighboring cliffs, were left scattered like wrecks
at their feet. *d The valley of the Mississippi is, upon the whole, the
most magnificent dwelling-place prepared by God for man's abode; and yet
it may be said that at present it is but a mighty desert.

[Footnote d: See Appendix, A.]


On the eastern side of the Alleghanies, between the base of these
mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, there lies a long ridge of rocks and
sand, which the sea appears to have left behind as it retired. The mean
breadth of this territory does not exceed one hundred miles; but it is
about nine hundred miles in length. This part of the American continent
has a soil which offers every obstacle to the husbandman, and its