have had of it, [Footnote: See p. 120, 121.] to be by far the most
healthful of any in all these southern parts of North America; a thing
of the last consequence in settling colonies, especially in those
southern parts of America, which are in general very unhealthful. All
the sea coasts of our colonies, to the southward of Chesapeak bay, or
even of New-York, are low and flat, marshy and swampy, and very
unhealthful on that account and those on and about the bay of Mexico,
and in Florida, are withal excessively hot and intemperate, so that
white people are unfit for labour in them; by which all our southern
colonies, which alone promise to be of any great advantage to the
nation, are so thin of people, that we have but 25,000 white people in
all South Carolina. [Footnote: Description of South Carolina. by----,
p. 30.] But those lands on the Missisippi are, on {viii} the
contrary, high, dry, hilly, and in some places mountainous at no great
distance from the river, besides the ridges of the Apalachean
mountains above mentioned, that lie to the northward of them; which
must greatly refresh and cool the air all over the country, especially
in comparison of what it is on the low and flat, sandy and parched sea
coasts of our present colonies. These high lands begin immediately
above the Delta, or drowned lands, at the mouth of the Missisippi;
above which the banks of that river are from one hundred to two
hundred feet high, without any marshes about them; and continue such
for nine hundred miles to the river Ohio, especially on the east side
of the river. [Footnote: See p. 158]

Such a situation on rich and fertile lands in that climate, and on a
navigable river, must appear to be of the utmost consequence. It is only
from the rich lands on the river sides (which indeed are the only lands
that can generally be called rich in all countries, and especially in
North America), that this nation reaps any thing of value from all the