34 INDIAN CIVILISATION. CHAP. XV. relationship between their language and that of any known Asiatic nation, appears to me a baseless hypothesis, however true it may be that the aboriginal Americans had in the course of ages derived some hints from foreign sources. They could only have taken advantage of such aid, conjectural as it is, and without proof, if they were already in a highly progressive state; and if such assistance be deemed sufficient to invalidate their title to an independent civilisation, no race of mankind can ever make good their claim to such an honor. If, then, a large continent can be inhabited by hundreds of tribes, all belonging to the same race, and nearly all remaining for centuries in a state of apparently hopeless barbarism, while two or three of them make a start in their social condition, and in the arts and sciences; if these same nations, when brought into contact with Europeans, relapse and retrograde until they are scarcely distinguishable in intellectual rank from the rude hunter tribes descended from a common stock; what caution ought we not to observe when speculating on the inherent capacities of any other great member of the human family? The negro, for example, may have remained stationary in all hitherto explored parts of the African continent, and may even have become more barbarous when brought within the influence of the white man, and yet may possess within his bosom the germ of a civilisation as active and refined as that of the golden age of Tezcuco. In proportion as the Ohio falls gradually in level after its inundations, it leaves a great succession of steps cut in its mud banks, each from four to ten inches above the other. I was informed that the action of the waves raised by the steamboats causes this undermining of the bank. It appeared to me an exact miniature representation of the form in which the waves of the sea have denuded the land on the sides of some valleys in the limestone districts of Sicily and other countries bordering the Mediterranean. When at Marietta, I examined, with Dr. Hildreth, some of the uppermost beds of the coal-measures, consisting of red shale, in which impressions of ferns, especially Pecopteris cyathea Brongn., or a species closely allied to it, abound. From a locality in this part of Ohio, which I did not visit, but which must belong to the newest division of the carboniferous strata, the trunks of silicified trees have been procured in abundance, with one of which Dr. Hildreth presented me, and which Mr. R. Brown has since ascertained to belong to the genus Psaronius of Cotta. These stems, usually called Psarolites, have also been described by M. Ad. Brongniart as composed of two distinct parts, an outer zone, consisting of a great number of nearly cylindrical bundles of vessels, supposed to have been roots which proceeded from 36 SILICIFIED TREE FERNS. CHAP. XV. the stem near its base, and an inner part or axis. In the exterior portion, the fossil air-roots have a vascular tissue, but there is often a delicate cellular tissue interposed between them. In the axis, on the other hand, or central part of the stem, the vessels form zigzag or wavy bands, resembling those of ferns. These flexuous and vermiform bands are entirely composed of barred or scalariform vessels quite similar to those of ferns and Lycopodia. M. Adolphe Brongniart, therefore, considers the psarolites to have been the bases of the trunks of lycopodiaceous trees; but other eminent botanists incline rather to the opinion that they were true arborescent ferns. I have examined at Autun, in France, the spot where more than one species of this genus occurs. The geological position of the fossils, as well as the associated plants and ichthyolites, imply that the beds containing them belong to the uppermost coal measures. The same appears to hold true of the strata at Chemnitz in Saxony, from which Cotta procured several species, as also in regard to the only other places in Europe where psarolites have been met with, namely, Neu Paka in Bohemia, and Ilmenau in Saxe Weimar. Some species are common to each of the spots above enumerated; but the American fossil appears to have been distinct from all, and is remarkable for the small size of the outer zone of roots when compared to the central axis. The latter is often no more than two inches in diameter, while the whole trunk is fourteen inches. My friend Mr. Robert Brown possesses a psarolite which he received from the northern part of Brazil. May 20.-From Marietta we descended the river, about a hundred miles, to Pomeroy, where I entered a coal mine which had been worked horizontally in the face of a cliff on the right bank of the Ohio. The coal was bituminous, and I have already mentioned (p. 248, Vol. I.) that Dr. Percy has found the portion of volatile ingredients (hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen) to constitute nineteen per cent. of the whole mass, which, except a slight quantity of ash, is all carbon.* In appearance, the coal greatly resembles charcoal, and, although very pure, its structure displays, in a remarkable manner, the vegetable origin of the mass. In the roof or ceiling of the gallery were seen flattened stems of Calamites Suckowii and C. dubius, matted together, in the same manner as I have seen these species occurring in the shales of our English coal mines, especially in Northumberland and Durham. The leaves, also, of ferns, Pecopteris arborescens, P. plumosa, Neuropteris cordata, Cyclopteris dilatata, besides Asterophyllites foliosa, Flabellaria, and other plants, were spread out on the flat surface of the shale. The Sigillariæ are particularly abundant in the Ohio coal-field, and about half of those which I obtained are decidedly identical with European species. We were fortunate, when at Pomeroy, to fall in with some New England settlers, who were nearly related to several of our most valued friends at Boston. Their description of what they had gone through since they first founded this flourishing colony in the wilderness, reminded us of that entertaining volume recently published in the United States, called * See Journ. of Geol. Soc. London, vol. i., p. 207. VOL. II. 38 NEW SETTLEMENT. CHAP. XV. "A New Home: Who'll Follow?" It is not the trees and their rank growth on the uncleared land, nor the wild animals, which are the most uncongenial neighbours to persons of superiour education and refinement in a new settlement. To enjoy facilities, therefore, of communicating rapidly with the civilized Eastern States by founding their new town on the banks of a great navigable river, or close to some main road in the interior, is a privilege truly enviable. I remember wondering, when I first read Homer's graphic sketch of the advantages of wealth, that he should have placed his rich man's mansion on the road side όδῳ ἐπι δικια ναιων. To an Englishman, the poet's notion seemed very un-aristocratic, for we are almost irresistibly reminded of the large sums which an English country gentleman would expend in order to remove the high road to a respectful distance. Probably the present condition of Ohio, rather than that of a county of parks and mansions like Surrey, was the model most frequently present to the minds of the migratory Greeks of the Homeric age. From Pomeroy, a large steamboat carried us more than 200 miles in about fifteen hours, down the broad, winding stream, past many a well-wooded island, to Cincinnati, where we were struck with the appearance of commercial activity, the numerous wharfs and steamboats, the wide streets and handsome buildings. |