ported the vine; and that the vine was carried from the trunk with the projection of the lateral branch, until, in the lapse of years, this singular appearance is the result. In many bottoms, half the trees are covered with these vines. In the deep forest, on the hills, in the barrens, in the hazel prairies, and in the pine woods, every form and size of the grape are found.

Of the plants of the winter grape, which so generally clings to the trees in the alluvial forests, probably not one in fifty bears any fruit at all. The fruit when produced is a small circular berry not unlike the wild black cherry. It is austere, sour, and unpleasant, until it has been softened by the winter frosts; but it is said, when fermented by those who have experience in the practice, to make a tolerable wine. The summer grape is found on the rolling barrens and the hazel prairies. It is more than twice the size of the winter grape, is ripe in the first month in autumn, and, when matured under the full influence of the sun, is a pleasant fruit. It grows in the greatest abundance, but is too dry a grape to be pressed for wine. The muscadine grape is seldom seen north of thirty-four degrees. More southerly, it becomes abundant, and is found in the deep alluvial forests, clinging to tall trees. The fruit grows in more scanty clusters than that of other grapes. Like other fruits, they fall as they ripen, and furnish a rich treat to bears and other animals that feed on them; they are of the size of a plum, of a fine purple black, with a thick tough skin, tasting not unlike the rind of an orange; the pulp is deliciously sweet, but is reputed unwholesome. The pine woods grape has a slender, bluish purple vine, that runs on the ground among the grass. It ripens in the month of June; is large, cone-shaped, transparent, with four seeds, reddish purple, and is fine fruit for eating.

Cane.-The Cane grows to the height of twenty or thirty feet on the lower courses of the Mississippi, Arkansas and Red rivers. Its leaves are dagger-shaped, long and narrow, and of a beautiful green. It grows in masses so compact that the smallest sparrow would find it difficult to fly in the intervals. A man could not make his way through a cane brake, at a rate more rapid than three miles a day.

Flax. A species of flax was found by Lewis and Clarke growing in the valleys of the Rocky mountains, and on the banks of the Missouri. The bark possesses the same kind of tough fibres as the common flax, and the Indians are in the habit of making lint and gun-waddings of it.

Berries. The gooseberry is indigenous to the United States, and in the western parts grows to great size. The red raspberry is also indigenous. Whortleberries, and blackberries high and creeping, are found in prodigious abundance; many of the prairies are red with strawberries. The cranberry is a native of the country, growing in morasses and rich bottom through its whole extent. Large cranberry swamps occur in New Jersey. Other Plants.-There are many annual and evergreen creepers in the United States, of various kinds, form and foliage. The grasses are vari ous and luxuriant. In the prairies they are rank and coarse; the Atlantie country is covered with a fine sward. The rush is a useful herbaceous plant, which grows on bottoms of an elevation between that of the cane brakes and the deeply-flooded lands. The pea-vine covers the richer soil of the forest lands; it is small and fibrous. The wild rice is a plant of great importance, found on the marshy margins of the northern lakes,

and in the shallow waters of the upper courses of the Mississippi. One of the most striking of the forest productions is the wax-plant, which is nearly entirely of a snow-white, and resembles the most delicate wax preparation. It grows in rich shady woods, and is much prized.

The common kinds of water-plants are found in the mashy grounds and ponds; particularly a very beautiful and fragrant lily. This closely resembles the European water-lily. One of this genus is said to be unrivalled for size and beauty. Dr. Barton considers it to be the same as the sacred bean of Judea, and mentions it as abundant in Philadelphia, but rare otherwise, and refusing propagation. Mr. Flint found it in the southern states, and says that it attains great splendor on the lakes and stagnant waters of the Arkansas. There is a large variety of parasitic plants in the states, the most remarkable of which is the long moss.

It will be observed that in these chapters on the natural history of the United States, we have only intended to describe the most conspicuous objects, without reference to scientific arrangement. A mere scientific catalogue of the natural productions of our country would occupy all the space we have devoted to the subject, and possess no interest or attraction for the general reader.

GENERAL REMARKS ON BOTANY.

Botany, the science of plants, is generally divided into two branches, one of which describes their internal structure and organic action, and the other their external appear. ence. At the revival of learning, hardly fifteen hundred plants were known from the descriptions of the ancients. More than fifty thousand, at a reasonable estimate, have been described. Linnæus founded his system exclusively on the sexual relations of plants; dividing them all into two general divisions, one of which has, and the other has not, visible sexual parts. This division is generally adopted as the basis of elementary instruction, but many objections have been brought against it.

The second general division of this science begins with the anatomy of plants, or an investigation of their internal structure. This study has been recently cultivated to a great extent, particularly by the Germans. With this division is connected chemical botany, which investigates the constituent parts, the various changes, and the different combinations of the liquid and solid parts of plants. From these we rise to the laws of vegetable life, which are generally the same with those of animal life; the physiology of plants and of animals is thus of course intimately connected.

Of the two general divisions of botany, the physiological, or philosophical is the elder. It was created by Theophrastus of Eresus. Historical botany was founded by the Germans. In the seventeenth century, the foundation of botanical anatomy was laid by Grew and Malpighi; botanical chemistry was founded by Homberg, Dodart, and Mariotte; and the difference of sex was discovered by Grew, Morland and Camerarius.

CHAPTER XVIII.-GEOLOGY.

THE first important attempt toward a scientific view of the character and relations of the strata in the United States was made by Mr. Maclure, but a short time previous to the year 1812. His work was small and general, but has proved a valuable guide to subsequent inquirers. In order to obtain a view of the general geological formation of the territory of the states, it will be well to recapitulate its chief geographical features; the Apala chian mountains on the east, with the slope to the Atlantic ocean; the Rocky mountains to the west, with the valleys intervening between them and the Pacific ocean; and the extended valley between these elevated ranges, with the Ozark mountains dividing it in the centre, and the Black mountains occupying its north-western angle.

The summits of the Rocky mountains are formed entirely of primitive. rocks, chiefly of granite itself. A red and saline sandstone rests on this granite, through the whole chain, as far as it has been explored. But few traces of that animal and vegetable life are found, which in other countries has reared mountains of limestone, clay-slate, and those other aggregates which are so often composed of the exuviæ of living beings. The western boundary of this sandstone formation corresponds to the side of the easternmost granite ranges. From the Platte toward the south, the sandstone increases in width, and on the Canadian it extends more than half the distance from the sources of that river to its confluence with the Arkansas. It consists of two members; red sandstone, and argillaceous or gray sandstone. This formation was at one time probably horizontal and uniform ; it is now found in a state of entire disruption and disorder. This tract abounds in scenery of an interesting and majestic character. The angle of inclination of the strata varies from forty-five to ninety degrees. Though not very recent, the sandstone along the base of the mountains contains the relics of marine animals and plants, and embraces extensive beds of pudding stone.

South of the Arkansas are rocks of basaltic origin, overlaying the red sandstone. By the vastness and broken character of their masses, and their dark color, they present a striking contrast to the light, smooth and fissile sandstone on which they rest. Sometimes they are compact and apparently homogeneous in their composition, and in many particulars of structure, form and hardness, more analogous to the primitive rock than to those recent secondary aggregates with which they are associated. In other instances, dark and irregular masses of porous and amygdaloidal substances are seen scattered about the plain, or gathered in conical heaps, but having no immediate connection with the strata on which they rest. Most of the rocks of this class were observed in the neighborhood of the sources of the Canadian; and may be distinguished into two kinds, referable to the two divisions called greenstone and amygdaloid.

The valley immediately east of the Rocky mountain range is composed of an extensive accumulation of sand, seemingly the debris of the moun

tains. To an unknown depth, the soil is made up of rounded fragments of granite, varying in dimension from a grain of sand to a six pound shot. This accumulation has evidently been washed from the mountains, and slopes gradually from their base. The small particles derived from the quartzose portions of the primitive aggregates, being least liable to decomDosition, have been borne to the greatest distance, and of these the eastern margin of the great sandy desert is almost entirely composed; the central portions are of coarser sand, intermixed with particles of mica and feldspar; nearer the mountains, boulders and pebbles occur abundantly, and at length cover almost the entire surface of the country.

In many other respects besides geological structure, the Apalachian range of mountains differs from that we have just been considering. The whole of their eastern front is composed of primitive rocks, comprehending both the granitic family and its associated strata of clay-slate and limestone. In New England, rocks of this class constitute the seacoast, and with some exceptions extend inwards towards the St. Lawrence. South of the Hudson, the edge of the primitive follows the general contour of the mountains, at a variable distance from the sea to their termination, and until it meets more recent deposits at the extremity of the mountain range. The breadth of this primitive belt is very unequal. In passing through the states of Pennsylvania and Maryland, it occupies but a small part of the country; in Virginia it increases in breadth, and proportionably in height, composing the greatest mass as well as the most elevated points of the mountains in Georgia and North Carolina. Besides this range, there is a great mass of primitive on the west side of lake Champlain.

In general, the primitive rocks run from a north and south to a northeast and south-west direction, and dip generally to the south-east at an angle of more than forty-five degrees with the horizon; their highest elevation is towards their north-western limit. The mountains of this forma tion consist generally of detached masses, with rounded flat tops and a circular waving outline. Granite in large masses constitutes but a small part of this formation, and is found indifferently in the plains and on the tops of mountains. Gneiss extends perhaps over a half of this formation, and includes in a great many places beds from three to three hundred feet thick. These beds are mixed, and alternate occasionally in the same gneiss with the primitive limestone, the beds of hornblende and hornblende slate, serpentine, magnetic iron ore, and feldspar rocks. In short, there are scarcely of the primitive rocks that may not occasionally be found included in the gneiss formation.

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The breadth of the transition district, like that of the primitive, is variable. Narrow towards the gulf of Mexico, it gradually widens towards the north-east, till it reaches the river Hudson. From its upper portion it sends off a considerable arm, which penetrates for several hundred miles into the granitic region, overlaying it, but running parallel with the principal body. After the primitive, it forms some of the highest mountains in the range, and seems to be both higher and wider to the west in Pennsylvania, Maryland and part of Virginia, where the primitive is least extended and lowest in height. It contains all the varieties of rocks found in the same formation in Europe.

It varies in breadth from twenty to one hundred miles. In the limestone of this formation there are many and extensive caves, some of which

extend for miles under ground, and contain the bones of animals. It is the lowest, and is considered the most ancient of the rocks containing organized remains, which are those of cryptogamous plants, and animals without sight. The graywacke has been observed to contain impressions of organized remains, but they are usually those of zoophytic animals, and are exceedingly unlike those found so abundantly in the coal formations. Its colors are variable; it is, however, most commonly bluish, black, or dark brown. The graywacke seems to form the connecting link between the clay-slate and a rock which has been called the old red sandstone, and is usually found intimately blended either with the one or the other. This sandstone occurs throughout the whole extent of the transition formation, and evidently belongs to the oldest depositions of that rock. It is for the most part distinctly stratified, and in all cases its stratification is inclined.

Of the rocks thus described, the limestone occurs extensively all along the north-western side of the primitive strata. It is probable that transition limestone is the foundation through their whole extent of the Alleghany mountains of Pennsylvania, Maryland and the western parts of Virginia, on a level with the surface at the base of their eastern declivities. The clay-slate occurs in the central portions of that extensive field of transition, which skirts the western margin of the primitive of New York and New England, and forms the great body of the Catskill mountains. The old red sandstone in the transition district, along the whole range of mountains, is perhaps more abundant than any other aggregate. This region has also a considerable mixture of trap. Various large bodies of transition rock are thrown to a considerable distance into the primitive region; while in many instances, secondary rocks are found running along the valleys far into the bosom of the mountains.

With the edge of the transition strata, we approach the western summits of the Apalachian mountains, or the line from whence they begin to fall toward the Mississippi valley. Along this line commences a series of secondary rocks, stretching westward to an immense extent towards the Mississippi and the lakes, and constituting one of the most interesting and important geological formations in the United States. This secondary region extends unbroken across the whole country to the shores of the lakes, being bounded on the west probably by the river Wabash, and in descending the Mississippi by the more recent formations through which that river flows. It consists generally of various strata of sandstone, limestone and clay. Immense beds of secondary limestone, of all shades from light blue to black, sometimes intercepted by extensive tracts of sandstone and other secondary aggregates, appear to constitute the foundation of this formation, which extends from the head waters of the Ohio, with some interruptions, all the way to the waters of the Tombigbee, accompanied by slaty clay and freestone with vegetable impressions; but in no instance yet ascertained, covered by or alternating with any rock resembling basalt, or indeed any of those called the newest floetz trap formation. A grand peculiarity of this secondary region is the uniform, horizontal direction of the strata.

We will now briefly examine the region which occupies the centre of the Mississippi valley. The Ozark mountains consist chiefly of secondary and transition rocks; but there are two points at which the primitive makes its appearance. About fifteen miles south-east from the hot springs, near