less destructible than other parts of the skeleton, may be the reason why these are so often found; yet, I suspect, that, by examining the earth around where the teeth are procured, whole skeletons might be discovered-or nearly whole ones. It is true, that teeth of the mastodon are frequently found in and about Pickaway Plains, lying on the present surface of the earth; but these were doubtless brought and left where they are now found, by the Indians. These teeth, thus found, were near the dwelling houses of the aborigines, and no search has been made for the remaining parts of the skeletons.

Where teeth are found in situ, further search ought always to be made, which would doubtless lead to the discovery of other relics, highly valuable. At the time when our wet prairies were cedar swamps, and presented almost impenetrable thickets, it is evident enough, that they were frequented by the great mastodon and other wild animals; and that man was here also, then, or very soon afterwards, appears equally evident, from the marks which he has left, of his labor and his art, on the fragment of a tree, above mentioned.

The fear of rendering myself tedious to the reader, admonishes me to quit the ancient abode of the mammoth, and describe

THE DRY PRAIRIES.-They are not, as in Kentucky, under, laid with limestone; nor have we, in this part of Ohio, any barrens thus underlaid. Ours are, so far as we know and believe, in appearance like the bottom lands along our streams. The surface is a rich, black, deep loam, underlaid with pebbles, which are water worn, rounded and smoothed. Many of these natural meadows, lie high above any stream of water, now, or probably ever in existence.-If we have any tracts in Ohio, very properly denominated DILUVIUM, Pickaway Plains, three miles below Circleville, belong to that class of formations. This is a dry prairie, or rather was one not many years since. This prairie is about seven miles long, and nearly three miles broad. It was in this plain, that a human skeleton was dug up, which circumstance was mentioned by me in a former volume of Silliman's Journal, to which I refer the

reader. The works of man too, are often found in such prairies, at a great depth in the earth. Such natural meadows, being for the most part, destitute of trees, have induced superficial persons, (who never reflect, and who are too indolent to examine into the real facts in the case,) to conclude, that fires had been employed by the aboriginals to produce that effect! The formation of these diluvian plains is entirely different from that of the country around them; as much so beneath the surface as above it. In tracts of country, denuded of trees by fire, briars and bushes, forthwith, appear in their stead. In fact, the growth of grass and flowering plants, which cover these delightful plains, is abundantly able to prevent the taking root, of almost any forest tree. The falling of a walnut, an acorn, or the seed of any other tree, is hardly sufficient to disturb the possession of the present occupants of these ancient domains. The plum sometimes gets a foot hold in them: and the delicious sweet prairie grape is sure to take advantage of the circumstance, and climb up to, and cover the tops of the plum bushes with its vines, its leaves and its clusters of purple fruit in due season.

Besides, had fires destroyed the trees on Pickaway Plains, charcoal would have been discovered there, which is not the case, although the land, has been cultivated with the plow, during from fifteen to twenty years past.

Charcoal is as indistructible, almost, as the diamond itself, where it is not exposed to the action of the atmosphere. On a surface so large, as that occupied by the plains, it is hardly possible, if they had been denuded of their woods by fire, that no charcoal should have been found. With me, this argument is entirely a conclusive one.

The botany of these natural meadows is rich, and would afford matter enough for a volume. A Torrey, a Nuttall, a Mitchill, a Mulenburgh, a Barton, an Elliott, or evena Linnæus might here usefully employ himself for years, without exhausting his subject, or gathering all the harvest which these vast fields present. It appears to me, that our botanists have neglected our prairies; but let us hope, that the day is not far

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distant, when some future Linnæus will appear in them. If the field is vast, and the laborers are few, the harvest of fame will be the richer.

Among the flowering plants, growing in them, the helianthus offers, perhaps, the greatest number of varieties.

From a careful examination of our prairies, wet and dry, we are satisfied that the dry ones are the most ancient, of the two that fires produce neither of them-that in their natural state, a luxuriant vegetation is raising their present surface, every year; that the dry ones are extremely valuable for cultivation, and that the wet ones will, at no very distant day, furnish us with an abundance of fuel, in a country but thinly timbered, indeed almost destitute of wood, and without fossil coal, so common in our hilly region. If, as it is known to be the fact, our hilly region be well supplied with ironstone, and other useful minerals, together with salt water, nature has supplied the same region with inexhaustible mines of coal for their manufacture. If the level parts of this State, where the dry prairies abound, contain large tracts of rich land, the time is at hand, when they will be covered with well cultivated farms, where the rich harvests will wave, and where naturalized grasses will afford food for large flocks of domestic

animals.

These remarks on our Prairies, were written, originally, more than twenty years since, and apply especially to that period of time. The reader will see, how our then predictions, have since been verified, within the intermediate space of time. They are now, well cultivated fields, cloathed with tame grasses, and grains. Our herds of domesticated animals feed and fatten, where, so recently, only wild animals, and still wilder men, roamed over the surface of these diluvial plains. In the conclusion of this article we may say, that this state contains the most and the best peat, of any state in the Union.

RELIQUIAE DILUVIANAE.

The relicts of the Deluge, though common in all parts of this state, yet, we will now confine ourselves, for the present, to those belonging to the coal region of it. In the vicinity of the Ohio river in the counties of Gallia, Lawrence and Meigs, also in the counties of Muskingum and Morgan, on the waters of the Muskingum river, these relicts are numerous and very interesting. Near Gallipolis, imbedded in sandstone, are not a few trees of different kinds; such as the sugar maple, and one such tree was found, that had been perforated, to all appearance, by the the common red headed wood pecker. A fragment of this tree, with the hole, for the bird's nest in it, was, many years since, brought to Chillicothe, and presented to Governor Edward Tiffin. Several trees, were discovered in the sand rock, about three miles above Gallipolis, imbedded in the rock which there stood, in a perpendicular mass. Among these trees, we discovered a black walnut, with its roots projecting beyond the rock in which the trunk lay imbedded. A black oak, was near it, projecting in the same manner. The mass of rock, appeared to be, eighty feet thick, where it was bare, uninjured and entire. In this mass on looking up at it, from its base, barks, leaves and branches of trees, appeared at different altitudes, all lying in the rock, as they were deposited with the sand, now become a hard sandstone. In a ravine, where the sandstone had been washed away, by a rivulet, a whole tree was found, by a man, with an axe, which he attempted, by a blow, to fasten in the tree, on which he had seated himself to rest awhile, after a fatiguing walk. The axe, struck out sparks of fire, rebounded and appraised him, that this tree, was no longer wood, but a hard sandstone. We saw, among the trees of Gallia county thus petrified, white birch, sycamore, walnut, oak, and others not recollected.

Near Zanesville, indeed, in the very town, where a canal was cut through the sand-rock, some twenty years since, there was found among other things a considerable number of tropical plants, such as the trunks, leaves, branches and roots of the

bamboo; the leaves, large, full, fresh, uninjured and entire, of cocoa-nut-bearing palm; the impressions of the tea leaf, of the cassia plant; of ferns, a great many; of the leaves and flowers of the bread-fruit tree, fully expanded, fresh and entire, and perfectly uninjured, in appearance, as if they were in full bloom. The bark, also, of the bread-fruit tree, much flattened and compressed, we discovered in shale. Our Ohio fossil date tree, is large, and has wide spreading branches. Such an one, exists on the north side of the bed lying in the bed of the Moxahala creek, not for below the stage road, nine miles, west of Zanesville, on the road to Lancaster, Ohio. The sandstone, in which these tropical plants are imbedded, contains considerable mica, and, resembles exactly, the sandstone, in which Mons. Brogniart found tropical plants, in France. The iron-stone, at Zanesville, is sometimes composed almost wholly of the roots, trunks and leaves of the bamboo. The sandstone contains the same tree and its parts. Small trees are often much flattened by pressure. The shale sometimes, contains barks of trees, between different layers of shale; the bark is now fossil coal; and these layers, alternate with each other, shale and coal.

FISHES, are said to have been found, though we saw but one fish, found at Zanesville, and that one was a pike. Fossil fishes are more frequently found, in sandstone, and we had one, several years, in our possession, it was a red horse, a species of perch, still living in our waters. That fish, perfect and entire, fell out of a mass of sandstone, which was split with wedges, by some stone masons, who were building a wall of a cellar, at Burlington, on the Ohio river. It was a year since, in Letton's museum, at Cincinnati. The shells of oysters, sometimes, unchanged, are found, in beds of sand, an ancient diluvian deposite, at Cincinnati. J. Dorfeuille's museum contains these shells. A few remarks, on the tropical plants, at Zanesville, seem to be called for before we leave this town and its environs. At this day, the bamboo, cassia, bread-fruit tree, cocoa-nut-bearing palm, &c. &c. are considered as tropical plants, and grow only in such a climate, or in one, that is not