Early Western Travels 1748-1846 Vol 27 Part 6

[65] Milk-sickness, no longer so diagnosed by medical authorities, is described by early writers in the Middle West as a malignant disease attacking both men and stock. It was supposed that the disease was contracted by eating the flesh or dairy products of animals that had grazed on a certain weed. In the case of the human being the symptoms were intolerable thirst, absolute constipation, low temperature, an extreme nervous agitation, but with an absence of chills and headaches. Recovery seemed to be the exception. Although no specific remedy was used, the best results were thought to be obtained by judicious stimulation and careful nursing. The same disease among stock was usually known as "trembles." The symptoms were the same as with men, and death followed, generally within eight or ten days. A farm where this dreaded disease had come was called a "milk-sick farm," and was rendered almost unsalable. For a later and more detailed account, see Thomas L. M'Kenney, _Memoirs, official and personal, with Sketches of Travels among the Northern and Southern Indians_, etc. (New York, 1846), p. 141. Dr. William M. Beach, a pioneer physician in Ohio, who had had much experience with milk sickness, wrote an article for Albert H. Buck, _Reference Handbook of Medical Science_ (New York, 1884-87), volume v. An abstract of the above article by Beach is given in the edition for 1902.--ED.

XL

"'Tis many moons ago--a long--long time."

R. H. WILDE.

"Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain: A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow."

_The Seasons._

In the course of my journeying in the regions of the "FAR WEST," it has more than once chanced to me to encounter individuals of that singular cla.s.s commonly termed "Squatters;" those st.u.r.dy pioneers who formed the earliest American settlements along our western frontier.

And, in my casual intercourse with them, I have remarked, with not a little surprise, a decision of character, an acuteness of penetration, and a depth and originality of thought betrayed in their observations, strangely enough contrasting with the rude solitude of their life. For more than half a century, mayhap, Nature

"Had been to them a more familiar face Than that of man;"

and whether, in the present exhibition of intellectual energy, we are to claim an argument for the influence of natural scenery upon character, or may find a corroboration of the theory of diversity of mental ability; or to whatever circ.u.mstance it may be attributed, [CCVII] very a.s.suredly it owes not its origin to the improvements of education or the advantages of society. There is also remarked in these rude men a susceptibility and refinement of feeling, and a delicacy of sentiment, which one would suppose hardly compatible with a protracted continuance of their semi-savage life.

It was at the frugal, though well-spread board of an individual of this cla.s.s that I was pleased to find myself seated, after my tedious morning ramble of several hours through the weltering vegetation of the prairie. Mine host was a man of apparently forty, though in reality some eight or ten years in advance of that age: his form, of medium stature, was symmetrical, erect, and closely knit, betraying considerable capability of endurance, though but little of muscular strength: his countenance, at first sight, was by no means prepossessing; indeed, the features, while in repose, presented an aspect harsh--almost forbidding; but, when lighted up by animation, there was discoverable in their rapid play a mildness which well compared with the benevolent expression of a soft blue eye. Such was the _physique_ of my backwoods pioneer, who for forty years had been a wanderer on the outskirts of civilization, and had at length been overtaken by its rapid march.

As I had before me but an easy ride for the day, I proposed to mine host, when our repast was over, that he should accompany me to the summit of the range of bluffs which rose behind his cabin, towering to the height of several hundred feet above the roof. To this he readily a.s.sented, and well did [CCVIII] the magnificent view commanded from the top compensate for the toil of the ascent. The scene was grand.

"Yonder," said my companion, seating himself on the earth at my side, and stretching out his arm to the southeast, "yonder lies the village of old Kaskaskia, with the bluffs of the river beyond, rising against the sky; while a little to the left you catch the white cliffs of Prairie du Rocher. In that heavy timber to the south are the ruins of Fort Chartres, and to the right, across the lake, fifty years ago stood St. Philippe. The Mississippi is concealed from us, but its windings can be traced by the irregular strip of forest which skirts its margin. Beyond the stream, stretching away to the northwest, the range of heights you view are the celebrated _cornice-cliffs_[66]

above Herculaneum; and at intervals you catch a glimpse of a shot-tower, resting like a cloud against the sky, upon the tallest pinnacles. The plain at our feet, which is now sprinkled with cornfields, was once the site of an Indian village. Forty years ago, the ruins of the wigwams and the dancing circle surrounding the war-post could be distinctly traced out: and even now my ploughshare every spring turns up articles of pottery which const.i.tuted their domestic utensils, together with axes and mallets of stone, spear and arrow heads and knives of flint, and all their rude instruments of war. Often of a fine evening," continued my companion, after a pause, "when my work for the day is over, and the sun is going down [CCIX] in the west, I climb up to this spot and look out over this grand prospect; and it almost makes me sad to think how the tribes that once possessed this beautiful region have faded away. Nearly forty years ago, when I came with my father from old Virginia, this whole state, with its prairies, and forests, and rich bottoms, was the hunting-ground of the Indians. On this spot we built our cabin; and though I have since lived far off on the outskirts of the Missouri frontier, I always had an affection for this old bottom and these bluffs, and have come back to spend here the rest of my days. But the Indians are gone. The round top of every bluff in yonder range is the grave of an Indian chief."

While my singular companion was making these observations, somewhat in the language I have attempted to give, interrupted from time to time by my inquiries, I had myself been abstractedly employed in thrusting a knife which was in my hand into the yielding mould of the mound upon which we sat, when, suddenly, the blade, striking upon a substance somewhat harder than the soil, snapped into fragments. Hastily sc.r.a.ping away the loose mould to the depth of some inches, the _femur_ of a human skeleton protruding from the soil was disinterred, and, in a few minutes, with the aid of my companion, the remnants of an entire skeleton were laid bare. Compared with our own limbs, the bones seemed of a size almost gigantic; and from this circ.u.mstance, if from no other, it was evident that our melancholy moralizing upon the destinies of the Indians had been indulged upon a very fitting spot--[CCX] the grave of one of its chieftains. Originally, the body had no doubt been covered to the depth of many feet, and the shallowness of soil at the present time indicates a lapse of centuries. Still these graves of the bluffs, which doubtless belonged to the ancestors of the present aborigines, will neither be confounded nor compared with the gigantic earth-heaps of the prairies. Strangely enough, this _has_ been the case, though a moment's reflection must convince one that they are the monuments of a far later race.

Descending the bluffs by an ancient path in a ravine, _said_ to have been made in conveying oak timber to Fort Chartres at the period of its erection, my host conducted me into one of the enclosures of his farm, a spot which had evidently once been the ordinary burial-place of the ancient Indian village. Graves, sufficient, apparently, for hundreds of individuals, were yet to be seen upon every side. They were arranged parallel to each other in uniform ranges, and were each formed by a rough slab of limestone upon either side, and two at the extremities, terminating in an obtuse angle. From several of these old sepulchres we threw out the sand, and, at the depth of about four feet, exhumed fragments of human remains in various stages of preservation, deposited upon a broad slab of limestone at the bottom. When taken together, these slabs form a complete coffin of stone, in which the body originally reposed; and this arrangement, with the silicious nature of the soil, has probably preserved the remains a longer period than would otherwise have been the case. But the circ.u.mstance respecting [CCXI] these ancient graves which chiefly excited my astonishment was their marvellous littleness, none of them exceeding a length of four feet; and the wondrous tales of a "pigmy race of aborigines" once inhabiting the West, which I had often listened to, recurred with considerable force to my memory. Resolved to decide this long-mooted question to my own satisfaction, if possible, the earth from one of the graves, the most perfect to be found, was excavated with care, and upon the bottom were discovered the _femur_ and _tibia_ of a skeleton in a state of tolerable preservation, being parallel to each other and in immediate proximity.

Proof incontestible, this, that the remains were those of no Lilliputian race four feet in stature, and affording a fair presumption that the limbs were forcibly bent in this position at the time of burial, occupying their stone coffin much as the subject for scientific dissection occupies a beef-barrel. In this manner may we satisfactorily account for the ancient "pigmy cemetery" near the town of Fenton, on the Merrimack in Missouri, as well as that on the _Riviere des Peres_, in the same vicinity, already referred to, and those reported to exist in various other sections of the West, in which, owing to the dampness of the soil, the remains have been long resolved to dust, and only the dimensions of the grave have remained.[67]

Among the articles which my host had procured from these old graves, and deemed worthy of preservation, was a singular species of pottery, composed, as appeared from its fracture, of sh.e.l.ls calcined and pulverized, mixed with an equal quant.i.ty [CCXII] of clay, and baked in the sun. The clay is of that fine quality with which the waters of the Missouri are charged. The vessels are found moulded into a variety of forms and sizes, capable of containing from a quart to a gallon.[68] One of these, which my host insisted upon hanging upon the bow of my Spanish saddle as I mounted, was fas.h.i.+oned in the shape of a _turtle,_ with the form and features very accurately marked. The handle of the vessel, which was broken off, once formed a tapering tail to the animal, presenting a _rare_ specimen of a turtle with that elegant appendage.

Ascending the bluffs by a tortuous though toilsome pathway through the ravines, my route for some miles wound away through a spa.r.s.e growth of oaks, and over a region which seemed completely excavated into _sink-holes_. Some of these tunnel-shaped hollows were several hundred feet in diameter, and of frightful depth, though of regular outline, as if formed by the whirl of waters subsiding to the level of the plain beneath. They were hundreds in number, yet each was as uniformly circular as if excavated by scientific skill. I have met with none so regular in outline, though I have seen many in the course of my journeyings.

The puissant little village of Waterloo furnished me a very excellent dinner, at a very excellent tavern. The town appeared, from a hasty view in pa.s.sing through its streets, remarkable for nothing so much as for the warlike _soubriquet_ attached to it, if we except a huge _windmill_, which, [CCXIII] like a living thing, flings abroad its gigantic arms, and flaunts its ungainly pinions in the midst thereof. The place, moreover, can boast a courthouse, indicative of its judicial character as seat of justice for the county of Monroe; and, withal, is rather pleasantly located than otherwise. About five miles north of the village is situated a large spring, and a settlement called Bellefontaine. This spot is celebrated as the scene of some of the bloodiest atrocities of the Kickapoo Indians and predatory bands of other tribes some fifty years since. Many of the settlers were killed, and others carried into a captivity scarce to be preferred.[69]

An evening ride of a dozen miles, interesting for nothing but a drenching shower, succeeded by a glare of scorching suns.h.i.+ne, which, for a time, threatened perfect fusion to the traveller, or, more properly, an unconditional resolution into fluidity; such an evening ride, under circ.u.mstances aforesaid, brought me at sunset to the town of Columbia, a place, as its name denotes, redolent of patriotism.[70]

"Hail Columbia!" was the exhilarated expression of my feelings, if not of my lips, as I strode across the threshold of a log-cabin, the appurtenance of a certain worthy man with one leg and the moiety of another, who united in his calling the professions of cobbler and publican, as intimated by the sign-board over his door. Hail Columbia!

All that it is possible to record touching this patriotic village seems to be that it adds one more to the five hundred previous villages of the selfsame appellation scattered over the land, whose chief [CCXIV] consequence, like that of a Spanish grandee, is concentrated and consists in a t.i.tle. Every county of almost every state of the Union, it is verily believed, can boast a Columbia.

Indeed, the name of the Genoese seems in a fair way of being honoured as much as is that of George Was.h.i.+ngton; a distinction we are sure to find bestowed upon every bullet-pated, tow-haired little rascal, who, knowing not who his father was, can claim no patronymic less general, having been smuggled into the world n.o.body can tell when or how: George Was.h.i.+ngton, "_Father_ of his _country_," indeed, if the perpetration of a very poor pun on a venerated name may be pardoned.

The earliest peep of dawn lighted me into the saddle; for, with the unhappy Clarence, _feelingly_ could I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e,

"Oh, I have pa.s.s'd a miserable night!"

In sober sadness, sleep, gentle sleep, had visited not my eyes, nor slumber mine eyelids; though, with the faith of a saint and the perseverance of a martyr, I had alternated from _bed_ to board and from _board_ to bed. And throughout that livelong night, be it recorded, even until the morning dawned, did a concert of whippoorwills and catydids keep up their infernal oratorio, seemingly for no other reason than for my own especial torment; until, sinner as I am, I could not but believe myself a.s.soilzed of half the peccadilloes of a foregone life. Happy enough to find myself once more in the saddle, the morning breeze, as I cantered through the forest, fanned [CCXV] freshly a brow fevered by sleeplessness and vexation.

The early beams of the day-G.o.d were flinging themselves in lengthened ma.s.ses far athwart the plains at my feet as I stood upon the bluffs.

Descending, I was once more upon the AMERICAN BOTTOM.[71] This name, as already stated, was a distinction appropriated to that celebrated tract so long since as when it const.i.tuted the extreme limit in this direction of the Northwestern Territory. Extending northwardly from the embouchure of the Kaskaskia to the confluence of the great rivers, a distance of about one hundred miles, and embracing three hundred thousand acres of land, of fertility unrivalled, it presents, perhaps, second only to the Delta of Egypt, the most remarkable tract of country known. Its breadth varies from three miles to seven. Upon one side it is bounded by a heavy strip of forest a mile or two deep, skirting the Mississippi; and upon the other by an extended range of bluffs, now rising from the plain in a mural escarpment of several hundred feet, as at the village of Prairie du Rocher, and again, as opposite St. Louis, swelling gracefully away into rounded sand-heaps, surmounted by Indian graves. At the base of the latter are exhaustless beds of bituminous coal, lying between parallel strata of limestone.[72] The area between the timber-belt and the bluffs is comprised in one extended meadow, heaving in alternate waves like the ocean after a storm, and interspersed with island-groves, sloughs, bayous, lagoons, and shallow lakes. These expansions of water are numerous, and owe their origin [CCXVI] to that geological feature invariable to the Western rivers--the superior elevation of the immediate bank of the stream to that of the interior plain. The subsidence of the spring-floods is thus precluded; and, as the season advances, some of the ponds, which are more shallow, become entirely dry by evaporation, while others, converted into marshes, stagnate, and exhale _malaria_ exceedingly deleterious to health. The poisonous night-dews caused by these marshes, and the miasm of their decomposing and putrefying vegetation, occasion, with the sultriness of the climate, bilious intermittents, and the far-famed, far-dreaded "_fever and ague_," not unfrequently terminating in consumption. This circ.u.mstance, indeed, presents the grand obstacle to the settlement of the American Bottom. It is one, however, not impracticable to obviate at slight expense, by the construction of sluices and ca.n.a.ls communicating with the rivers, and by the clearing up and cultivation of the soil. The salubrious influence of the latter expedient upon the climate has, indeed, been satisfactorily tested during the ten or twelve years past; and this celebrated alluvion now bids fair, in time, to become the garden of North America. A few of its lakes are beautiful water-sheets, with pebbly sh.o.r.es and sparkling waves, abounding with fish. Among these is one appropriately named "Clear Lake," or the _Grand Marais_, as the French call it, which may be seen from St. Louis of a bright morning, when the sunbeams are playing upon its surface, or at night when the moon is at her full. The [CCXVII]

earliest settlements of the Western Valley were planted upon the American Bottom, and the French villagers have continued to live on in health among the sloughs and marshes, where Americans would most a.s.suredly have perished. Geologically a.n.a.lyzed, the soil consists of a silicious or argillaceous loam, as sand or clay forms the predominating const.i.tuent. Its fertility seems exhaustless, having continued to produce corn at an average of seventy-five bushels to the acre for more than a hundred years in succession, in the neighbourhood of the old French villages, and without deterioration. Maize seems the appropriate production for the soil; all of the smaller grains, on account of the rank luxuriance of their growth, being liable to _blast_ before the harvesting.

_Cahokia, Ill._

FOOTNOTES:

[66] Two ranges of cliffs are known by this name. One is below Ste.

Genevieve.--FLAGG.

[67] For further information on the pigmy cemetery in the Meramec, see our volume xxvi, p. 105.--ED.

[68] Mr. Flint's remarks respecting the Ancient Pottery found in the West coincides so well with the result of my own more limited observation, that I subjoin them in preference to extended description myself. Preceding these remarks is an interesting notice of the Lilliputian graves on the Merrimac, to which allusion has several times been made.

"At the time the Lilliputian graves were found on the Merrimac, in the county of St. Louis, many people went from that town to satisfy their curiosity by inspecting them. It appears from Mr. Peck that the graves were numerous; that the coffins were of stone; that the bones in some instances were nearly entire; that the length of the bodies was determined by that of the coffins which they filled, and that the bodies in general could not have been more than from three feet and a half to four feet in length. Thus it should seem that the generations of the past in this region were mammoths and pigmies.

"I have examined the pottery, of which I have spoken above, with some attention. It is unbaked, and the glazing very incomplete, since oil will soak through it. It is evident, from slight departure from regularity in the surface, that it was moulded by the hand and not by anything like our lathe. The composition, when fractured, shows many white floccules in the clay that resemble fine snow, and this I judge to be pulverized sh.e.l.ls. The basis of the composition appears to be the alluvial clay carried along in the waters of the Mississippi, and called by the French 'terre gra.s.se,' from its greasy feel. Samples of this pottery, more or less perfect, are shown everywhere on the river.

Some of the most perfect have been dug from what are called the 'chalk-banks,' below the mouth of the Ohio. The most perfect that I have seen, being, in fact, as entire as when first formed, was a vessel in my possession. It was a drinking jug, like the 'scyphus' of the ancients. It was dug from the chalk-bank. It was smooth, well-moulded, and of the colour of common gray stoneware. It had been rounded with great care, and yet, from slight indentations on the surface, it was manifest that it had been so wrought in the palm of the hand. The model of the form was a simple and obvious one--the bottle-gourd--and it would contain about two quarts. This vessel had been used to hold animal oil; for it had soaked through, and varnished the external surface. Its neck was that of a squaw, known by the clubbing of the hair, after the Indian fas.h.i.+on. The moulder was not an accurate copyist, and had learned neither statuary nor anatomy; for, although the finish was fine, the head was monstrous. There seemed to have been an intention of wit in the outlet. It was the horrible and distorted mouth of a savage, and in drinking you would be obliged to place your lips in contact with those of madam the squaw."--_Flint's Recollections_, p. 173-4.--FLAGG.

COMMENT BY ED. For bibliography on Indian antiquities, see our volume xxvi, p. 69, note 33; p. 159, note 111; and p. 184, note 128.

[69] Waterloo, in Monroe County, about thirty miles northwest of Kaskaskia, was incorporated in 1848. In 1818 George Forquer purchased the land on which the village now stands, and in the same year he and Daniel P. Cook (later a member of Congress) laid out and named the town. In 1825 the county seat was changed from Harrisonville to Waterloo. About 1830, John Coleman erected a large wind-mill, later changed to an ox-mill (1837).

Bellefontaine is the name applied by the early French to a large spring a mile south of the present site of Waterloo. In 1782 Captain James Moore, who had served under George Rogers Clark, settled at this spring, and in accordance with orders from the Virginia government built a blockhouse fort as a protection against the Indians. Owing to his tact and good judgment, amicable relations with the Indians were maintained until 1786, when serious trouble really began. During the next decade the Indians killed several whites.--ED.

[70] Columbia, eight miles north of Waterloo, and fifteen miles south of St. Louis, was laid out in 1820 on land belonging to Louis Nolan.--ED.

[71] With reference to the American Bottom, see Ogden's _Letters from the West_, in our volume xix, p. 62, note 48.--ED.

[72] See our volume xxvi, p. 263, note 163.--ED.

XLI

"Gramercy, Sir Traveller, it marvels me how you can carry between one pair of shoulders the weight of your heavy wisdom. Alack, now!

would you but discourse me of the wonders you saw ayont the antipodes!"

"Peace, ignoramus! 'tis too good for thy a.s.s's ears to listen to.

The world shall get it, caxtonized in a GREAT BOOK."--_Traveller and Simpleton._

"Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been; A sound which makes us linger--yet--farewell!"

_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage._

Of the alluvial character of the celebrated American Bottom there can exist no doubt. Logs, sh.e.l.ls, fragments of coal, and pebbles, which have been subjected to the abrasion of moving water, are found at a depth of thirty feet from the surface; and the soil throughout seems of unvarying fecundity. Whether this alluvial deposition is to be considered the result of annual floods of the river for ages, or whether the entire bottom once formed the bed of a vast lake, in which the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri mingled on their pa.s.sage to the Gulf, is a question of some considerable interest. The latter seems the more plausible theory. Indeed, the ancient existence of an immense lake, where now lies the American Bottom, upon the east side of the Mississippi, and the Mamelle Prairie upon the west side, extending seventy [CCXIX] miles northwardly from the mouth of the Missouri where the Bottom ends, appears geologically demonstrable. The southern limit of this vast body of water seems to have been at that remarkable cliff, rising from the bed of the Mississippi about twenty miles below the outlet of the Kaskaskia, and known as the "Grand Tower." There is every indication from the torn and shattered aspect of the cliffs upon either side, and the acc.u.mulation of debris, that a grand parapet of limestone at this point once presented a barrier to the heaped-up waters, and formed a cataract scarcely less formidable than that of Niagara. The elevation of the river by this obstacle is estimated at one hundred and thirty feet above the present ordinary water-mark. For more than an hundred miles before reaching this point, the Mississippi now rolls through a broad, deep valley, bounded by an escarpment of cliffs upon either side; and, wherever these present a bold facade to the stream, they are grooved, as at the _cornice-rocks_, by a series of parallel lines, distinctly traced and strikingly uniform. As the river descends, these water-grooves gradually rise along the heights, until, at the Grand Tower, they attain an alt.i.tude of more than an hundred feet; below this point the phenomenon is not observed.[73] This circ.u.mstance, and the disruption of the cliffs at the same elevation, clearly indicate the former surface of the lake. Organic remains, petrifactions of madrepores, corallines, concholites, and other fossil testacea, are found imbedded in a stratum [CCXX] nearly at the base. Similar phenomena of the water-lines exist upon the cliffs of the Ohio, and a barrier is thought once to have obstructed the stream at a point called _the Narrows_, sixty miles below Louisville, with the same result as upon the Mississippi. The eastern boundary of the expansion of the latter stream must have been the chain of bluffs now confining the American Bottom in that direction, and considered a spur of the Ozark Mountains. This extends northeasterly to the "confluence;" thence, bending away to the northwest, it reaches the Illinois, and forms the eastern bank of that river. Upon the western side, the hills along the Missouri are sufficiently elevated to present a barrier to the lake until they reach the confluence of the rivers. At this point spreads out the Mamelle Prairie, sixty or seventy miles in length, and, upon an average, five or six in breadth. West of this plain, the lake was bounded by the range of bluffs commencing with the celebrated "Mamelles," and stretching north until they strike the river; while the gradual elevation of the country, ascending the Upper Mississippi, presented a limit in that direction.

The event by which this great lake was drained appears to have been of a character either convulsive or volcanic, or to have been the result of the long-continued abrasion of the waters, as at Niagara. The rocks at the Grand Tower are limestone of secondary formation--the stratum being several hundred feet in depth, and imbedding hornstone and marine petrifactions throughout. They [CCXXI] everywhere exhibit indications of having once been subjected to the attrition of rus.h.i.+ng water, as do the cliffs bounding the Northern lakes, which have long been chafed by the waves. The evidence of volcanic action, or violent subterranean convulsion of some kind, caused by heat, seems hardly less evident. The former workings of a divulsive power of terrific energy is betrayed, indeed, all over this region. In the immediate vicinity of the Grand Tower, which may be considered the scene of its most fearful operations, huge ma.s.ses of shattered rock, dipping in every direction, are scattered about; and the whole stratum for twenty miles around lies completely broken up. At the point in the range of bluffs where this confusion is observed to cease, the mural cliff rises abruptly to the alt.i.tude of several hundred feet, exhibiting along the facade of its summit deep water-lines and other evidence of having once const.i.tuted the boundary of a lake. At the base issues a large spring of fresh water, remarkable for a regular ebb and flow, like the tides of the ocean, once in twenty-four hours.[74] At this spot, also, situated in the southeastern extremity of St. Clair county, exists an old American settlement, commenced a century since, and called the "_Block-house_," from the circ.u.mstance of a stoccade fort for defence against the [CCXXII] Indians.[75] By a late geological _reconnoissance_, we learn that, from this remarkable _tide-spring_ until we reach the Grand Tower, the face of the country has a depressed and sunken aspect, as if once the bed of standing water; and was evidently overlaid by an immense stratum of calcareous rock. A hundred square miles of this ma.s.sive ledge have, by some tremendous convulsion of Nature, been thrown up and shattered in fragments. The confused acc.u.mulation of debris is now sunken and covered with repeated strata of alluvial deposite. Evidence of all this is adduced from the circ.u.mstance that huge blocks of limestone are yet frequently to be encountered in this region, some of them protruding twenty or thirty feet above the surface. As we approach the Grand Tower--that focus, around which the convulsed throes of Nature seem to have concentrated their tremendous energy--the number and the magnitude of these ma.s.sive blocks constantly increase, until, at that point, we behold them piled up in mountain-ma.s.ses as if by the hand of Omnipotent might. Upon all this vast Valley of the West the terrible impress of Almighty power seems planted in characters too deep to be swept away by the effacing finger of time. We trace them not more palpably in these fearful results of the convulsions of Nature, agonized by the tread of Deity, than in the eternal flow of those gigantic rivers which roll their floods over this wreck of elements, or in those ocean-plains which, upon either side, in billowy grandeur heave away, wave after wave, till lost in the magnificence of [CCXXIII] boundless extent. And is there nothing in those vast acc.u.mulations of organic fossils--spoils of the sea and the land--the collected wealth of the animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds, entombed in the heart of the everlasting hills--is there naught in all this to arouse within the reflecting mind a sentiment of wonder, and elicit an acknowledgment to the grandeur of Deity? Whence came these varied productions of the land and sea, so incongruous in character and so diverse in origin? By what fearful anarchy of elements were they imbedded in these ma.s.sive cliffs? How many ages have rolled away since they were entombed in these adamantine sepulchres, from which Nature's convulsive throes in later times have caused the resurrection? To such inquiries we receive no answer. The secrecy of untold cycles veils the reply in mystery. The _effect_ is before us, but the _cause_ rests alone with Omniscience.