The fouth-weft winds, eaft of the mountains, are most predominant. Next to thefe, on the fea coaft, the north-east, and at the mountains, the north-west winds prevail. The difference between thefe winds is very great. The north-east is loaded with vapour, infomuch that the falt manufacturers have found that their chrystals would not shoot while that blows; it occafions a diftreffing chill, and a heaviness and depreffion of the fpirits. The north-weft is dry, cooling, elastic, and animating. The east and fouth-east breezes come on generally in the afternoon. They have advanced into the country very fenfibly within the memory of people now living. Mr. Jefferson reckons the extremes of heat and cold to be 98° above and 6o below o, in Fahrenheit's thermometer.

That fluctuation between heat and cold, fo deftructive to fruit, in the spring season, prevails less in Virginia than in Pennsylvania; nor is the overflowing of the rivers in Virginia fo extenfive or fo frequent at that feason, as thofe of the New-England States; because the fnows in the former do not lie accumulating all winter, to be diffolved all at once in the fpring, as they do fometimes in the latter. In Virginia, below the mountains, fnow feldom lies more than a day or two, and feldom a week; and the large rivers feldom freeze over. The fluctuation of weather, however, is fufficient to render the winters and fprings very unwholefome, as the inhabitants during those seasons have to walk in almost perpetual mire.

The months of June and July, though often the hottest, are the most healthy in the year. The weather is then dry and less liable to change than in August and September, when the rain commences, and sudden variations take place.

On the fea coaft, the land is low, generally within twelve feet of the level of the fea, interfected in all directions with falt creeks and rivers, the heads of which form fwamps and marshes, and fenny ground, covered with water in wet feafons. The uncultivated lands are covered with large trees and thick underwood. The vicinity of the fea, and falt creeks and rivers, occafion a conftant moisture and warmth of the atmosphere, fo that although under the fame latitude, one hundred or one hundred and fifty miles in the country, deep fnows, and frozen rivers frequently happen, for a short season, yet here fuch occurrences are confidered as phenomena; for these reasons, the trees are often in bloom as early as the laft of February; from this period, however, till

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till the end of April, the inhabitants are incommoded by cold rains, piercing winds, and fharp frofts, which fubject them to the inflam matory difeafes, known here under the names of pleurify and peripneumony.

FACE OF THE COUNTRY, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, &c.

The whole country below the mountains, which are about one hundred and fifty, fome fay two hundred miles from the fea, is level, and seems from various appearances to have been once washed by the fea. The land between York and James rivers is very level, and its furface about forty feet above high water mark. It appears, from obfervation, to have arifen to its prefent height, at different periods. far diftant from each other, and that at these periods it was washed by the fea; for near York-town, where the banks are perpendicular, you first see a firatum, intermixed, with fmall fhells, resembling a mixture. of clay and fand, and about five feet thick; on this lies horizontally, fmall white fhells, cockle, clam, &c. an inch or two thick; then a body of earth fimilar to that first mentioned, eighteen inches thick; then a layer of fhells and another body of earth; on this a layer of three feet of white fhells mixed with fand, on which lay a body of oyfter fhells fix feet thick, which are covered with earth to the furface. The oyster fhells are fo united by a very strong cement that they fall, only when undermined, and then in large bodies, from one to twenty tons weight. They have the appearance on the fhore of large rocks.*

These appearances continue in a greater or lefs degree in the banks, of James river, one hundred miles from the fea; the appearances. then vary, and the banks are filled with fharks' teeth, bones of large and finall fish petrified, and many other petrifactions, fome resembling the bones of land and other animals, and alfo vegetable fubftances. These appearances are not confined to the river banks, but are seen in various places in gullies at confiderable distances from the rivers. In one part of the State for feventy miles in length, by finking a well, you apparently come to the bottom of what was formerly a watercourfe. And even as high up as Botetourt county, among the Allegany mountains, there is a tract of land, judged to be forty thousand acres, furrounded on every fide by mountains, which is entirely co

General Lincoln.

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vered with oyster and cockle fhells, and, by fome gullies, they appear to be of confiderable depth. A plantation at Day's Point, on James river, of as many as one thousand acres, appears at a distance as if covered with fnow, but on examination the white appearance is found to arife from a bed of clam fhells, which by repeated plowing have become fine and mixed with the earth.

It is worthy notice, that the mountains in this State are not folitary and scattered confusedly over the face of the country; but commence at about one hundred and fifty miles from the fea coast, are difpofed in ridges one behind another, running nearly parallel with the fea coaft, though rather approaching it as they advance northeastwardly. To the fouth-weft, as the tract of country between the fea coaft and the Miffiffippi becomes narrower, the mountains converge into a fingle ridge; which, as it approaches the gulph of Mexico, fubfides into plain country, and gives rife to fome of the waters of that gulph, and particularly to a river called Apalachicola, probably from the Apalachies, an Indian nation formerly refiding on it. Hence the mountains giving rife to that river, and feen from its various parts, were called the Apalachian mountains, being in fact the end or termination only of the great ridges paffing through the continent. European geographers, however, have extended the fame northwardly as far as the mountains extended; fome giving it after their feparation into different ridges, to the Blue Ridge, others to the North mountains, others to the Allegany, others to the Laurel Ridge, as may be seen in their different maps. but none of these ridges were ever known by that name to the inhabitants, either native or emigrant, but as they faw them fo called in European maps. In the fame direction generally are the veins of lime-ftone, coal, and other minerals hitherto discovered; and fo range the falls of the great rivers. But the courfes of the great rivers are at right angles with thefe. James and the Potomack penetrate through all the ridges of mountains eastward of the Allegany, which is broken by no watercourfe. It is in fact the spine of the country between the Atlantic on one fide, and the Miffiffippi and St. Lawrence on the other. The paffage of the Potomack through the Blue ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous fcenes in nature. You ftand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to feek a vent; on your left approaches the Potomack, in quest of a paffage alfo; in the mo

ment

ment of their junction, they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pafs off to the fea. The first glance of this. fcene hurries our fenfes into the opinion, that this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow afterwards; that in this place particularly they have been dammed up by the Blue ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that continuing to rife, they have at length broken over at this spot, and have torn the mountain down from its fummit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their dif ruption and avulfion from their beds by the most powerful agents of nature, corroborate the impreffion; but the diftant finishing which nature has given to the picture, is of a very different character. It is a true contrast to the fore ground; it is as placid and delightful, as that is wild and tremendous. For the mountain, being cloven afunder, prefents to the eye, through the cleft, a fmall catch of fmooth blue horizon, at an infinite diftance, in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach and participate of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately compofes itfelf; and that way too, the road actually leads. You cross the Potomack above the junction, pafs along its fide through the bafe of the mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in fragments over you, and within about twenty miles reach Frederick-town and the fine country round that. This scene is worth a voyage acrofs the Atlantic. Yet here, as in the neighbourhood of the Natural Bridge, are people who have paffed their lives within half a dozen miles, and have never been to furvey these monuments of a war between rivers and mountains, which must have fhaken the earth itself to its center. The height of the mountains has not yet been estimated with any degree of exactnefs. The Allegany being the great ridge which divides the waters of the 'Atlantic from thofe of the Miffiffippi, its fummit is doubtlefs more elevated above the ocean than that of any other mountain. But its relative height, compared with the base on which it stands, is not fo great as that of fome others, the country rifing behind the fucceffive ridges like the fteps of stairs. The mountains of the Blue ridge, and of these the peaks of Otter are thought to be of a greater height measured from their bafe than any others in Virginia, and perhaps in North-Ame rica. From data, which may be found a tolerable conjecture, we

fuppofe

fuppofe the highest peak to be about four thousand feet perpendicular, which is not a fifth part of the height of the mountains of SouthAmerica, nor one third of the height which would be neceffary inour latitude to preferve ice in the open air unmelted through the year. The ridge of mountains next beyond the Blue ridge, called the North mountain, is of the greatest extent; for which reafon they are named by the Indians the Endless mountains.

The Ouafioto mountains are fifty or fixty miles wide at the Gap. These mountains abound in coal, lime, and free-ftone; the fummits of them are generally covered with a good foil, and a variety of timber; and the low, intervale lands are rich and remarkably well watered.

An infpection of the map of Virginia will give a better idea of the geography of its rivers, than any defcription in writing. Their navigation, however, may be imperfectly noted.

Roanoke, fo far as it lies within this State, is no where navigable but for canoes, or light batteaux; and even for thefe, in fuch detached parcels as to have prevented the inhabitants from availing themselves of it at all.

James river, and its waters, afford navigation as follows: the whole of Elizabeth river, the lowest of those which run into James river, is a harbour, and would contain upwards of three hundred fhips. The channel is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred fathoms wide, and at common flood tide, affords eighteen feet water to Norfolk. The Strafford, a fixty gun fhip, went there, lightening herself across the bar at Sowell's point. The Fier Rodrigue, pierced for fixty-four guns, and carrying fifty, went there without lightening. Craney ifland, at the mouth of this river, commands its channel tole rably well.

Nanfemond river is navigable to Sleepy Hole, for veffels of two hundred and fifty tons; to Suffolk, for thofe of one hundred tons; and to Milner's, for thofe of twenty-five. Pagan creek affords eight or ten feet water to Smithfield, which admits veffels of twenty tons. Chickahominy has at its mouth a bar, on which is only twelve feet. water at common flood tide. Veffels paffing that, may go eight miles up the river; thofe of ten feet draught may go four miles farther, and those of fix tons burthen twenty miles farther.

The Appamattox may be navigated as far as Broadways, by any effel which has croffed Harrifon's bar in James river; it keeps eight