The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America with their influences on the oceanic, atmospheric, and land currents, and the distribution of races

Preface

. — ■♦ — A MERICAN rocks are, and will be through all ■*■ *• ages to come, monuments of extreme interest to science, from the geological truths they unfold ; and of pecuniary interest to the commercial world, whose pockets will for ever be lined with their shining treasures. No other portion of the globe presents so vast and sublime a spectacle of uplifted rocks as the American continent, extending in continuous chains nearly from pole to pole, holding up to view the hidden secrets of the interior system of the earth, and with them the golden treasures which were created in darkness, and beneath the knowledge and penetration of man ; as if the Supreme Author who made them, by some power yet mysterious, had lifted and piled them up for the gaze and admiration of greater than mortals to look at, as well as for solitary man to creep through and over, and amongst them acknowledge his insignificance.

PREFACE.

. VI The nature, the dimensions, the contents, and the mysteries of these majestic piles will be eventually taught and learned in books, but their real grandeur and beauty must be seen and felt to be appreciated. The awfully grand and inspiring contemplations which the author of the following chapters has had amongst scenes of this nature, during his fourteen years of roaming amongst the Indian tribes of North and South America, through the Rocky Mountains and the Andes ; and the undoubted effects, as yet un explained, of those majestic monuments on the phenomena of currents in the ocean, the atmosphere, and on the land, have led him to prolonged studies in the field, and to the compilation of the ensuing remarks. He who roams through the vast solitudes of North and South America meets geological phenomena in many forms and on the grandest scale.

When he clambers to the tops of the upheaved mountains whose bases rest upon eternal fire, and whose tops are capped with perpetual snows, and picks up a water worn pebble there, he is amazed, but with a moment's thought an explanation comes for this. But when, from the niches and fractures of the highest edifices and pyramids of the ruined cities of Palenque and Uxmal, he scrapes out with his hand marine sand and gravel charged with rounded pebbles and frag mentary coral, things which no wind could have

PREFACE.

. VII blown there, his amazement is a fixture, and has no relief. And when he contemplates the Gulf Stream, its magnitude and characteristics (authenticated by reliable facts), incessantly and eternally pouring out of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean, with a current thirty-two miles in breadth, and 1 200 feet deep, moving at the rate of four miles per hour, and with an impetus that carries it along the whole coast of the United States to the southern cape of Greenland, and back, by the coast of the continent of Europe, near to its starting-point, amazement becomes consternation, and contempla tion an unanswered question. For effects so amazing and stupendous there must be a stupendous cause ; and for the solution of that cause, not yet explained, unevadable contemplations of the author elicit the suggestions and deductions made in the following pages, and which will be offered in all cases with deference, and with profound respect for the published opinions of men known to be more deeply versed in the sciences of cosmogony and geology than himself, but whose theories, in some cases, he will be obliged to oppose. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS.

Chapter I

Rocks, definition of, p. I ; Results and effects of upheavals and subsidences proposed to be explained, p. 2 ; Submontagne drainage, p. 5; Submontagne tanks or cisterns, p. 8; Rainfalls in the Rocky "Mountains, p. IO ; Comparative rainfalls in mountains and valleys, p. io; The Mississippi and Missouri rivers, p. 12 ; Their drainage, p. 13 ; Waste of waters by absorptions and evaporations, p. 14 ; Sinking of waters in the Rocky Mountains, p. 21 ; Mountain sinks and " trembling rocks," p. 22 ; Great Salt Lake and Humboldt Lake, &c, p. 23; "Montagnes qni fume" and "blowing caves," p. 24 ; Submontagne cascades, p. 24 ; Mountain drainage, p. 25 ; " Eau Sec," or " dry ravines," p. 27 ; Their antiquity, and their causes and effects, p. 28.

Chapter II

Convergence of the submontagne rivers of the Rocky Mountains and the Andes in the Caribbean Sea, p. 36 ; Valley and mountain drainage of South America, p. 36 ; the Gulf Stream, p. 38 ; Various theories of, p. 39 ; Equatorial current, supposed cause of, p. 41 ; Comments upon, and refutation of, p. 42 ; New theory of the Gulf Stream, p. 45.

Chapter III

Mountain Upheavals, system of, p. 52 ; Geology takes cognisance of these, p. 52 ; Geology, definition and province of, p. 53 ; Upheaval of rocks, and providential design of, p. 54 ; Sublimity of X CONTENTS. the Rocky Mountain piles, p. 55 ; Various opinions of geologists and philosophers as to the probable thickness of the granite crust of the earth, p. 57 ; Various theories as to the mode of mountain upheavals, p. 58.

Chapter IV

Mountain Upheavals, mountains lifted up, and mountains built up, p. 78 ; The metamorphic rocks, p. 79 ; The schistose zone, its importance in considering mountain upheavals, and volcanic actions, p. 81 ; inertness ofthe igneous centre of the globe, p. 81 ; and infrangible nature of the earth's crust from exterior and interior causes, p. 82 ; Rents from contraction in cooling in the superior portion of the earlh's crust, and effect of central heat rising through them, p. 83 ; Volcanic lava, not from the igneous mass of the globe, but caused by local spontaneous heat, p. 85 ; granite axes of mountains and "granite wedge," p. 86; Different directions and projectile forces of volcanic explosions, and their effects on granite rocks, p. 86 ; Mountains built up, volcanic mountains, p. 87 ; Mountain peaks, p. 88.

Chapter V

Mountain Metamorphism, p. 90 ; Metamorphism from degradations and internal convulsions, p. 91 ; Metamorphism from diluvial action, p. 9 1 ; Evidences and effects of an universal deluge, p. 93 ; New theory of the deluge, its causes and effects, p. 94 ; Erratic blocks, p. 95 ; Perplexing phenomena in the physiognomy of mountains, p. 96 ; The direction of the diluvial drift, and its effects in leaning and facing mountains to the north-west, p. 97 ; Changes of mountain features by diluvial currents, p. 98.

Chapter VI

Mountain Upheavals, continued, p. 101 ; Heat and expansion of rocks by pressure, p. 104 ; Lifting of rocks by expansion, p. 104 ; Amorphous form of dislocated granite, p. 105 ; Inclines of the ■sedimentary beds at mountain bases, how formed, p. 107. CONTENTS. XI

Chapter VII

Mountain Chains, how formed, p. 109 ; Description of mountain chains, p. 109; Family resemblance in the group, p. 110; Direction and cause of mountain chains, p. no ; Rents opening in the granite crust, p. 1 10 ; Mode of raising a mountain chain, p. 1 10 ; Ice fractures on the great lakes, p. 114; Raising the central ridge of a mountain chain, p. 115; Raising the paralle and lesser ridges, p. 116; The wave-like form and steeper declivities facing from the central ridge accounted for, p. 117; Elevation ofthe inclined plains at mountain bases, p. 123 ; Submontagne drainage of the Apalachian chain into the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf Stream, p. 125.

Chapter VIII

Subsided Rocks, p. 127 ; Submontagne vaults and their capacities, p. 128; Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, p. 129; Souterrain passage under the Ta-wah-que-na mountain, p. 129; Subterranean degradation, p. 130 ; Mountain-formed lakes and Savannahs, p. 131 ; The Great Salt Lake and Lake Superior, p. 131 ; Pictured rocks of Lake Superior, p. 131 ; The two most disturbed regions of American rocks, Labrador and Grenada, p. 135 ; The glacial drift, p. 135 ; Startling report on the Laurentian rocks, p. 136 ; The first (and universally admitted) principle and basis of geology acknowledged to be a "delusion," p. 136; The Laurentian report questioned, p. 137; Degraded mountains of Labrador, p. 141 ; Subsidence of the Antilles, p. 143 ; Of Yucatan and Guatemala, p. 144 ; Post-diluvial flood, p. 146 ; Strength of Indian traditions, p. 147 ; Proofs by Mexican hieroglyphs — by the " Teo Amoxtli," translated by the Abbe Brasseur, p. 148; Extent of Antilles subsidence, and amount of subsequent elevations, p. 152 ; Extent of Aztec cities engul'ed, and evidences they contain of submersion, p. 154; Interview with Baron de Humboldt, and his letter, p. 155 ; Visit to Lesser Antilles and Venezuela and Grenada, p. 156; Mountains at Cumana and Coro, at Santa Martha, and the Silla, at Caraccas, p. 157 ; The Andes, from Quito to Gulf of Maracaybo, Santa Martha, and Gulf of Darien, p. 157 ; Heights of "Guanacas" and " Quindin," p. 158; Islands of Tortugas and Margarita, p. 158 ; Lake of Maracaybo, mountain-made, p. 158 ; CONTENTS. XII Volcanic derangement and confusion of rocks in Grenada and Venezuela, p. 160 ; Incontestable proofs of the subsidence of the Antilles, p. 160.

Chapter IX

Distribution of Races, p. 161 ; Destruction and dispersion of the inhabitants of the Antilles and the surrounding plains, p. 162; Retrogression of the first civilisation, p. 161 ; Emigration to the mountains of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, and the Mississippi, p. 163 ; Emigration of Caribbees into Guiana, Venezuela, and Honduras, p. 165 ; Transported in canoes and on rafts, on the Gulf Stream to Florida, Newfoundland, and Scandinavia, p. 165 ; The American races, where from, p. 167 ; Resemblances in customs and language to the Egyptians no proof of Egyptian origin, p. 169 j Great antiquity of the American races, p. 157 ; American type distinct from all others, p. 180 ; Indian traditions of the deluge, p. 182 ; Indian traditions of the creation, p. 183 ; The Maya tribe, p. 185 ; Antiquity of the Aztec ruins, p. 186 ; The Indians' recent catastrophe, the deluge of Christian civilisation, p. 187 ; Landing of Columbus, p. 188 j Crowned with coronets of pure gold, and his treatment of the poor Indians, p. 189 ; Hemando Cortez in Mexico, p. 191 ; Pizarro in Peru, p. 191 ; De Soto in Florida, p. 192; The "flood " of immigration, and its consequences, p. 196 ; The approaching extinction of the American native races, p. 197.

Appendix

. A. — Lateral Pressure in Rocks, p. 199 B. — Indian Orography and Geology, 207 C. — Memorial to Congress, LIFTED AND SUBSIDED ROCKS OF AMERICA.

Chapter I. Mountain Drainage Of America

ROCKS, which in the geological sense comprise all mineral and earthy substances found on the surface of the globe, such as clays, schists, earths, stones, &c, are intended to be considered in the present work (orographic rather than geological) only in the common sense, as forming, or as having formed, portions of the consolidated crust of the earth ; and in their three phases — their native beds, their uplifted and subsided conditions — and the singular resultsfrom theirchanged positions.itis the author's intention to study them in the following pages. Though not intended as a geological work, geological truths and terms will necessarily be often used in it ; and that the reader may not be kept in suspense as to some of the leading results to be A herein set forth, of the upheavals of the Rocky Mountains and other mountain chains, they will be here briefly named and assumed, and more definitely exposed, and supported by proofs, in the further progress of the work.

Amongst those probable results (and which I con sider the most important) are the phenomena of vast water-sinks into, and water-courses under, the Rocky Mountains and the Andes, — the subsidence of the Antilles, — the equatorial current, — and the Gulf Stream issuing from the Gulf of Mexico. Universally admitted to be subjects of great interest, the two latter have been puzzling enigmas for scientific men for many years, and subjects for many theories, but remain, as yet, without a settled solution ; and the first is, perhaps, my own especial suggestion, which I shall put forth on strong proofs, and which, I believe, will be received as the cause and rational solution of the other three. The Gulf Stream, one of the striking anomalies of the globe, and which has elicited perhaps a greater variety of theories of scientific men as to its cause than any other phenomena of the ocean, I shall con tend, as already suggested, is yet unexplained, and traceable to influences not before named, arising out of the vast chains of upheaved rocks in North and South America, the Rocky Mountains, and the Andes, converging in the latitude of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and continually dis charging into those estuaries the accumulating waters in the rocky cellars underneath them.

This hypothesis, which I here propose and shall endeavour to sustain, implies the existence of a river under the Rocky Mountains many times larger than the Mississippi, and nearly twice the Mississippi's length, gliding through the clean and vast rocky cellars of the upheaved mountains without the losses by alluvial absorptions and solar evaporations which diminish valley rivers, taking along in its course the sinking streams and lakes ofthe mountains of Mexico, and with them, perhaps by a hundred mouths, in its deep bed, debouching unseen into the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Through the heated vaults underneath the Andes, I contemplate a similar river, running from near the 30th degree of S. latitude to the north, and conveying their overflowing waters also, into the Caribbean Sea.

The Lesser Antilles, now partially sunk in the ocean, I have ascertained are but a chain of mountain tops, which six thousand years ago stood up in their grandeur, a part (and probably the glory) of the Andes ; and at that date, the two mighty sub montagne rivers, meeting and debouching together into the ocean, east or north of the Antilles, com bined with extraordinary volcanic influences under neath, undermined the Antilles chain, which went down in the cataclysm, well established in Indian traditions which I have gathered, both in North and South America ; and also by unimpeachable records on the rocks themselves — by shapes and grooves left in the giant standing walls at Carraccas in Venezuela, and at Santa Martha, in Grenada, where this mighty chain was broken — records which I have twice seen ; which may be read by all ages to come, and which are not myths or fables.

In this tremendous catastrophe, probably the most stupendous that ever took place on the globe, the peninsula of Yucatan, with its splendid Aztec cities, sank, and since has partially risen, leaving the two grand sunken estuaries, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, into which the two subterranean rivers, from the constant overflow of their vast cisterns under the mountains, now spread their clear and blue waters, heated by the volcanic furnaces they have passed. By the joint influx of these rivers into the Carib bean Sea, its western surface is elevated several feet above the level of the ocean ; and pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, this vast descending tide sweeps its western coast, and taking in its course the waters of the Rio del Norte and the Mississippi, debouches with them into the ocean at the Cape of Florida, and there becomes the "Gulf Stream" — until now, as I have said, one of the mooted puzzles of the world.

The mode by which water is taken from the sea, and transported and spread over the earth for the support of animal and vegetable life, is well known ; but the manner in which it returns to the ocean, and the effects which, in some cases, it produces on its way, are subjects which I believe have in a measure escaped the scrutinies of science. In the above recital of facts, if they be true, there is illustration, on a grand scale, of the power of accumulated waters when they have accomplished their mission on the land, and are again seeking the bed of the ocean — waters which have not fallen in valleys, to run the wasting gauntlet of absorptions and evaporations, but waters embraced and conveyed by agencies grander than valleys, conducting them back undiminished, and in all their strength and purity, to the ocean from which they came.

In approaching a problem so grand and so impos ing as the one before us, cause and effect must in turn be considered in our course, and weighed together in the end. The effects of our problem are now in brief before the reader, where they will rest until we come back to them — until we have taken a brief view of their cause or causes — a tour into the Rocky Mountains, to the sources of the submontagne river and back, tracing its subterranean shores to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Travelling in a light and handy balloon, and follow ing the course of the clouds conveying the waters from the equatorial current to the Rocky Mountains and prairies of North America, will be the easiest and quickest mode we can adopt, and afford us the most general view ; and we will return by water, as above proposed.

Our view, at first, from the clouds, is that of a " bird's-eye " — the vast and countless ridges of up heaved rocks, parallel (and here and there divergent), sometimes twenty or thirty abreast, and embracing a breadth of from one to three hundred miles, with now and then solitary peaks, and, at intervals, long ranges of wave-shaped mountains capped withglisteningsnow. Such is our view before and beneath us when we start over the southern limits of Mexico (for the Rocky Mountains commence there); the scene vanishes in blue in the distance, as our faces are turned to the north ; and, like a moving panorama, the ever-varying groups of gray, and green, and snow white mountains with intervening valleys, and lakes, and ravines, are passing under us as we move on. Three thousand miles, and when our eyes are dimmed with the myriad, endless ridges, peaks, and chains of uplifted rocks, varying from iooo to 1800 feet in height, and these risingfrom a surface several thousand feet above the level of the ocean, we arrive at the northern extremity of the Rocky Mountains, the sources of the Missouri, and the head of the Rocky Mountain river, which needs no other name until the facts of its existence and its effects are established.

In our aerial voyage things have looked small — they have passed under our view by thousands, and been but imperfectly appreciated ; we will take a closer view of them, and at their bases, estimate more nearly some of the uplifted piles we have passed over, and the moving forces which they gather from the clouds and send back to the ocean. It is a settled maxim amongst scientific men, that all mountains are upheavals of fractured portions of the earth's crust, by some mysterious power acting underneath, but beyond the vision and certain com prehension of man. Various and dissimilar theories have been advanced by distinguished geologists and orographists, as to the manner in which such upheavals have been made, and the power which has produced them. For my present purpose, it is immaterial by what cause and by what process they have been produced ; it is enough to know that such upheavals have taken place ; and some remarks on those various theories, with my own opinions of the causes of mountain elevations, will be introduced in future pages.

All mountain elevations bear on their tops and sides the unimpeachable evidence that they have been uplifted, and man's reason decides, without the necessity of proofs, that all mountains uplifted vacate a space in their deserted beds equal to the space of atmosphere which their summits displace above the surface level ; and the simple process of digging a trench or sinking a well of a few feet in depth, in the ground (if we lacked the proof of it), will show that the space left by mountain elevations must be filled with water at least as high as the level of the ocean, unless some other material from a lower source follows the uprising rocks and fills the vacuum. If this be not a maxim in science, it is an axiom in the mind of every reasoning man, and therefore ground that may be safely assumed as basis for opinions which I shall advance.

The Rocky Mountains, from the 55th degree of north latitude to the Caribbean Sea, form one con tinued chain, and their base-line having a descent corresponding to the descent of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, rising in the same latitude, the waters filtered into their subterraneous cavities, having at their source the same elevation above the ocean's level as the sources of those rivers, would flow in an equal descent towards the Gulf of Mexico. If it be a truth that cavities vacated by uplifted mountains were equal to the space which the up heavals occupied in the atmosphere above the surface of the earth at the time of upheaval, it will be a fair assumption, that at the present day, from the di minished size (and in many cases the utter demolition) of the mountains by degradations, the present space they occupy above the surface is but half (or a fourth) equal to the cellars left underneath them.

We have something then like a basis for the vastness of cisterns and caverns underneath the Rocky Mountains, by which their accumulating waters might be carried to the ocean. It is a law of nature that water will run down hill, if there be a channel for it to run in, and nothing to arrest its course. Do such vast cisterns of water, accumulated under the Rocky Mountains, exist, and have they an unobstructed channel to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico ? In contemplating cause and effect in phenomena so grand as the subject before us, it is necessary, for a due estimation of the former, to revert occasionally to the latter — to its grandeur — the certainty of its existence, and the fact that it yet calls for a solution. The Gulf Stream, as has been said, with a breadth of 32 miles, a depth of 1200 feet, and a velocity of four miles per hour, steadily and perpetually (and unaffected by the caprice of winds) pouring from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic !

It must be so — and who has told us, truly, where this vast, this steady, this blue and clear, and unceasing volume comes from ? Valley rivers are varied by freshets and droughts ; have clear water and muddy ; but a submontagne river, gliding amongst the clean, upheaved, and broken rocks, fed by every rain and every snow-fall, and undiminished by alluvial absorptions and solar evaporations, we are now tracing to the ocean ; and let us estimate its grandeur and unchangeable volume as we travel on. We are in the latitude of 55 degrees, and by the tortuous windings of the principal mountain chains, three thousand miles from the Caribbean Sea ; in the midst of piled-up ridges, rising sometimes in sharpened peaks apparently to the skies, and in countless numbers spread (in forms like vast ocean waves) over one or two hundred miles in breadth, where, from their lofty summits, " hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise ; " and such the endless chaos around us till we reach the latitude of the Caribbean Sea.

We are in the midst of almost perpetual rain and snow, and estimates of these will help us in the solution before us. The known and long-established fact that rains and snow-falls are much more frequent and abundant in mountain ranges than in the valleys and plains, applies with an unusual force to the ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Persons who have travelled or resided in the vicinity of high mountains in any country, will have judged for themselves, as to the correctness of the maxim, when they have beheld the mountain tops frequently enveloped in mists and clouds, whilst in the valleys there was fair weather and sunshine. Clouds are seen following the mountain chain, and others crossing the valley, gliding up the mountain sides and over, and deluging the mountain top, whilst fair weather remains on its side and at its base.

The mountain attraction of pluvious clouds is exhibited on a grand scale in the Rocky Mountain ranges, and no better illustration perhaps can be seen on the globe of the rapid degradation produced on their sides and summits by the enormous forces of rain-falls and of snow, and by the expansion of ice in their clefts and crevices. The reader can draw something like adequate conclusions as to the vast disproportion between the quantity of rain-fall amidst these mountains and the rain that falls in the valleys and on the arid plains, and easily imagine these incessant torrents shed upon the mountain tops to be gushing down the mountain sides, filling the ravines, and making their way to the Missouri or to the Pacific Ocean. This is in a measure true ; but the tourist who happens to stand in the midst of the suffocating deluge, holding on to a bush or a rock till the tempest has gone by, draws different conclusions when he descends the mountain's side: he has seen and felt the flood as if poured from cauldrons, dashing like waves under his feet and down the mountain's side, but when he descends it has disappeared — it is not there ; the ravine is silent, not roaring nor foaming ; its little brook has got a tinge of colour and a tithe of water, and the ever-yawning and thirsty rocks have inhaled the rest.

The axis of every upheaval, as far as it is exposed, is an immediate and insatiable receptacle for all the rain and snows which fall upon it ; and these, from the vast degradations they have undergone, levelling them down, often extend over immense areas. The inclines, so far as they are in position, carry the waters that fall upon them into mountain lakes, ravines, and rivulets ; and these, more often than otherwise, are traceable to sinks amongst the fractured rocks, where, by crevices and faults, they enter the cellars underneath the mountains, instead of find ing their way to the valleys or the ocean. The Rocky Mountain system stands upon (or rises through) an elevated floor or plateau of several thousand feet, in the centre of its arch, above the level of the ocean — gradually lifted, no doubt, by the long succession of upheavals of the numerous mountain ridges, consisting only of the sedimentary rocks, and probably supported at each successive lift by detached and falling masses of rock, or by boulders of granite driven laterally by the explosion, and THE LIFTED AND SUBSLDED 12 under the sedimentary floor, and acting as pillars supporting the gradually lifted inclines.

These inclines, both on the east and west sides of the mountain chain, in many places extend off into the plains for a great distance, and the rain-falls upon them are carried oif by numerous streams to the valley of the Missouri and Mississippi, or to the Pacific Ocean. The rain-fall, as has been said, is much less on these vast and arid inclines than on the mountain ranges ; and even that, disproportionate as it is, runs the gauntlet of absorptions and solar evaporations ; and of what is left from a hundred rivers flowing in from the east and the west, the Mississippi eventually marches with its gathered trophies into the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River, having joined its waters with the Missouri, supposed to be the greatest water course on the American continent or on the globe, and with a length, following its sinuosities, of more than 3500 miles from its extreme source to its mouth, deserves a little passing attention before we take it into the general view of mountain drainage of the American continent.

Valley rivers form a species, and with river species, as with all other species, there is a pervading family resemblance. The Mississippi therefore differs from other valley rivers more in its grandeur and length than in any peculiar feature or character. When we contemplate it on a map, or, more impressively, when we see it and feel it as we are descending it in a canoe, we meet phenomena which seem inexplicable at first sight, but which astonish us less when a more deliberate view, suited to the mag nitude of the subject, is taken of its real character and effects. Literally speaking, neither the Mississippi nor the Missouri conduct any portion of the waters flowing out of the Rocky Mountains to the ocean. This may be a startling assertion, yet it is easily solvable by those who have made themselves familiar with those giant rivers, their vast proportions, and the manner in which they receive and dispose of the waters of their numerous confluents.

In 1832 I descended the Missouri in a canoe, from the mouth of the Yellow Stone River to St Louis, a distance, by the course of the river, of 2000 miles ; and in two successive summers, in 1834 and 1835, descended in the same manner the Mississippi, from the Fall of St Anthony to St Louis, a distance of 900 miles, and in all the three voyages with my paddle steered my own canoe ; and in my subsequent Indian campaigns, made myself familiar with all parts of the lower Mississippi, ascended the Arkansaw and Red River near to their sources; and in 1855 descended the Rio del Norte in a canoe, from Santa Fe to Matamoros. Such a familiarity with the great water-courses sup plying the Mississippi from the west, and generally supposed to be transporting the rainfalls ofthe Rocky Mountains through the banks of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, has enabled me to draw conclusions, and authorised me to issue the startling paradox above introduced, and the more astounding one which follows — to wit, that if the whole waters of the Missis sippi and Missouri, and all their tributaries — and with them all the rivers on the globe, could be embodied in one valley river, and spread out in proportion like the Mississippi and Missouri, with an alluvial valley of sufficient length, like the valley of those rivers, to run in, beyond a certain distance not one drop of water would ever flow in its bed.