pernicious as many represent them. The waters there are fresh, which we
know, by manifold experience in America, are much less prejudicial to
health than the offensive fetid marshes, that are to be found every
where else on the salt waters. Accordingly we are credibly informed,
that some of the inhabitants of New Orleans say, they never enjoyed
better health even in France; and for that reason they invite their
countrymen, in their letters to them, we are told, to come and partake
of the salutary benefits of that delightful country. The clearing,
draining, and cultivating of those low lands, must make a very great
change upon them, from the accounts we have had of them in their rude
and uncultivated state.

III. The Upper Louisiana we call that part of the continent, which
lies to the northward of the mountains above mentioned in latitude
35 deg.. This country is in many places hilly and mountainous for which
reason we cannot expect it to be so fertile as the plains below it.
But those hills on the west side of the Missisippi are generally
suspected to contain mines, as well as the mountains of New Mexico, of
which they are a continuation. But the fertile plains of Louisiana are
perhaps more valuable than all the mines of Mexico; which there would
be no doubt of, if they were duly cultivated. They will breed and
maintain ten times as many people, and supply them with {x} many more
necessaries, and articles of trade and navigation, than the richest
mines of Peru.

The most important place in this country, and perhaps in all North
America, is at the Forks of the Missisippi, where the Ohio falls into
that river; which, like another ocean, is the general receptacle of
all the rivers that water the interior parts of that vast continent.
Here those large and navigable rivers, the Ohio, river of the