they yield a kind of grass grateful to some animals, and are used as yet
only for pasturage. Many years elapsed before the planters found out the
different grains suited to those different soils, and we shall take
occasion to mention them as time and experience taught them the useful
discoveries. The soil of the hilly country differs from all these; for
there, in the vallies between the hills, a black and deep loam is found,
probably formed of rotten trees and vegetables, which the showers and
floods have carried into them from the adjacent heights. Marble, clay,
chalk and gravel grounds are also observed among these hills in the
middle of the country, and a variety of soil nearly similar to that found
in Europe.

[Sidenote] Of its storms and natural phenomena.

At this period Carolina, in her natural and rural robes, to an ingenious
stranger must have exhibited a noble and striking appearance, as all
objects of nature do in their primeval state. Still we may fancy what new
scenes would command his attention, and excite his admiration. A
thunder-storm here is a grand phenomenon, especially in the night; it is
said to be the voice of the supreme Author of nature, whose command all
the various elements obey, and it speaks his majesty and glory in the
loudest and most exalted strain. The frequent balls of fire bursting from
cloud to cloud; the forked flashes darting from the clouds to the earth,
and from the earth to the clouds alternately, illuminating the whole
surrounding atmosphere, and men, like so many worms, crawling in the dust
in the midst of flaming fire, form a magnificent and striking scene. The
continual muttering noise of thunder at a distance the dreadful explosion
on the right hand, the repercussive roar on the left, while the solid
foundations of the earth shake, and the goodly frame of nature seems
ready to dissolve, to the eyes of an intelligent stranger must have