ana is found in the region called the coast, which is that part of the bottor of the Mississippi commencing with the first cultivation above the Balize, and comprising forty miles below New Orleans, and one hundred and fifty above. This fertile belt, which varies in width from one to two miles, is secured from inundation by an embankment, broad enough to furnish a fine highway, from six to eight feet in height. In the northern part of this state, bordering on Arkansas, is a considerable extent of hilly, flinty. barren land.

Arkansas territory exhibits every variety and quality of soil. The cultivated belt below the Post of Arkansas bears some outward resemblance to the coast in Louisiana; though its soil is not so fertile, and needs manuring to produce large crops. Large prairies interspersed with forest bottoms, and large tracts of excellent soil, are found five or six hundred miles from the mouth of Arkansas river. Mount Prairie, which lies on the Washita, has a black soil of extreme richness. On the White river are some of the healthiest and most fertile situations in this country. The other parts of this territory are vast tracts of sterile and precipitous ridges, sandy prairies,

and barrens.

The soil of Tennessee, in the valleys of its creeks and streams, is rich beyond any of the same description elsewhere in the western country. In East Tennessee it derives its fertility from the quantities of dissolved lime, and nitrate of lime that are mixed with it. In West Tennessee the strata are arranged in the following order: first, a loamy soil, or mixtures of clay and sand; next, yellow clay; then comes a mixture of red sand and red clay; and lastly, a white sand. In the southern parts of this state immense banks are found of uncommonly large oyster shells, situated on high table-grounds remote from any water-course.

Missouri contains a large proportion of friable, loamy, and sandy soil The uplands are rich, and of a darkish gray color: excepting the region of the lead mines, where the soil is bright and reddish. The prairies are generally level, and of an intermediate character between the rich and the poorer uplands, the latter of which have a light, yellow soil, stiff and clayey. The bottoms of the great rivers and smaller streams of this state range of vision probably extended for many leagues, no other objects were discernible but the broad muddy river, with its vast masses of drift-wood, and the wilderness of gigantic bulrushes shaking in the wind.

There are four passes or outlets by which the Mississippi discharges its mighty burden into the Gulf of Mexico. Two of these are navigable, but changes are ever taking place, and the passage formerly preferred by the pilots, is now rarely attempted even by vessels of the smallest class. On approaching the Gulf, verdure appears only at intervals, and the eye rests on tracts of mere mud, formed by the deposit of the river on the drift-wood which some obstacle has arrested in its passage to the ocean. It is by this process that land is formed, and it may be traced in every step of its progress, from the island resting on a few logs, up to the huge trac in whose boson are imbedded many millions. Encountering no obstacle, the river sends out arms in every direction, which, after winding through the half-formed region in a thousand fantastic flexures, are again united to the inain branches.

It would be difficult to convey an idea by words, of the effect which this most dismal scene produces on the heart and imagination of the spectator. It seems as if the process of creation were incomplete, and the earth yet undivided from the waters, for he beholds only an intermediate mass which admits of being absolutely assigned to neither element. He feels that he has forsaken the regions of the habitable world. Above, beneath, around, there is nothing to excite his sympathies, and, probably, for the first time in his nie, he becomes conscious of the full sublimity of desolation.—Hamilton's America.

have uncommon fertility. On the upper Mississippi are rich uplands, interspersed with flinty knobs two or three hundred feet high. In the south-west part of the state are sterile tracts, covered with yellow pine, and scattered with hilly and rocky country.

Kentucky abounds in large bodies of fertile land, but even here are tracts too sterile for cultivation. Nothing can exceed in richness the great valley of which Lexington is the centre. A tract one hundred miles by fifty in extent is found in the centre of the state, with a substratum of limestone, which dissolves and so mingles with the soil as to impart to it great richness and vigor. Much of the soil is of that character known as mulatto land. An extensive tract of barrens occurs between the RoHing Fork and Green river, and between the latter and Cumberland river, in the northern and eastern parts of the state. Here the soil is generally good, and affords fine pasturage.

Illinois has but few elevations, and those of inconsiderable extent; it is generally a region perfectly level. Though containing tracts of barrens and rough lands, not to be easily cultivated, it perhaps includes a greater proportion of land of the best quality than any other state. This region was called by the French the Terrestrial Paradise; and its soil is said to be the richest in the world. Our road,' says a recent traveller, 'passed through the prairie ground, of which above two thirds of the whole state of Illinois is composed, most beautiful at all times, but especially at this season, owing to the brilliancy of the flowers now in blossom. Plantations we saw here and there, but the general appearance of the country was that of a fine waving surface of strong grass, covered with strawberry plants, and the finest flowers, and with wood on the high grounds and hollows, and occasional dropping trees, and clumps or islets of wood. In general, there was quite enough of wood in the view, and far more happily disposed than if the trees had been planted by the hand of man.'

Indiana contains large tracts of excellent soil; and is generally level and fertile. The prairies bordering the Wabash, are particularly rich; wells have been sunk in them, where the vegetable soil was twenty-two feet deep, under which was a stratum of fine white sand; yet the ordinary depth is from two to five feet. Many of the prairies and intervals are too rich for wheat. The northern part of the state contains much good land, but is intersected by long narrow bogs and swamps, with a soil of stiff blue clay.

In Ohio, the land bordering on the river of the same name is hilly and broken; but most of these hills have a deep rich soil, and are capable of being cultivated to their very summits. The bottoms of the Ohio are of very unequal width; the bases of some of the hills approach close to the river, while others recede to the distance of two or three miles. There are usually three bottoms, rising one above the other like the glacis of a fortification; and they are heavily timbered with such trees as denote a very fertile soil. In such parts of these bottoms as have been cleared and settled, the soil is uniformly fertile in a high degree; producing in great abundance wheat, Indian corn, rye, oats, and barley, and apples and peaches of excellent quality. In the western counties, and in the north-western and northern portions of the state, there is a leveller surface, and a moister soil, interspersed with tracts of dry prairie, and forests of a sandy or gravelly soil. The north-western corner of the state contains a considerable district of level,

rich land, too wet and swampy to admit of healthy settlements: the soil is a black, loose, friable loam, or a vegetable mould, watered by sluggish and dark-colored streams.

That part of the territory of Michigan, which forms the peninsula lying between the great lakes, is generally level. In its centre, however, is a ridge of table-land about three hundred feet above the lakes, running north and south, and dividing the waters emptying into Erie and Huron from those running to the westward. This peninsula is divided into about equal proportions of grass prairies and forests. Along the southern shore of Lake Michigan is a sandy and barren tract of country, bleak and desolate. But much of the soil of this country is excellent, and its productions are similar to those of the state of New York. The North-West territory has not yet been much explored. That portion of it situated between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and the western shore of Lake Michigan, has a rich, black, alluvial soil, and is well watered. The face of the country is unbroken by hills of any magnitude.

The most striking feature of the vast Missouri territory is its ocean of prairies. A belt of partially wooded country extends from two to four hundred miles west of the Mississippi and its waters. The immense extent of country west of the two great rivers is generally level, and is covered with grass plains, and sand deserts. On the banks of the streams there is usually a line of rich soil, but as we leave them it becomes barren and dry. Much of this country is as sterile as the deserts of Arabia, though in the most sandy parts there is a thin sward of grass and herbage. The Missouri, the Platte and the Yellow-stone run through a rich soil; but in its upper courses the Arkansas waters only a barren prairie.

GENERAL REMARKS ON SOIL.

The productiveness of soils is influenced by the nature of the sub-soil, or the earthy or stony strata on which they rest, and this should be attended to in all plans for their improvement. Thus sandy soil may owe its fertility to the power of the sub-soil to retain water; and an absorbent clay soil may occasionally be prevented from being barren by the influence of a substratum of sand and gravel. Those soils that are most productive of corn, contain always certain proportions of aluminous or calcareous earth in a finely divided state, and a certain quantity of vegetable or animal matter.

'In cases,' says Sir Humphrey Davy, 'where a barren soil is examined with a view to its improvement, it ought, in all cases, if possible, to be compared with an extremely fertile soil in the same neighborhood, and in a similar situation; the difference given by their analyses would indicate the methods of cultivation, and thus the plan of improvement would be founded upon accurate scientific principles.

'If the fertile soil contained a large quantity of sand, in proportion to the barren soil, the process of amelioration would depend simply upon a supply of this substance; and the method would be equally simple with regard to soils deficient in clay or calcareous inatter. In the application of clay, sand, lcam, marl, or chalk, to lands, there are no particular chemical principles to be observed; but, when quicklime is used, great care must be taken that it is not obtained from the magnesian limestone; for in this case, as has been shown by Mr. Pennant, it is extremely injurious to land. The magnesian limestone may be distinguished from the common limestone by its greater hardness, and by the length of time that it requires for its solution in acids; and it may be analyzed by the process for carbonate of lime and magnesia.

'When the analytical composition indicates an excess of vegetable matter as the cause of sterility, it may be destroyed by much pulverization and exposure to air, by paring and burning, or the agency of lately made quicksilver; and the defect of animal and vegetable matter must be supplied by animal or vegetable manure. The general indications of fertility and barrenness, as found by chemical experiments, must necessarily differ in different climates, and under various circumstances. The power of soils to

absorb moisture, a principle essential to their productiveness, ought to be much greater in warm and dry countries, than in cold and moist ones; and the quantity of fine aluminous earth they contain should be larger.

'From the great difference of the causes that influence the productiveness of lands, it is obvious, that, in the present state of the science, no certain system can be devised for their improvement, independent of experiment; but there are few cases in which the labor of analytical trials will not be amply repaid by the certainty with which they denote the best methods of melioration; and this will particularly happen when the defect of composition is found in the proportions of the primitive earths. In supplying animal or vegetable manure, a temporary food only is provided for plants, which is in all cases exhausted by means of a certain number of crops; but when a soil is rendered of the best possible constitution and texture with regard to its earthy parts, its fertility may be considered as permanently established. It becomes capable of attracting a very large portion of vegetable nourishment from the atmosphere, and of producing its crops with comparatively little labor and expense.'

CHAPTER XIV.-CLIMATE.*

THE United States are most desirably situated. Placed in the northern temperate zone, they occupy just that portion of it, which is most likely to yield a healthy climate and rich soil. Happily removed from the parching heat of the torrid, and eternal frosts of the frigid zone, the republic is never

* It is fortunate that habit makes us so little observant of what is disagreeable or inconsistent in climate. Every nation thinks that to which it is accustomed, combines, on the whole, the greater number of advantages. Colonel Hamilton considers it preposterous to compare the climate of the United States with that of England; and Count Pecchio, an Italian exile, is much amused that the English should attempt to persuade themselves that they have a climate even endurable. We have placed the two following extracts in juxta-position, to exhibit the respective views of these intelligent travellers on the climate of the two counties:

When on the subject of climate, I may just mention, that there is no topic on which Americans are more jealously sensitive. It delights them to believe that theirs is, in all respects, a favored land; that between the St. Lawrence and Mississippi the sky is brighter, the breezes more salubrious, and the soil more fertile, than in any other region of the earth. There is no harm in all this; nay, it is laudable, if they would only not insist that all strangers should view the matter in the same light, and express admiration as rapturous as their own.

'Judging from my own experience, I should certainly pronounce the climate of the northern and central states to be only one degree better than that of Nova Scotia, which struck me, when there in 1814, as being the very worst in the world. On making the American coast, we had four days of denser fog than I ever saw in London. After my arrival at New York in November, the weather, for about a week, was very fine. It then became cloudy and tempestuous, and, during the whole period of my residence at Boston, I scarcely saw the sun. At Philadelphia there came on a deluge of snow, by which the ground was covered from January till March. At Baltimore there was no improvement. Snow lay deep on the ground, during the whole period of my residence at Washington, and the roads were only passable with difficulty. On crossing the Alleghany Mountains, however, the weather became delightful, and continued so during the voyage to New Orleans. While I remained in that city, three days out of every four were oppressively close and sultry, and the atmosphere was damp and oppressive to breathe.

During my journey from Mobile to Charleston, though generally hotter than desira ble, the weather was, in the main, bright and beautiful; but the very day of my arrival at the latter place, the thermometer fell twenty degrees; and in the thirty-third degree of latitude, in the month of May, the inmates of the hotel were crowding round a blaz. ing fire. On my return to New York, I found the population still muffled in cloaks and great coats, and the weather bitterly cold. Not a vestive of spring was discernible, at a season when, in England, the whole country is covered with verdure. During the last week of May, however, the heat became very great. At Quebec, it was almost intolerable, the thermometer ranging daily between eighty-four and ninety-two degrees At New York, in July, the weather was all that a salamander could desire; and I embarked for England, under a sun more burning than it is at all probable I shall ever suffer from again.

'In the northern and central states-for of the climate of the southern states it is unnecessary to speak—the annual range of the thermometer exceeds a hundred degrees. The heat of summer is that of Jamaica; the cold in winter is that of Russia. Such enormous vicissitudes must necessarily impair the vigor of the human frame; and when we take into calculation the vast portion of the United States in which the atmosphere is contaminated by marshy exhalations, it will not be difficult, with the auxiliary influences of dram-drinking and tobacco-chewing, to account for the squalid and sickly aspect of the population. Among the peasantry, I never saw one florid and robust