VIII. 1. Substance of the Debate in the House of Commons on 15th May, 1823, on a Motion for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions ;' with a Preface and Appendixes containing Facts and Rea- sonings illustrative of Colonial Bondage. 2. An Appeal to the Religion, Justice, and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire, in behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies. By W. Wilberforce, Esq. M.P. 3. Negro Slavery; or a View of some of the more prominent Features of that State of Society, as it exists in the United States of America and in the Colonies of the West Indies, 4. Declaration of the Objects of the Liverpool Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery. 5. A Review of some of the Arguments which are commonly advanced against Parliamentary Interference in behalf of the Negro Slaves; with a Statement of Opinions which have been expressed on that Subject by many of our most dis- 6. Thoughts on the Necessity of improving the Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies, with a View to their ul- timate Emancipation; and on the Practicability, the Safe- ty, and the Advantages of the latter Measure. By T. IX. Sketches taken during Ten Voyages to Africa, between the Years 1786 and 1800; including Observations on the X. 1. A Defence of the Clergy of the Church of England; stating their Services, their Rights, and their Revenues. By the Rev. Francis Thackeray, A.M. 2. An Appeal to the Gentlemen of England, on Behalf of the Church of England. By Augustus Campbell, A.M. 524 1. Extrait des Mémoires de M. le Duc de Rovigo, concer- nant la Catastrophe de M. le Duc d'Enghien. 2. Réfutation de l'Ecrit publié par le Duc de Rovigo sur la Catastrophe de M. le Duc d'Enghien. Par M. Maquart. 3. Extrait des Mémoires inédits sur la Révolution Française. 4. Explications offertes aux Hommes impartiaux. Par M. le 5. Pièces judiciaires et historiques relatives au Procès du Duc THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. APRIL, 1823. ART. I.-1. Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the Years 1819, 1820; by Order of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the Command of Major S. H. Long, of the U. S. Top. Engineers. Compiled from the Notes of Major Long, Mr. T. Say, and other Gentlemen of the Party, by Edwin James, Botanist and Geologist to the Expedition. In 3 Volumes. Reprinted London. 1823. 2. Narrative Journal of Travels from Detroit Northwest, through the Great Chain of American Lakes to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in the Year 1820: by Henry R. Schoolcraft. Performed as a Member of the Expedition under General * Cass. Albany. 3. A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory, during the Year 1819, with occasional Observations on the Manners of the Aborigines. By Thomas Nuttall, F.L.S. Philadelphia. THE HE three works before us afford a tolerable description of that important portion of North America, which lies to the westward of the Alleghany mountains and is included between them and that part of the continued chain of the Andes, usually known by the name of the Rocky Mountains:- -an immense territory, which of late years has drawn off no inconsiderable portion of the population of those provinces of the United States, situated on the eastern side of the Alleghanies. To give a general idea of its extent, we need only say that its width (about the parallel of 38° N. lat.) may be taken at 20 degrees of longitude; and its length, (from the Gulf of Mexico to that swell in the surface which divides the northern from the southern waters,) at about the same number of degrees of latitude;-embracing an area of 1,140,000 square geographical miles, the whole of which is drained by the Mississippi; which, in the long course of a thousand leagues, nearly on the same meridian line, receives a vast multitude of streams, some of them as large as itself, and most of them navigable for many hundred miles from their respective points of confluence, the united waters of which it pours in one vast body into the Gulf of Mexico. VOL. XXIX. NO. LVII. A History History has supplied us with no memorials on which to form even a conjecture of the state of this extensive valley in ages past; and the only testimony that remains of its once being inhabited by a more numerous, powerful, and intelligent race of Indians than the present, is that which is afforded by large mounds of earth frequently met with near the banks of the rivers; and within which are found the remains of human skeletons, pottery, and other articles of a superior and different kind from those now in use among the natives, who have made but few advances towards civilization, and are thinly scattered over this immense surface; probably not exceeding, in the whole, 30,000 souls, or little more than three individuals to one hundred and twenty miles: even these scanty numbers are dwindling away so rapidly as to make it probable that, in the course of half a century, an unmixed native Indian, or Red-skin, will be regarded as a curiosity, and the Cherookees, the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, and the Quapaws be known only by name. Of these works, which are all respectable, the first two are by members of expeditions set forth under the orders of the government; and the third by a private individual, an Englishman. From the instructions to Major Long, it appears that the object of his expedition was directed to military and scientific pursuits;' and accordingly, in addition to a party of soldiers, a journal-writer, botanist, zoologist, geologist, assistant naturalist, and painter, were attached to it. They embarked at Pittsburgh on board the steamboat 'The Western Engineer;' dropped down the Ohio; ascended the Mississippi and the Missouri to the mouth of the Platte, where they wintered and discharged the steam-boat; they then followed the Platte to its source in the Rocky Mountains; skirted their base to the southward; when they divided into two parties, one of which descended the Arkansas, and the other the Canadian, which they mistook for the Red River; and, on regaining the Mississippi, broke up and returned to their several homes. Mr. Schoolcraft navigated the chain of the great lakes from Buffalo; crossed from Lake Superior into Sandy Lake; thence into the Mississippi, which he ascended to its source; then descended as far as the junction of the Ousconsing River, by which, and the Fox River, he crossed into Lake Michigan. Mr. Nuttall descended the Ohio, and proceeded up the Arkansas as far as the Verdigris River, examining the botany and geology of the neighbouring country on both sides. Thus their combined observations embrace a very large portion of the valley in question, and ours will be drawn indiscriminately from all of them. -Pittsburgh, from whence Major Long's party and also Mr. Nuttall started, is situated at the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monan Monangahela, whose united streams form the great river Ohio. The sources of the Alleghany are distributed along the southeastern shore of Lake Erie, and so near to it, that the two navigations are interrupted only by a portage of fifteen miles. Other rivers open, with still less interruption, a communication by water between the gulfs of St. Lawrence and Mexico, as we shall notice hereafter. Pittsburgh, it is said, owes its prosperity mainly to the beds of coal which abound in its neighbourhood; which are about six feet thick, and are worked by horizontal drifts. Immediately under the coal is a stratum of micaceous sandstone, and beneath this, calcareous rock, containing masses of terebratulites. At Wheeling, lower down on the Ohio, is also a bed of coal of the same thickness, but it lies beneath the limestone, and on that account is considered by Mr. Nuttall as a second bed. The coal formation would seem to be of vast extent along the banks of the Alleghany; indications of it appear at the distance of one hundred miles above Pittsburgh, where there is a spring which throws up such quantities of a bituminous oil, that a single person may collect several gallons daily. The same indications every where present themselves along the whole western slope of the Alleghany Mountains to the mouth of the Ohio. Whenever,' says Mr. James, we have had the opportunity of observing brinesprings, we have usually found them in connection with an argillaceous sandstone, bearing impressions of phytolytes, culmaria, and those tessellated zoophytes, so common about many coal-beds.' At the very summit of the Laurel Ridge of the Alleghanies, the sandstones of the coal formation begin to appear, alternating with narrow beds of bituminous clay-slate. Here,' continues Mr. James, coal-beds have been explored, and, at the time of our visit, coals were sold at the pit for ten cents (sixpence) the bushel.' The town of Wheeling, from its more favourable situation on the Ohio and its beds of coal, has of late years become a formidable rival to Pittsburgh. It is here that the great national road from Cumberland terminates, being carried over a distance of one hundred and forty miles, at an expense of one million eight hun dred thousand dollars. From hence it is intended to cross the Ohio, and running in a direct line, about west by north, close to the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, to strike the Mississippi in lat. 41° 50' N. long. 89° 50′ W. Half-way between Pittsburgh and the mouth of the Ohio is the town of Cincinnati, which, from 2500 inhabitants, the number it contained in 1810, had increased, in 1819, to about 12,000. The intermediate country is described as eminently beautiful, consisting of hill and dale, the swells being not more than two or three hundred feet high, covered with an almost unbroken forest, and em bosoming a calm and majestic river-from whose unruffled surface,' says Mr. James, the broad outline of the hills is reflected with a distinctness equal to that with which it is imprinted upon the azure vault of the sky.' The rolling surface, as it is called, is generally fertile, and will produce, by the rude ordinary culture, about fifty bushels of maize per acre. The trees of most luxuriant growth towards the upper part of the river, are the hemlock spruce, and the great Weymouth pine; the latter being one of the most beautiful as well as lofty of the American forest. The smooth straight trunk of five or six feet diameter runs to seventy or eighty feet high, and, crowned with a dense conical top, towers above all other trees of the forest, like the palms of the tropics. Next to these are the beech, birch, sugar-maple, elm, and hickory. Two species of æsculus, or horse-chestnut, are common; the fruit of one of them having upon it an oblong spot, gives to the tree the name of the buck-eye; and as it is only found in the western states, the indigenous back-woodsman is often called Buck-eye, in contradistinction to the eastern emigrants, who rejoice in the name of Yankees. The river at the falls or rapids, near Louisville, descends about twenty-two feet in a distance of less than two miles; and at the foot of these is the town of Shippingsport. From hence to its junction with the Mississippi, the banks gradually descend, till, at the distance of twelve miles from their confluence, the whole surface on both sides, and between the rivers, is one continued inundation to the depth of twelve or fourteen feet in time of floods. The soil is of course alluvial, and covered with dense forests; among which occur large patches of what Mr. Nuttall calls impenetrable and sempervirent Cane-brakes.' These reedy plants (Arundinaria Macrosperma), rising to thirty feet in height, exclude by their opaque shade nearly every herbaceous plant. The lowness of the country may be inferred from the circumstance of the floods of the Mississippi causing a reflux of the waters of the Ohio for more than thirty miles, and those of the Ohio retarding the current of the former fully to the same extent. The forests here are deep and gloomy, swarming with innumerable mosquitoes, and the ground overgrown with enormous nettles. There is no point near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, from which a distant prospect can be had. Standing in view of the junction of these magnificent rivers, meeting almost from opposite extremities of the continent, and each impressed with the peculiar character of the regions from which it descends, we seem to imagine ourselves capable of comprehending at one view all that vast region between the summits of the Alleghanies and of the Rocky Mountains, and feel a degree of impatience at finding all our prospects limited by an inconsiderable |