spread out the lap of happy countries, whereon whole nations of men now live, where once the wind drove on ward the terrific billows.

CAUSES OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ANCIENT

NATIONS.

BUT what has finally become of these nations, and where are their descendants, are questions, which, could they be answered, would be highly gratifying.

On opening a mound, below Wheeling on the Ohio, a few years since, a stone was found, having on it a brand exactly similar to the one commonly used by the Mexican nations in marking their cattle and horses.

From this it is evident, that the ancient nations were not savages, or a trait of the domestication of animals would not be found in the country, they once inhabited. The head of the Sustajases, or Mexican hog, cut off square, was found in a saltpetre cave in Kentucky not long since by Dr. Brown. This circumstance is mentioned by Dr. Drake, in his "Picture of Cincinnati." The nitre had preserved it. It had been deposited there by the ancient inhabitants where it must have lain for ages.

This animal is not found, it is said, north of the Mexican country, the northern line of which, is about on the 40th degree of north latitude, and the presumption is that the inhabitants took these animals along with them in their migrations, until they finally settled in Mexico. Other animals, as the elk, the moose and the buffalo were doubtless domesticated by them, and used for agricultural purposes, as the ox, the horse and various other animals are now in use among us.

The wild sheep of Oregon, Louisania, California and the Rocky Mountains, the same found in the north of Asia. May be the remnants of the flocks of that animal once domesticated all over these regions, by those people, and used for food.

One means of their disappearance may have been the noxious effluvia which would inevitably arise from the bottoms of those vast bodies of water, which must have had a pestilential effect on

the people settled around them. This position needs no elucidation, as it is known that the heat of the sun, in its action ou swamps and marshy grounds, fills the region round them with a deathly scent, acting directly on the economy and constitution of the human subject, while animals of coarser habits escape.

Who has not experienced this on the sudden draining of stagnant waters, or even those of a mill pond. The reason is, the filth settled at the bottoms of such places, becomes exposed by having the cover taken away, which was the waters, and the winds immediately wafting the deleterious vapors; the surrounding atmosphere becomes corrupted; disease follows with death in its train.

But on the sudden draining of so great a body of water, from such immense tracts of land, which had been accumulating filth, formed of decayed vegetation and animals, from the time of the deluge till their passage off at that time, the stench must have been beyond all conception, dreadful.

Such is the fact on the subsiding of the waters of the Nile in Egypt, which, after having overflown the whole valley of that river, about 500 miles in length, and from 15 to 25 in width, leaves an insufferable stench, and is the true crigin of the plague, which sweeps to eternity annually, its thousands in that country.

It is not, therefore, impossible nor improbable, but by this very means, the ancient nations settled round these waters, may have, indeed, been exterminated; or if they were not exterminated, must have been exceedingly reduced in numbers, so as to induce the residue to flee from so dangerous a country, far to the south, or any where, from the effects of the dreadful effluvia, arising from the newly exposed chasms and gulfs.

Such, also, would be the effect on the present inhabitants, should the falls of Niagara at length undermine and wear down that strata of rock over which it now plunges, and drain the lakes of the west, the remnant of the greater bodies of water which once rested there. In the event of such a catastrophe, it would be natural, that the waters should immediately flow into the head water channels of all the rivers northeast and south from Lake Ontario, after coming on a level with the leads of the short streams passing into that lake oh its easterly side.

The rivers running southeast and north from that part of Lake Ontario as high up as the village of Lyons, are a part of the Che

mung, the Chenango, the Unadilla, the Susquehannah, the Delaware, the Mohawk, the Schoharie, the Au Sable, and the St. Lawrence, with all their smaller head water streams.

The vallies of these streams would become the drains of such a discharge of the western lakes, overwhelming and sweeping away all the works of men in those directions, as well as in many other directions, where the lowness of the country should be favorable to a rush of the waters, leaving isolated tracts of high lands, with the mountains as islands, till the work of submersion should be

over.

All this, it is likely, will appear extremely visionary, but it should not be forgotten, that we have predicated it on the supposed demolition of Niagara falls, which is as likely to ensue, as that the barriers of the ancient lakes should have given away, where the respective falls of the rivers which issued from them, poured over their precipices.

"Whoever will examine all the circumstances," says Volney, "will clearly perceive, that at the place where the village of Queenstown now stands, the fall at first commenced, and that the river, by sawing down the bed of the rock, has hollowed out the chasm, and continued carrying back its breach, from age to age, till it has at length reached the spot where the cascade now is. There it continues its secular labors with slow but incessant ac

tivity. The oldest inhabitants of the country remember having seen the cataract several paces beyond its present place." The frosts of winter have the effect continually of cracking the projecting parts of the strata, and the thaws of spring, with the increased powers of the augmented waters, loosen, and tumble large blocks of the rock into the chasm below.

Dr. Barton, who examined the thickness of the stratum of stone, and estimates it at sixteen feet, believes it rests on that of blue schist, which he supposes forms the bed of the river, as well as the falls, up to the Erie. "Some ages hence, if the river, continuing its untiring operations, may cease to find the calcareous rock that now checks it, and finding a softer strata, the fall will ultimately arrive at Lake Erie; and then one of those great desications will take place, of which the valleys of the Potomac, Hudson, and Ohio, afford instances in times past.”

LAKE ONTARIO FORMED BY A VOLCANO.

THOUGH the northern parts of America have been known to us but about two centuries, yet this interval, short as it is in the annals of nature, has already, says Volney, been sufficient to convince us, by numerous examples, that earthquakes must have been frequent and violent here, in times past. And that they have been the principal cause of the derangements of which the Atlantic coast presents such general aud striking marks.

Το go back no farther than the year 1628, the time of the arrival of the first English settlers, and end with 1782, a lapse of 154 years, in which time there occurred no less than forty-five earthquakes. These were always preceded by a noise resembling that of a violent wind, or of a chimney on fire; they often threw down chimnies, sometimes even houses, and burst open doors and windows; suddenly dried up wells, and even several brooks and streams of water; imparting to the waters a turbid color, and the fœtied smell of liver of sulphur, throwing up out of great chinks, sand with a similar smell. The shocks of these earthquakes seemed to proceed from an internal focus, which raised the earth up from below, the principal line of which run northeast and southwest, following the course of the River Merrimack, extending southward to the Potomac, and northward beyond the St. Lawrence, particularly affecting the direction of Lake Ontario.

Respecting these earthquakes, Volney says, he was indebted to a work written by a Mr. Williams, from whose curious researches he had derived the most authentic records. But the language and phrases he employs are remarkable, says Mr. Volney, for the analogy they bear to local facts, noticed by himself, respecting the appearance of schists on the shores of Lake Erie; and about the falls of Niagara; and by Dr. Barton, who supposed it to form the bed on which the rock of the falls rests.

He quotes him as follows:-" Did not that smell of liver sulphur, imparted to the water and sand vomited up from the bowels of the earth through great chinks, originate from the stratum of schist which we found at Niagara, beneath the limestone, and which

when submitted to the action of fire, emits a strong smell of sulphur ?"

It is true, says Volney, that this is but one of the elements of the substance mentioned, composing schist, but an accurate analysis might detect the other. This stratum of schist is found under the bed of the Hudson, and appears in many places in the states of New-York and Pennsylvania, among the sand stones and granites; and we have reason to presume that it exists round Lake Ontario, and beneath Lake Erie, and consequently, that it forms one of the floors of the country, in which was the principal focus of the earthquakes mentioned by Mr. Williams.

The line of this focus running northwest and southeast, particularly affected the direction of the Atlantic to Lake Ontario. This predilection is remarkable, on account of the singular structure of this lake. The rest of the western lakes, notwithstanding their magnitude, have no great depth. Lake Erie no where exceeds a hundred or a hundred and thirty feet, and the bottom of Lake Superior is visible in many places.

The Ontario, on the contrary, is in general very deep; that is to say, upwards of forty-five or fifty fathoms, three hundred feet, and so on; and in considerable extent, no bottom could be found with a line of a hundred and ten fathoms, which is a fraction less than forty reds in depth.

This is the case in some places near its shores, and these circumstances pretty clearly indicate that the basin of this lake was once the crater of a volcano now extinct. This inference is confirmed by the volcanic productions already found on its borders, and no doubt the experienced eye will discover many more, by examining the form of the great talus, or slope, that surrounds this lake almost circularly, and announces in all parts, to the eye as well as to the understanding, that formerly the flat of Niagara extended almost as far as the middle of Lake Ontario, where it was sunk and swallowed up by the action of a volcano, then in its vigor.

The existence of this subterranean fire, accords perfectly with the earthquakes mentioned by Williams, as above, and these two agents, which we find here united, while they confirm on the one hand, that of a grand subterranean focus, at an unknown depth, on the other, afford a happy and plausable explanation of the confusion of all the strata of the earth and stones, which occurs throughout