the Loire and Gironde and those of the James river and other estuaries in the United States which lie ten degrees of latitude farther south than the French faluns, the latter being in the 47th, while the American strata of the same age are in the 37th of north latitude. This circumstance may probably be accounted for by curves in the isothermal lines similar in their prolongation east and west, to those now existing as pointed out by Humboldt, in his essay on Climate.

112

PINE BARRENS OF VIRGINIA.

CHAP. VII.

CHAPTER VII.

Pine Barrens of Virginia and North Carolina.-Railway Train stopped by Snow and Ice.-The Great Dismal Swamp.-Soil formed entirely of Vegetable Matter.-Rises higher than the contiguous firm Land.-Buried Timber-Lake in the Middle.-The Origin of Coal illustrated by the Great Dismal.—Objections to the Theory of an ancient Atmosphere highly charged with Carbonic Acid.

Dec. 23. 1841.-FROM Williamsburg we went to Norfolk in Virginia, passing down the James river in a steamer, and from Norfolk by railway to Weldon in North Carolina, passing for eighty miles through a low level country, covered with fir trees, and called the Pine Barrens. On our way we were overtaken by rain, which turned to sleet, and in the evening formed a coating of ice on the rails, so that the wheels of the engine could take no hold. There was a good stove and plenty of fuel in the car, but no food. After a short pause, the engineer backed the locomotive for half a mile over that part of the rail from which the snow and ice had just been brushed and scraped away by the passage of the train; then, returning rapidly, he gained sufficient momentum to carry us on two or three miles farther, and, by several repetitions of this manœuvre, he brought us, about nightfall, to a small watering station, where there was no inn, but a two-storied cottage not far off.

Here we were made welcome, and as we had previously dropped by the way all our passengers except two, were furnished with a small room to ourselves, and a

clean comfortable bed. We soon made a blazing woodfire, and defied the cold, although we could see plainly the white snow on the ground through openings in the unplastered laths of which the wall of the house was made. Before morning all the snow was melted, and we again proceeded on our way through the Pine Barrens.

Our car, according to the usual construction in this country, was in the shape of a long omnibus, with the seats transverse, and a passage down the middle, where, to the great relief of the traveller, he can stand upright with his hat on, and walk about, warming himself when he pleases at the stove, which is in the centre of the car. There is often a private room fitted up for the ladies, into which no gentleman can intrude, and where they are sometimes supplied with rocking-chairs, so essential to the comfort of the Americans, whether at sea or on land, in a fashionable drawing-room or in the cabin of a ship. It is singular enough that this luxury, after being popular for ages all over Lancashire, required transplantation to the New World before it could be improved and become fashionable, so as to be reimported into its native land.

The Pine Barrens, on which the long-leafed or pitch pines flourish, have for the most part a siliceous soil, and form a broad belt many hundred miles in length, running parallel to the coast, in the region called the Atlantic Plain, before alluded to. The sands, as we follow this region from New Jersey to Georgia, are derived from strata of more than one tertiary period, and there are interstratified beds of clay, which, whenever they come to the surface in valleys, cause swamps, where peculiar kinds of evergreen oaks, the cypress or

114

GREAT DISMAL SWAMP.

CHAP. VII.

cedar, tall canes, and other plants abound. Many climbers, called here wild vines, encircle the trunks of the trees, and on the banks of the Roanoke, near Weldon, I saw numerous missletoes with their white berries. The Pine Barrens retain much of their verdure in winter, and were interesting to me from the uniformity and monotony of their general aspect, for they constitute, from their vast extent, one of the marked features in the geography of the globe, like the Pampas of South America.

There are many swamps or morasses in this low flat region, and one of the largest of these occurs between the towns of Norfolk and Weldon. We traversed several miles of its northern extremity on the railway, which is supported on piles. It bears the appropriate and very expressive name of the "Great Dismal," and is no less than forty miles in length from north to south, and twenty-five miles in its greatest width from east to west, the northern half being situated in Virginia, the southern in North Carolina. I observed that the water was obviously in motion in several places, and the morass has somewhat the appearance of a broad inundated river-plain, covered with all kinds of aquatic trees and shrubs, the soil being as black as in a peat-bog. The accumulation of vegetable matter going on here in a hot climate, over so vast an area, is a subject of such high geological interest, that I shall relate what I learnt of this singular morass. The best account yet published of it is given by Mr. Edmund Ruffin, the able editor of the Farmer's Register (see vol iv., No. 9. January 7. 1837).

It is one enormous quagmire, soft and muddy, except where the surface is rendered partially firm by a cover

ing of vegetables and their matted roots; yet, strange to say, instead of being lower than the level of the surrounding country, it is actually higher than nearly all the firm and dry land which encompasses it, and, to make the anomaly complete, in spite of its semi-fluid character, it is higher in the interior than towards its margin.

The only exceptions to both these statements is found on the western side, where, for the distance of about twelve or fifteen miles, the streams flow from slightly elevated but higher land, and supply all its abundant and overflowing water. Towards the north, the east, and the south, the waters flow from the swamp to different rivers, which give abundant evidence, by the rate of their descent, that the Great Dismal is higher than the surrounding firm ground. This fact is also confirmed by the measurements made in levelling for the railway from Portsmouth to Suffolk, and for two canals cut through different parts of the morass, for the sake of obtaining timber. The railway itself, when traversing the Great Dismal, is literally higher than when on the land some miles distant on either side, and is six to seven feet higher than where it passes over dry ground, near to Suffolk and Portsmouth. Upon the whole, the centre of the morass seems to lie more than twelve feet above the flat country round it. If the streams which now flow in from the west, had for ages been bringing down black fluid mire, instead of water, over the firm subsoil, we might suppose the ground so inundated to have acquired its present configuration. Some small ridges, however, of land must have existed in the original plain or basin, for these now rise like low islands in various places above the general surface.