Volume 8 / Part 1 — PART I. NOTES ON VIRGINIA. (continued 2)

Lerot. Dormouse 1.8

Taupe. Mole 1.2

Hampster .6

Zisel

Leming

Souris. Mouse .6

AMERICA

lb.

Tapir 534.

Elk, round horned †450.

Puma

Jaguar 218.

Cabiai 109.

Tamanoir 109.

Tammandua 65.4

Cougar of North-America 75.

Cougar of South-America 59.4

Ocelot

Pecari 46.3

Jaguaret 43.6

Alco

Lama

Paco

Paca 32.7

Serval

Sloth. Unau 27.25

Saricovienne

Kincajou

Tatou Kabassou 21.8

Urson. Urchin

Raccoon. Raton 16.5

Coati

Coendou 16.3

Sloth. Aï 13.

Sapajou Ouarini

Sapajou Coaita 9.8

Tatou Encubert

Tatou Apar

Tatou Cachiea 7.

Little Coendou 6.5

Opossum. Sarigu

Tapeti

Margay

Crabier

Agouti 4.2

Sapajou Saï 3.5

Tatou Cirquinçon

Tatou Tatouate 3.3

Mouffette Squash

Mouffette Chinche

Mouffette Conepate

Scunk

Mouffette. Zorilla

Whabus. Hare. Rabbit

Aperea

Akouchi

Ondatra. Muskrat

Pilori

Great gray squirrel †2.7

Fox squirrel of Virginia †2.625

Surikate 2.

Mink †2.

Sapajou. Sajou 1.8

Indian pig. Cochon d'Inde 1.6

Sapajou Saïmiri 1.5

Phalanger

Coqualain

Lesser gray squirrel †1.5

Black squirrel †1.5

oz.

Red squirrel 10.

Sagoin Saki

Sagoin Pinche

Sagoin Tamarin

Sagoin Ouistiti 4.4

Sagoin Marakine

Sagoin Mico

Cayopollin

Fourmillier

Marmose

Sarigue of Cayenne

Tucan

Red mole

Ground squirrel 4.

III. DOMESTICATED IN BOTH.

Europe. America.

lb. lb.

Cow 765. *2500

Horse *1366

Ass

Hog *1200

Sheep *125

Goat *80

Dog 67.6

Cat 7.

I have not inserted in the first table the Phoca,[9] nor leather-winged bat, because the one living half the year in the water, and the other being a winged animal, the individuals of each species may visit both continents.

Of the animals in the first table, Monsieur de Buffon himself informs us, [XXVII. 130, XXX. 213,] that the beaver, the otter, and shrew mouse, though of the same species, are larger in America than in Europe. This should therefore have corrected the generality of his expressions, XVIII. 145, and elsewhere, that the animals common to the two countries, are considerably less in America than in Europe, "et cela sans aucune exception." He tells us too, [Quadrup. VIII. 334, edit. Paris, 1777,] that on examining a bear from America, he remarked no difference, "dans la forme de cet ours d'Amerique comparé a celui d'Europe," but adds from Bartram's journal, that an American bear weighed four hundred pounds, English, equal to three hundred and sixty-seven pounds French; whereas we find the European bear examined by Mons. D'Aubenton, [XVII. 82,] weighed but one hundred and forty-one pounds French. That the palmated elk is larger in America than in Europe, we are informed by Kalm,[10] a naturalist, who visited the former by public appointment, for the express purpose of examining the subjects of natural history. In this fact Pennant concurs with him. [Barrington's Miscellanies.] The same Kalm tells us[11] that the black moose, or renne of America, is as high as a tall horse; and Catesby,[12] that it is about the bigness of a middle-sized ox. The same account of their size has been given me by many who have seen them. But Monsieur D'Aubenton says[13] that the renne of Europe is about the size of a red deer. The weasel is larger in America than in Europe, as may be seen by comparing its dimensions as reported by Monsieur D'Aubenton[14] and Kalm. The latter tells us,[15] that the lynx, badger, red fox, and flying squirrel, are the same in America as in Europe; by which expression I understand, they are the same in all material circumstances, in size as well as others; for if they were smaller, they would differ from the European. Our gray fox is, by Catesby's account,[16] little different in size and shape from the European fox. I presume he means the red fox of Europe, as does Kalm, where he says,[17] that in size "they do not quite come up to our foxes." For proceeding next to the red fox of America, he says, "they are entirely the same with the European sort;" which shows he had in view one European sort only, which was the red. So that the result of their testimony is, that the American gray fox is somewhat less than the European red; which is equally true of the gray fox of Europe, as may be seen by comparing the measures of the Count de Buffon and Monsieur D'Aubenton.[18] The white bear of America is as large as that of Europe. The bones of the mammoth which has been found in America, are as large as those found in the old world. It may be asked, why I insert the mammoth, as if it still existed? I ask in return, why I should omit it, as if it did not exist? Such is the economy of nature, that no instance can be produced, of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken. To add to this, the traditionary testimony of the Indians, that this animal still exists in the northern and western parts of America, would be adding the light of a taper to that of the meridian sun. Those parts still remain in their aboriginal state, unexplored and undisturbed by us, or by others for us. He may as well exist there now, as he did formerly where we find his bones. If he be a carnivorous animal, as some anatomists have conjectured, and the Indians affirm, his early retirement may be accounted for from the general destruction of the wild game by the Indians, which commences in the first instant of their connection with us, for the purpose of purchasing match-coats, hatchets, and firelocks, with their skins. There remain then the buffalo, red deer, fallow deer, wolf, roe, glutton, wild cat, monax, bison, hedgehog, marten, and water-rat, of the comparative sizes of which we have not sufficient testimony. It does not appear that Messieurs de Buffon and D'Aubenton have measured, weighed, or seen those of America. It is said of some of them, by some travellers, that they are smaller than the European. But who were these travellers? Have they not been men of a very different description from those who have laid open to us the other three quarters of the world? Was natural history the object of their travels? Did they measure or weigh the animals they speak of? or did they not judge of them by sight, or perhaps even from report only? Were they acquainted with the animals of their own country, with which they undertake to compare them? Have they not been so ignorant as often to mistake the species? A true answer to these questions would probably lighten their authority, so as to render it insufficient for the foundation of an hypothesis. How unripe we yet are, for an accurate comparison of the animals of the two countries, will appear from the work of Monsieur de Buffon. The ideas we should have formed of the sizes of some animals, from the information he had received at his first publications concerning them, are very different from what his subsequent communications give us. And indeed his candor in this can never be too much praised. One sentence of his book must do him immortal honor. "J'aime autant une personne qui me releve d'une erreur, qu'une autre qui m'apprend une verité, parce qu'en effet une erreur corrigée est une verité."[19] He seems to have thought the cabiai he first examined wanted little of its full growth. "Il n'etoit pas encore tout-a-fait adulte."[20] Yet he weighed but forty-six and a half pounds, and he found afterwards,[21] that these animals, when full grown, weigh one hundred pounds. He had supposed, from the examination of a jaguar,[22] said to be two years old, which weighed but sixteen pounds twelve ounces, that when he should have acquired his full growth, he would not be larger than a middle-sized dog. But a subsequent account[23] raises his weight to two hundred pounds. Further information will, doubtless, produce further corrections. The wonder is, not that there is yet something in this great work to correct, but that there is so little. The result of this view then is, that of twenty-six quadrupeds common to both countries, seven are said to be larger in America, seven of equal size, and twelve not sufficiently examined. So that the first table impeaches the first member of the assertion, that of the animals common to both countries, the American are smallest, "et cela sans aucune exception." It shows it is not just, in all the latitude in which its author has advanced it, and probably not to such a degree as to found a distinction between the two countries.

Proceeding to the second table, which arranges the animals found in one of the two countries only, Monsieur de Buffon observes, that the tapir, the elephant of America, is but of the size of a small cow. To preserve our comparison, I will add, that the wild boar, the elephant of Europe, is little more than half that size. I have made an elk with round or cylindrical horns an animal of America, and peculiar to it; because I have seen many of them myself, and more of their horns; and because I can say, from the best information, that, in Virginia, this kind of elk has abounded much, and still exists in smaller numbers; and I could never learn that the palmated kind had been seen here at all. I suppose this confined to the more northern latitudes.[24] I have made our hare or rabbit peculiar, believing it to be different from both the European animals of those denominations, and calling it therefore by its Algonquin name, Whabus, to keep it distinct from these. Kalm is of the same opinion.[25] I have enumerated the squirrels according to our own knowledge, derived from daily sight of them, because I am not able to reconcile with that the European appellations and descriptions. I have heard of other species, but they have never come within my own notice. These, I think, are the only instances in which I have departed from the authority of Monsieur de Buffon in the construction of this table. I take him for my ground work, because I think him the best informed of any naturalist who has ever written. The result is, that there are eighteen quadrupeds peculiar to Europe; more than four times as many, to wit, seventy four, peculiar to America; that the[26] first of these seventy-four weighs more than the whole column of Europeans; and consequently this second table disproves the second member of the assertion, that the animals peculiar to the new world are on a smaller scale, so far as that assertion relied on European animals for support; and it is in full opposition to the theory which makes the animal volume to depend on the circumstances of heat and moisture.

The third table comprehends those quadrupeds only which are domestic in both countries. That some of these, in some parts of America, have become less than their original stock, is doubtless true; and the reason is very obvious. In a thinly-peopled country, the spontaneous productions of the forests, and waste fields, are sufficient to support indifferently the domestic animals of the farmer, with a very little aid from him, in the severest and scarcest season. He therefore finds it more convenient to receive them from the hand of nature in that indifferent state, than to keep up their size by a care and nourishment which would cost him much labor. If, on this low fare, these animals dwindle, it is no more than they do in those parts of Europe where the poverty of the soil, or the poverty of the owner, reduces them to the same scanty subsistence. It is the uniform effect of one and the same cause, whether acting on this or that side of the globe. It would be erring, therefore, against this rule of philosophy, which teaches us to ascribe like effects to like causes, should we impute this diminution of size in America to any imbecility or want of uniformity in the operations of nature. It may be affirmed with truth, that, in those countries, and with those individuals in America, where necessity or curiosity has produced equal attention, as in Europe, to the nourishment of animals, the horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, of the one continent are as large as those of the other. There are particular instances, well attested, where individuals of this country have imported good breeders from England, and have improved their size by care in the course of some years. To make a fair comparison between the two countries, it will not answer to bring together animals of what might be deemed the middle or ordinary size of then species; because an error in judging of that middle or ordinary size, would vary the result of the comparison. Thus Mons. D'Aubenton[27] considers a horse of 4 feet five inches high and 400 lb. weight French, equal to 4 feet 8.6 inches and 436 lb. English, as a middle-sized horse. Such a one is deemed a small horse in America. The extremes must therefore be resorted to. The same anatomist[28] dissected a horse of 5 feet 9 inches height, French measure, equal to 6 feet 1.7 English. This is near 6 inches higher than any horse I have seen; and could it be supposed that I had seen the largest horses in America, the conclusion would be, that ours have diminished, or that we have bred from a smaller stock. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, where the climate is favorable to the production of grass, bullocks have been slaughtered which weighed 2,500, 2,200, and 2,100 lbs. nett; and those of 1,800 lbs. have been frequent. I have seen a hog[29] weigh 1,050 lbs. after the blood, bowels, and hair had been taken from him. Before he was killed, an attempt was made to weigh him with a pair of steel yards, graduated to 1,200 lbs., but he weighed more. Yet this hog was probably not within fifty generations of the European stock. I am well informed of another which weighed 1,100 lbs. gross. Asses have been still more neglected than any other domestic animal in America. They are neither fed or housed in the most rigorous season of the year. Yet they are larger than those measured by Mons. D'Aubenton,[30] of 3 feet 7¼ inches, 3 feet 4 inches, and 3 feet 2½ inches, the latter weighing only 215.8 lbs. These sizes, I suppose, have been produced by the same negligence in Europe, which has produced a like diminution here. Where care has been taken of them on that side of the water, they have been raised to a size bordering on that of the horse; not by the heat and dryness of the climate, but by good food and shelter. Goats have been also much neglected in America. Yet they are very prolific here, bearing twice or three times a year, and from one to five kids at a birth. Mons. de Buffon has been sensible of a difference in this circumstance in favor of America.[31] But what are their greatest weights, I cannot say. A large sheep here weighs 100 lbs. I observe Mons. D'Aubenton calls a ram of 62 lbs. one of the middle size.[32] But to say what are the extremes of growth in these and the other domestic animals of America, would require information of which no one individual is possessed. The weights actually known and stated in the third table preceding will suffice to show, that we may conclude on probable grounds, that, with equal food and care, the climate of America will preserve the races of domestic animals as large as the European stock from which they are derived; and, consequently, that the third member of Mons. de Buffon's assertion that the domestic animals are subject to degeneration from the climate of America, is as probably wrong as the first and second were certainly so.

That the last part of it is erroneous, which affirms that the species of American quadrupeds are comparatively few, is evident from the tables taken together. By these it appears that there are an hundred species aboriginal in America. Mons. de Buffon supposes about double that number existing on the whole earth.[33] Of these Europe, Asia, and Africa, furnish suppose one hundred and twenty-six; that is, the twenty-six common to Europe and America, and about one hundred which are not in America at all. The American species, then, are to those of the rest of the earth, as one hundred to one hundred and twenty-six, or four to five. But the residue of the earth being double the extent of America, the exact proportion would have been but as four to eight.

Hitherto I have considered this hypothesis as applied to brute animals only, and not in its extension to the man of America, whether aboriginal or transplanted. It is the opinion of Mons. de Buffon that the former furnishes no exception to it.[34]

"Quoique le sauvage du nouveau monde soit à peu près de même stature que l'homme de notre monde, cela ne suffit pas pour qu'il puisse faire une exception au fait général du rapetissement de la nature vivante dans tout ce continent; le sauvage est foible et petit par les organes de la génération; il n'a ni poil, ni barbe, and nulle ardeur pour sa femelle. Quoique plus léger que l'Européen, parce qu'il a plus d'habitude à courir, il est cependant beaucoup moins fort de corps; il est aussi bien moins sensible, et cependant plus craintif et plus lâche; il n'a nulle vivacité, nulle activité dans l'ame; celle du corps est moins un exercise, un mouvement volontaire qu'une nécessité d'action causée par le besoin; ôtez lui la faim et la soif, vous détruirez en même tems le principe actif de tous ses mouvemens; il demeurera stupidement en repos sur ses jambes ou couché pendant des jours entiers. Il ne faut pas aller chercher plus loin à cause de la vie dispersée des sauvages et de leur éloignement pour la société; la plus précieuse étincelle du feu de la nature leur a été refusée; ils manquent d'ardeur pour leur femelle, et par consequent d'amour pour leur semblables; ne connoissant pas l'attachment le plus vif, le plus tendre de tous, leurs autres sentimens de ce genre, sont froids et languissans; ils aiment foiblement leurs pères et leurs enfans; la société la plus intime de toutes, celle de la même famille, n'a donc chez eux que de foibles liens; la société d'une famille à l'autre n'en a point de tout; dès lors nulle réunion, nulle république, nulle état social. La physique de l'amour fait chez eux le moral des mœurs; leur cœur est glacé, leur societé et leur empire dur. Ils ne regardent leurs femmes que comme des servantes de peine ou des bêtes de somme qu'ils chargent, sans ménagement, du fardeau de leur chasse, et qu'ils forcent, sans pitié, sans reconnoissance, à des ouvrages qui souvent sont au dessus de leurs forces; ils n'ont que peu d'enfans; ils en out peu de soin; tout se ressent de leur premier defaut; ils sont indifférents parce qu'ils sont peu puissants, et cette indifference pour le sexe est la tache originelle qui flétrit la nature, qui l'empeche de s'épanouir, et qui detruisant les germes de la vie, coupe en même temps la racine de société. L'homme ne fait donc point d'exception ici. La nature en lui refusant les puissances de l'amour l'a plus maltraité et plus rapetissé qu'aucun des animaux."

An afflicting picture, indeed, which for the honor of human nature, I am glad to believe has no original. Of the Indian of South America I know nothing; for I would not honor with the appellation of knowledge, what I derive from the fables published of them. These I believe to be just as true as the fables of Æsop. This belief is founded on what I have seen of man, white, red, and black, and what has been written of him by authors, enlightened themselves, and writing among an enlightened people. The Indian of North America being more within our reach, I can speak of him somewhat from my own knowledge, but more from the information of others better acquainted with him, and on whose truth and judgment I can rely. From these sources I am able to say, in contradiction to this representation, that he is neither more defective in ardor, nor more impotent with his female, than the white reduced to the same diet and exercise; that he is brave, when an enterprise depends on bravery; education with him making the point of honor consist in the destruction of an enemy by stratagem, and in the preservation of his own person free from injury; or, perhaps, this is nature, while it is education which teaches us to[35] honor force more than finesse; that he will defend himself against a host of enemies, always choosing to be killed, rather than to surrender,[36] though it be to the whites, who he knows will treat him well; that in other situations, also, he meets death with more deliberation, and endures tortures with a firmness unknown almost to religious enthusiasm with us; that he is affectionate to his children, careful of them, and indulgent in the extreme; that his affections comprehend his other connections, weakening, as with us, from circle to circle, as they recede from the centre; that his friendships are strong and faithful to the uttermost[37] extremity; that his sensibility is keen, even the warriors weeping most bitterly on the loss of their children, though in general they endeavor to appear superior to human events; that his vivacity and activity of mind is equal to ours in the same situation; hence his eagerness for hunting, and for games of chance. The women are submitted to unjust drudgery. This I believe is the case with every barbarous people. With such, force is law. The stronger sex imposes on the weaker. It is civilization alone which replaces women in the enjoyment of their natural equality. That first teaches us to subdue the selfish passions, and to respect those rights in others which we value in ourselves. Were we in equal barbarism, our females would be equal drudges. The man with them is less strong than with us, but their women stronger than ours; and both for the same obvious reason; because our man and their woman is habituated to labor, and formed by it. With both races the sex which is indulged with ease is the least athletic. An Indian man is small in the hand and wrist, for the same reason for which a sailor is large and strong in the arms and shoulders, and a porter in the legs and thighs. They raise fewer children than we do. The causes of this are to be found, not in a difference of nature, but of circumstance. The women very frequently attending the men in their parties of war and of hunting, child-bearing becomes extremely inconvenient to them. It is said, therefore, that they have learned the practice of procuring abortion by the use of some vegetable; and that it even extends to prevent conception for a considerable time after. During these parties they are exposed to numerous hazards, to excessive exertions, to the greatest extremities of hunger. Even at their homes the nation depends for food, through a certain part of every year, on the gleanings of the forest; that is, they experience a famine once in every year. With all animals, if the female be badly fed, or not fed at all, her young perish; and if both male and female be reduced to like want, generation becomes less active, less productive. To the obstacles, then, of want and hazard, which nature has opposed to the multiplication of wild animals, for the purpose of restraining their numbers within certain bounds, those of labor and of voluntary abortion are added with the Indian. No wonder, then, if they multiply less than we do. Where food is regularly supplied, a single farm will show more of cattle, than a whole country of forests can of buffaloes. The same Indian women, when married to white traders, who feed them and their children plentifully and regularly, who exempt them from excessive drudgery, who keep them stationary and unexposed to accident, produce and raise as many children as the white women. Instances are known, under these circumstances, of their rearing a dozen children. An inhuman practice once prevailed in this country, of making slaves of the Indians. It is a fact well known with us, that the Indian women so enslaved produced and raised as numerous families as either the whites or blacks among whom they lived. It has been said that Indians have less hair than the whites, except on the head. But this is a fact of which fair proof can scarcely be had. With them it is disgraceful to be hairy on the body. They say it likens them to hogs. They therefore pluck the hair as fast as it appears. But the traders who marry their women, and prevail on them to discontinue this practice, say, that nature is the same with them as with the whites. Nor, if the fact be true, is the consequence necessary which has been drawn from it. Negroes have notoriously less hair than the whites; yet they are more ardent. But if cold and moisture be the agents of nature for diminishing the races of animals, how comes she all at once to suspend their operation as to the physical man of the new world, whom the Count acknowledges to be "à peu près de même stature que l'homme de notre monde," and to let loose their influence on his moral faculties? How has this "combination of the elements and other physical causes, so contrary to the enlargement of animal nature in this new world, these obstacles to the development and formation of great germs,"[38] been arrested and suspended, so as to permit the human body to acquire its just dimensions, and by what inconceivable process has their action been directed on his mind alone? To judge of the truth of this, to form a just estimate of their genius and mental powers, more facts are wanting, and great allowance to be made for those circumstances of their situation which call for a display of particular talents only. This done, we shall probably find that they are formed in mind as well as in body, on the same module with the[39] "Homo sapiens Europæus." The principles of their society forbidding all compulsion, they are to be led to duty and to enterprise by personal influence and persuasion. Hence eloquence in council, bravery and address in war, become the foundations of all consequence with them. To these acquirements all their faculties are directed. Of their bravery and address in war we have multiplied proofs, because we have been the subjects on which they were exercised. Of their eminence in oratory we have fewer examples, because it is displayed chiefly in their own councils. Some, however, we have, of very superior lustre. I may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage, superior to the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to Lord Dunmore, then governor of this State. And as a testimony of their talents in this line, I beg leave to introduce it, first stating the incidents necessary for understanding it.

In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery was committed by some Indians on certain land-adventurers on the river Ohio. The whites in that quarter, according to their custom, undertook to punish this outrage in a summary way. Captain Michael Cresap, and a certain Daniel Greathouse, leading on these parties, surprised, at different times, travelling and hunting parties of the Indians, having their women and children with them, and murdered many. Among these were unfortunately the family of Logan, a chief celebrated in peace and war, and long distinguished as the friend of the whites. This unworthy return provoked his vengeance. He accordingly signalized himself in the war which ensued. In the autumn of the same year a decisive battle was fought at the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, between the collected forces of the Shawanese, Mingoes and Delawares, and a detachment of the Virginia militia. The Indians were defeated and sued for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants. But lest the sincerity of a treaty should be disturbed, from which so distinguished a chief absented himself, he sent, by a messenger, the following speech, to be delivered to Lord Dunmore.

"I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, "Logan is the friend of white men." I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it: I have killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance: for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?—Not one."[40]

Before we condemn the Indians of this continent as wanting genius, we must consider that letters have not yet been introduced among them. Were we to compare them in their present state with the Europeans, north of the Alps, when the Roman arms and arts first crossed those mountains, the comparison would be unequal, because, at that time, those parts of Europe were swarming with numbers; because numbers produce emulation, and multiply the chances of improvement, and one improvement begets another. Yet I may safely ask, how many good poets, how many able mathematicians, how many great inventors in arts or sciences, had Europe, north of the Alps, then produced? And it was sixteen centuries after this before a Newton could be formed. I do not mean to deny that there are varieties in the race of man, distinguished by their powers both of body and mind. I believe there are, as I see to be the case in the races of other animals. I only mean to suggest a doubt, whether the bulk and faculties of animals depend on the side of the Atlantic on which their food happens to grow, or which furnishes the elements of which they are compounded? Whether nature has enlisted herself as a Cis- or Trans-Atlantic partisan? I am induced to suspect there has been more eloquence than sound reasoning displayed in support of this theory; that it is one of those cases where the judgment has been seduced by a glowing pen; and whilst I render every tribute of honor and esteem to the celebrated zoologist, who has added, and is still adding, so many precious things to the treasures of science, I must doubt whether in this instance he has not cherished error also, by lending her for a moment his vivid imagination and bewitching language. (4.)

So far the Count de Buffon has carried this new theory of the tendency of nature to belittle her productions on this side the Atlantic. Its application to the race of whites transplanted from Europe, remained for the Abbé Raynal. "On doit etre etonné (he says) que l'Amerique n'ait pas encore produit un bon poëte, un habile mathematicien, un homme de genie dans un seul art, ou seule science." Hist. Philos. p. 92, ed. Maestricht, 1774. "America has not yet produced one good poet." When we shall have existed as a people as long as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, the French a Racine and Voltaire, the English a Shakespeare and Milton, should this reproach be still true, we will inquire from what unfriendly causes it has proceeded, that the other countries of Europe and quarters of the earth shall not have inscribed any name in the roll of poets.[41] But neither has America produced "one able mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or a single science." In war we have produced a Washington, whose memory will be adored while liberty shall have votaries, whose name shall triumph over time, and will in future ages assume its just station among the most celebrated worthies of the world, when that wretched philosophy shall be forgotten which would have arranged him among the degeneracies of nature. In physics we have produced a Franklin, than whom no one of the present age has made more important discoveries, nor has enriched philosophy with more, or more ingenious solutions of the phenomena of nature. We have supposed Mr. Rittenhouse second to no astronomer living; that in genius he must be the first, because he is self-taught. As an artist he has exhibited as great a proof of mechanical genius as the world has ever produced. He has not indeed made a world; but he has by imitation approached nearer its Maker than any man who has lived from the creation to this day.[42] As in philosophy and war, so in government, in oratory, in painting, in the plastic art, we might show that America, though but a child of yesterday, has already given hopeful proofs of genius, as well as of the nobler kinds, which arouse the best feelings of man, which call him into action, which substantiate his freedom, and conduct him to happiness, as of the subordinate, which serve to amuse him only. We therefore suppose, that this reproach is as unjust as it is unkind: and that, of the geniuses which adorn the present age, America contributes its full share. For comparing it with those countries where genius is most cultivated, where are the most excellent models for art, and scaffoldings for the attainment of science, as France and England for instance, we calculate thus: The United States contains three millions of inhabitants; France twenty millions; and the British islands ten. We produce a Washington, a Franklin, a Rittenhouse. France then should have half a dozen in each of these lines, and Great Britain half that number, equally eminent. It may be true that France has; we are but just becoming acquainted with her, and our acquaintance so far gives us high ideas of the genius of her inhabitants. It would be injuring too many of them to name particularly a Voltaire, a Buffon, the constellation of Encyclopedists, the Abbé Raynal himself, &c. &c. We, therefore, have reason to believe she can produce her full quota of genius. The present war having so long cut off all communication with Great Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate of the state of science in that country. The spirit in which she wages war, is the only sample before our eyes, and that does not seem the legitimate offspring either of science or of civilization. The sun of her glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her philosophy has crossed the channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that awful dissolution whose issue is not given human foresight to scan.[43]

Having given a sketch of our minerals, vegetables, and quadrupeds, and being led by a proud theory to make a comparison of the latter with those of Europe, and to extend it to the man of America, both aboriginal and emigrant, I will proceed to the remaining articles comprehended under the present query.

Between ninety and a hundred of our birds have been described by Catesby. His drawings are better as to form and attitude than coloring, which is generally too high. They are the following:

BIRDS OF VIRGINIA.

Linnæan Designation. Catesby's Designation. Popular Names. Buffon oiseaux.

Lanius tyrannus Muscicapa coronâ rubrâ 1.55 Tyrant. Field martin 8.398

Vultur aura Buteo specie Gallo pavonis 1.6 Turkey buzzard 1.246

Falco leucocephalus Aquila capite albo 1.1 Bald eagle 1.138

Falco sparverius Accipiter minor 1.5 Little hawk. Sparrow hawk

Falco columbarious Accipiter palumbarius 1.3 Pigeon hawk 1.338

Falco furcatus Accipiter caudâ furcatâ 1.4 Forked tail hawk 1.286.312

Accipiter piscatorius 1.2 Fishing hawk 1.199

Strix asio Noctua aurita minor 1.7 Little owl 1.141

Psittacus Caroliniensis Psittacus Carolinensus 1.11 Parrot of Carolina. Parroquet 11.383

Corvus cristatus Pica glandaria, cærulea, cristata 1.1 Blue jay 5.164

Oriolus Baltimore Icterus ex aureo nigroque varius 1.48 Baltimore bird 5.318

Oriolus spurius Icterus minor 1.49 Bastard Baltimore 5.321

Gracula quiscula Monedula purpurea 1.12 Purple jackdaw. Crow blackbird 5.134

Cuculus Americanus Cuculus Caroliniensis 1.9 Carolina cuckow 12.62

Picus principalis Picus maximus rostro albo 1.16 White bill woodpecker 13.69

Picus pileatus Picus niger maximus, capite rubro 1.17 Larger red-crested woodpecker 13.72

Picus erythrocephalus Picus capite toto rubro 1.20 Red headed woodpecker. 13.83

Picus auratus Picus major alis aureis 1.18 Gold winged woodpecker. Yucker 13.59

Picus Carolinus Picus ventrerubro 1.19 Red-bellied woodpecker 13.105

Picus pubescens Picus varius minimus 1.21 Smallest spotted woodpecker 13.113

Picus villosus Picus medius quasi-villosus 1.19 Hairy woodpecker. Spec. woodpecker 13.111

Picus varius Picus varius minor ventre luteo 1.21 Yellow-bellied woodpecker. 13.115

Sitta Europæa {Sitta capite nigro 1.22 Nuthatch 10.213

{Sitta capite fusco 1.22 Small Nuthatch 10.214

Alcedo alcyon Ispida 1.69 Kingfisher 13.310

Certhia pinus Parus Americanus lutescens 1.61 Pine-Creeper 9.433

Trochilus colubris Mellivora avis Caroliniensis 1.65 Humming bird 11.16

Anas Canadensis Anser Canadensis 1.92 Wild goose 17.122

Anas bucephala Anas minor purpureo capite 1.95 Buffel's-head duck 17.356

Anas rustica Anas minor ex albo & fusco vario 1.98 Little brown duck 17.413

Anas discors a Querquedula Americana variegata 1.10 White face teal 17.403

Anas discors b Querquedula Americana fusca 1.99 Blue wing teal 17.405

Anas sponsa Anas Americanus cristatus elegans 1.97 Summer duck 17.351

Anas Americanus lato rostro 1.96 Blue wing shoveler 17.275

Mergus cucullatus Anas cristatus 1.94 Round crested duck 15.437

Columbus podiceps Prodicipes minor rostro vario 1.91 Pied bill dopchick 15.383

Ardea Herodias Ardea cristata maxima Americana 3.10 Largest crested heron 14.113

Ardea violacea Ardea stellaris cristata Americana 1.79 Crested bittern 14.134

Ardea cærulea Ardea cærulea 1.76 Blue heron. Crane 14.131

Ardea virescens Ardea stellaris minima 1.80 Small bittern 14.142

Ardea æquinoctialis Ardea alba minor Caroliniensis 1.77 Little white heron 14.136

Ardea stellaris Americana 1.78 Brown bittern. Indian hen 14.175

Tantalus loculator Pelicanus Americanus 1.81 Wood pelican 13.403

Tantalus alber Numenius albus 1.82 White curlew 15.62

Tantalus fuscus Numenius fuscus 1.83 Brown curlew 15.64

Charadrius vociferus Pluvialis vociferus 1.71 Chattering plover. Kildee 15.151

Hæmatopus ostralegus Hæmatopus 1.85 Oyster-catcher 15.185

Rallus Virginianus Gallinula Americana 1.70 Soree. Ral-bird 15.256

Meleagris Gallopavo Gallopavo Sylvestris xliv. Wild Turkey 3.187.229

Tetrao Virginianus Perdix Sylvestris Virginiana 3.12 American partridge. American quail 4.237

Urgallus minor, or kind of Lagopus 3.1 Pheasant. Mountain partridge 3.409

Columba passerina Turtur minimus guttatus 1.26 Ground dove 4.404

Columba migratorio Palumbus migratorius 1.23 Pigeon of passage. Wild pigeon 4.351

Columba Caroliniensis Turtur Caroliniensis 1.24 Turtle. Turtle dove 4.401

Alauda alpestris Alauda gutture flavo 1.32 Lark. Sky lark 9.79

Alauda magna Alauda magna 1.33 Field lark. Large lark 6.59

Sturnus niger alis supernis rubentibus 1.13 Red wing. Starling. Marsh blackbird 5.293

Turdus migratorius Turdus pilaris migratorius 1.29 Fieldfare of Carolina. Robin redbreast {5.426 {9.257

Turdus rufus Turdus rufus 1.28 Fox colored thrush. Thrush 5.449

Turdus polyglottos Turdus minor cinereo albus non maculatus 1.27 Mocking bird 5.451

Turdus minimus 1.31 Little thrush 5.400

Ampelis garrulus b Garrulus Caroliniensis 1.46 Chatterer 6.162

Loxia Cardinalis Coccothraustes rubra 1.38 Red bird. Virginia nightingale 6.185

Loxia Cærulea Coccothraustes cærulea 1.39 Blue gross beak 8.125

Emberiza hyemalis Passer nivalis 1.36 Snow bird 8.47

Emberiza Oryzivora Hortulanus Caroliniensis 1.14 Rice Bird 8.49

Emberiza Ciris Fringilla tricolor 1.44 Painted finch 7.247

Tanagra cyanea Linaria cærulea 1.45 Blue linnet 7.122

Passerculus 1.35 Little sparrow 7.120

Passer fuscus 1.34 Cowpen bird 7.196

Fringilla erythrophthalma Passer niger oculis rubris 1.34 Towhe bird 7.201

Fringilla tristis Carduelis Americanus 1.43 American goldfinch. Lettuce bird 7.297

Fringilla purpurea 1.41 Purple finch 8.129

Muscicapa crinita Muscicapa cristata ventre luteo 1.52 Crested flycatcher 8.379

Muscicapa rubra Muscicapa rubra 1.56 Summer red bird 8.410

Muscicapa ruticilla Ruticilla Americana 1.67 Red start { 8.349 { 9.259

Muscicapa Caroliniensis Muscicapa vertice nigro 1.66 Cat bird 8.372

Muscicapa nigrescens 1.53 Black cap flycatcher 8.341

Muscicapa fusca 1.54 Little brown flycatcher 8.344

Muscicapa oculis rubris 1.54 Red-eyed flycatcher 8.337

Motacilla Sialis Rubicula Americana cærulea 1.47 Blue bird 9.308

Motacilla regulus Regulus cristatus 3.13 Wren 10.58

Motacilla trochilus b Oenanthe Americana pectore luteo 1.50 Yellow breasted chat 6.96

Parus bicolor Parus cristatus 1.57 Crested titmouse 10.181

Parus Americanus Parus fringillaris 1.64 Finch creeper 9.442

Parus Virginianus Parus uropygeo luteo 1.58 Yellow rump 10.184

Parus cucullo nigro 1.60 Hooded titmouse 10.183

Parus Americanus gutture luteo 1.62 Yellow throated creeper

Parus Caroliniensis 1.63 Yellow titmouse 9.431

Hirundo Pelasgia Hirundo cauda aculeata Americana 3.8 American swallow 12.478

Hirundo purpurea Hirundo purpurea 1.51 Purple marten. House marten 12.445

Caprimulgus Europæus a Caprimulgus 1.8 Goatsucker. Great bat 12.243

Caprimulgus Europæus b Caprimulgus minor Americanus 3.16 Whip poor Will 12.246

Besides these, we have,

The Royston crow. Corvus cornix.

Crane. Ardea Canadensis.

House swallow, Hirundo rustica.

Ground swallow. Hirundo riparia.

Greatest gray eagle.

Smaller turkey buzzard, with a feathered head.

Greatest owl, or night hawk.

Wet hawk, which feeds flying.

Raven.

Water Pelican of the Mississippi, whose pouch holds a peck.

Swan.

Loon.

Cormorant.

Duck and mallard.

Widgeon.

Sheldrach, or Canvas back.

The Black head.

Ballcoot.

Sprigtail.

Didapper, or dopehick.

Spoon-billed duck.

Water-witch.

Water-pheasant.

Mow-bird.

Blue Peter.

Water Wagtail.

Yellow-legged Snipe.

Squatting Snipe.

Small Plover.

Whistling Plover.

Woodcock.

Red bird, with black head, wings and tail.

And doubtless many others which have not yet been described and classed.

To this catalogue of our indigenous animals, I will add a short account of an anomaly of nature, taking place sometimes in the race of negroes brought from Africa, who, though black themselves, have, in rare instances, white children, called Albinos. I have known four of these myself, and have faithful accounts of three others. The circumstances in which all the individuals agree are these. They are of a pallid cadaverous white, untinged with red, without any colored spots or seams; their hair of the same kind of white, short, coarse, and curled as is that of the negro; all of them well formed, strong, healthy, perfect in their senses, except that of sight, and born of parents who had no mixture of white blood. Three of these Albinos were sisters, having two other full sisters, who were black. The youngest of the three was killed by lightning, at twelve years of age. The eldest died at about 27 years of age, in child-bed, with her second child. The middle one is now alive, in health, and has issue, as the eldest had, by a black man, which issue was black. They are uncommonly shrewd, quick in their apprehensions and in reply. Their eyes are in a perpetual tremulous vibration, very weak, and much affected by the sun; but they see much better in the night than we do. They are of the property of Colonel Skipwith, of Cumberland. The fourth is a negro woman, whose parents came from Guinea, and had three other children, who were of their own color. She is freckled, her eye-sight so weak that she is obliged to wear a bonnet in the summer; but it is better in the night than day. She had an Albino child by a black man. It died at the age of a few weeks. These were the property of Col. Carter, of Albemarle. A sixth instance is a women the property of a Mr. Butler, near Petersburg. She is stout and robust, has issue a daughter, jet black, by a black man. I am not informed as to her eye-sight. The seventh instance is of a male belonging to a Mr. Lee of Cumberland. His eyes are tremulous and weak. He is tall of stature, and now advanced in years. He is the only male of the Albinos which have come within my information. Whatever be the cause of the disease in the skin, or in its coloring matter, which produces this change, it seems more incident to the female than male sex. To these I may add the mention of a negro man within my own knowledge, born black, and of black parents; on whose chin, when a boy, a white spot appeared. This continued to increase till he became a man, by which time it had extended over his chin, lips, one cheek, the under jaw, and neck on that side. It is of the Albino white, without any mixture of red, and has for several years been stationary. He is robust and healthy, and the change of color was not accompanied with any sensible disease, either general or topical.

Of our fish and insects there has been nothing like a full description or collection. More of them are described in Catesby than in any other work. Many also are to be found in Sir Hans Sloane's Jamaica, as being common to that and this country. The honey-bee is not a native of our continent. Marcgrave, indeed, mentions a species of honey-bee in Brazil. But this has no sting, and is therefore different from the one we have, which resembles perfectly that of Europe. The Indians concur with us in the tradition that it was brought from Europe; but when, and by whom, we know not. The bees have generally extended themselves into the country, a little in advance of the white settlers. The Indians, therefore, call them the white man's fly, and consider their approach as indicating the approach of the settlements of the whites. A question here occurs, How far northwardly have these insects been found? That they are unknown in Lapland, I infer from Scheffer's information, that the Laplanders eat the pine bark, prepared in a certain way, instead of those things sweetened with sugar. "Hoc comedunt pro rebus saccharo conditis." Scheff. Lapp. c. 18. Certainly if they had honey, it would be a better substitute for sugar than any preparation of the pine bark. Kalm tells us[44] the honey-bee cannot live through the winter in Canada. They furnish then an additional fact first observed by the Count de Buffon, and which has thrown such a blaze of light on the field of natural history, that no animals are found in both continents, but those which are able to bear the cold of those regions where they probably join.

QUERY VII.

A notice of all that can increase the progress of Human Knowledge?

Under the latitude of this query, I will presume it not improper nor unacceptable to furnish some data for estimating the climate of Virginia. Journals of observations on the quantity of rain, and degree of heat, being lengthy, confused, and too minute to produce general and distinct ideas, I have taken five years' observations, to wit, from 1772 to 1777, made in Williamsburg and its neighborhood, have reduced them to an average for every month in the year, and stated those averages in the following table, adding an analytical view of the winds during the same period.

The rains of every month, (as of January, for instance,) through the whole period of years, were added separately, and an average drawn from them. The coolest and warmest point of the same day in each year of the period, were added separately, and an average of the greatest cold and greatest heat of that day was formed. From the averages of every day in the month, a general average was formed. The point from which the wind blew, was observed two or three times in every day. These observations, in the month of January, for instance, through the whole period, amounted to three hundred and thirty-seven. At seventy-three of these, the wind was from the north; forty-seven from the north-east, &c. So that it will be easy to see in what proportion each wind usually prevails in each month; or, taking the whole year, the total of observations through the whole period having been three thousand six hundred and ninety-eight, it will be observed that six hundred and eleven of them were from the north, five hundred and fifty-eight from the north-east, &c.

Fall of rain, etc., in inches. Least and greatest daily heat, by Fahrenheit's thermometer. WINDS.

N. N.E. E. S.E. S. S.W. W. N.W. Total.

Jan. 3.192 38½ to 44 73 47 32 10 11 78 40 46 337

Feb. 2.049 41 .. 47½ 61 52 24 11 4 63 30 31 276

March 3.95 48 .. 54½ 49 44 38 28 14 83 29 33 318

April 3.68 56 .. 62½ 35 44 54 19 9 58 18 20 257

May 2.871 63 .. 70½ 27 36 62 23 7 74 32 20 281

June 3.751 71½ .. 78¼ 22 34 43 24 13 81 25 25 267

July 4.497 77 .. 82½ 41 44 75 15 7 95 32 19 328

August 9.153 76¼ .. 81 43 52 40 30 9 103 27 30 334

Sept. 4.761 69½ .. 74¼ 70 60 51 18 10 81 18 37 345

Oct. 3.633 61¼ .. 66½ 52 77 64 15 6 56 23 34 327

Nov. 2.617 47¾ .. 53½ 74 21 20 14 9 63 35 58 294

Dec. 2.877 43 .. 48¾ 64 37 18 16 10 91 42 56 334

Total. 47.038 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. 611 548 521 223 109 926 351 409 3,698

Though by this table it appears we have on an average forty-seven inches of rain annually, which is considerably more than usually falls in Europe, yet from the information I have collected, I suppose we have a much greater proportion of sunshine here than there. Perhaps it will be found, there are twice as many cloudy days in the middle parts of Europe, as in the United States of America. I mention the middle parts of Europe, because my information does not extend to its northern or southern parts.

In an extensive country, it will of course be expected that the climate is not the same in all its parts. It is remarkable, that proceeding on the same parallel of latitude westwardly, the climate becomes colder in like manner as when you proceed northwardly. This continues to be the case till you attain the summit of the Alleghany, which is the highest land between the ocean and the Mississippi. From thence, descending in the same latitude to the Mississippi, the change reverses; and, if we may believe travellers, it becomes warmer there than it is in the same latitude on the sea-side. Their testimony is strengthened by the vegetables and animals which subsist and multiply there naturally, and do not on the sea-coast. Thus Catalpas grow spontaneously on the Mississippi, as far as the latitude of 37°, and reeds as far as 38°. Parroquets even winter on the Scioto, in the 39th degree of latitude. In the summer of 1779, when the thermometer was at 90° at Monticello, and 96° at Williamsburg, it was 110° at Kaskaskia. Perhaps the mountain, which overhangs this village on the north side, may, by its reflection, have contributed somewhat to produce this heat. The difference of temperature of the air at the sea-coast, or on the Chesapeake bay, and at the Alleghany, has not been ascertained; but contemporary observations, made at Williamsburg, or in its neighborhood, and at Monticello, which is on the most eastern ridge of the mountains, called the South-West, where they are intersected by the Rivanna, have furnished a ratio by which that difference may in some degree be conjectured. These observations make the difference between Williamsburg and the nearest mountains, at the position before mentioned, to be on an average 6⅓° of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Some allowance, however, is to be made for the difference of latitude between these two places, the latter being 38° 8' 17", which is 52' 22" north of the former. By contemporary observations of between five and six weeks, the averaged and almost unvaried difference of the height of mercury in the barometer, at those two places, was .784 of an inch, the atmosphere at Monticello being so much the lightest, that is to say, about one-thirty-seventh of its whole weight. It should be observed, however, that the hill of Monticello is of five hundred feet perpendicular height above the river which washes its base. This position being nearly central between our northern and southern boundaries, and between the bay and Alleghany, may be considered as furnishing the best average of the temperature of our climate. Williamsburg is much too near the south-eastern corner to give a fair idea of our general temperature.

But a more remarkable difference is in the winds which prevail in the different parts of the country. The following table exhibits a comparative view of the winds prevailing at Williamsburg, and at Monticello. It is formed by reducing nine months' observations at Monticello to four principal points, to wit, the north-east, south-east, south-west, and north-west; these points being perpendicular to, or parallel with our coast, mountains, and rivers; and by reducing in like manner, an equal number of observations, to wit, four hundred and twenty-one from the preceding table of winds at Williamsburg, taking them proportionably from every point:

N.E. S.E. S.W. N.W. Total.

Williamsburg 127 61 132 101 421

Monticello 32 91 126 172 421

By this it may be seen that the south-west wind prevails equally at both places; that the north-east is, next to this, the principal wind towards the sea-coast, and the north-west is the predominant wind at the mountains. The difference between these two winds to sensation, and in fact, is very great. The north-east is loaded with vapor, insomuch, that the salt-makers have found that their crystals would not shoot while that blows; it brings a distressing chill, and is heavy and oppressive to the spirits. The north-west is dry, cooling, elastic, and animating. The eastern and south-eastern breezes come on generally in the afternoon. They have advanced into the country very sensibly within the memory of people now living. They formerly did not penetrate far above Williamsburg. They are now frequent at Richmond, and every now and then reach the mountains. They deposit most of their moisture, however, before they get that far. As the lands become more cleared, it is probable they will extend still further westward.

Going out into the open air, in the temperate, and warm months of the year, we often meet with bodies of warm air, which passing by us in two or three seconds, do not afford time to the most sensible thermometer to seize their temperature. Judging from my feelings only, I think they approach the ordinary heat of the human body. Some of them, perhaps, go a little beyond it. They are of about twenty to thirty feet diameter horizontally. Of their height we have no experience, but probably they are globular volumes wafted or rolled along with the wind. But whence taken, where found, or how generated? They are not to be ascribed to volcanos, because we have none. They do not happen in the winter when the farmers kindle large fires in clearing up their grounds. They are not confined to the spring season, when we have fires which traverse whole counties, consuming the leaves which have fallen from the trees. And they are too frequent and general to be ascribed to accidental fires. I am persuaded their cause must be sought for in the atmosphere itself, to aid us in which I know but of these constant circumstances: a dry air; a temperature as warm, at least, as that of the spring or autumn; and a moderate current of wind. They are most frequent about sun-set; rare in the middle parts of the day; and I do not recollect having ever met with them in the morning.

The variation in the weight of our atmosphere, as indicated by the barometer, is not equal to two inches of mercury. During twelve months' observation at Williamsburg, the extremes 29 and 30.86 inches, the difference being 1.86 of an inch; and in nine months, during which the height of the mercury was noted at Monticello, the extremes were 28.48 and 29.69 inches, the variation being 1.21 of an inch. A gentleman, who has observed his barometer many years, assures me it has never varied two inches. Contemporary observations made at Monticello and Williamsburg, proved the variations in the weight of air to be simultaneous and corresponding in these two places.

Our changes from heat to cold, and cold to heat, are very sudden and great. The mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer has been known to descend from 92° to 47° in thirteen hours.

It was taken for granted, that the preceding table of average heat will not give a false idea on this subject, as it proposes to state only the ordinary heat and cold of each month, and not those which are extraordinary. At Williamsburg, in August 1766, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer was at 98°, corresponding with 29⅓ of Reaumur. At the same place in January 1780, it was 6°, corresponding with 11½ below zero of Reaumur. I believe[45] these may be considered to be nearly the extremes of heat and cold in that part of the country. The latter may most certainly, as that time York river, at Yorktown, was frozen over, so that people walked across it; a circumstance which proves it to have been colder than the winter of 1740, 1741, usually called the cold winter, when York river did not freeze over at that place. In the same season of 1780, Chesapeake bay was solid, from its head to the mouth of Potomac. At Annapolis, where it is 5¼ miles over between the nearest points of land, the ice was from five to seven inches thick quite across, so that loaded carriages went over on it. Those, our extremes of heat and cold, of 6° and 98°, were indeed very distressing to us, and were thought to put the extent of the human constitution to considerable trial. Yet a Siberian would have considered them as scarcely a sensible variation. At Jenniseitz in that country, in latitude 58° 27', we are told that the cold in 1735 sunk the mercury by Fahrenheit's scale to 126° below nothing; and the inhabitants of the same country use stove rooms two or three times a week, in which they stay two hours at a time, the atmosphere of which raises the mercury to 135° above nothing. Late experiments show that the human body will exist in rooms heated to 140° of Reaumur, equal to 347° of Fahrenheit's, and 135° above boiling water. The hottest point of the twenty-four hours is about four o'clock, P. M., and the dawn of day the coldest.

The access of frost in autumn, and its recess the spring, do not seem to depend merely on the degree of cold; much less on the air's being at the freezing point. White frosts are frequent when the thermometer is at 47°, have killed young plants of Indian corn at 48°, and have been known at 54°. Black frost, and even ice, have been produced at 38½°, which is 6½ degrees above the freezing point. That other circumstances must be combined with this cold to produce frost, is evident from this also, on the higher parts of mountains, where it is absolutely colder than in the plains on which they stand, frosts do not appear so early by a considerable space of time in autumn, and go off sooner in the spring, than in the plains. I have known frosts so severe as to kill the hickory trees round about Monticello, and yet not injure the tender fruit blossoms then in bloom on the top and higher parts of the mountain; and in the course of forty years, during which it had been settled, there have been but two instances of a general loss of fruit on it; while in the circumjacent country, the fruit has escaped but twice in the last seven years. The plants of tobacco, which grow from the roots of those which have been cut off in the summer, are frequently green here at Christmas. This privilege against the frost is undoubtedly combined with the want of dew on the mountains. That the dew is very rare on their higher parts, I may say with certainty, from twelve years' observations, having scarcely ever, during that time, seen an unequivocal proof of its existence on them at all during summer. Severe frosts in the depth of winter prove that the region of dews extends higher in that season than the tops of the mountains; but certainly, in the summer season, the vapors, by the time they attain that height, are so attenuated as not to subside and form a dew when the sun retires.

The weavil has not yet ascended the high mountains.

A more satisfactory estimate of our climate to some, may perhaps be formed, by noting the plants which grow here, subject, however, to be killed by our severest colds. These are the fig, pomegranate, artichoke, and European walnut. In mild winters, lettuce and endive require no shelter; but, generally, they need a slight covering. I do not know that the want of long moss, reed, myrtle, swamp laurel, holly, and cypress, in the upper country proceeds from a greater degree of cold, nor that they were ever killed with any degree of cold, nor that they were ever killed with any degree of cold in the lower country. The aloe lived in Williamsburg, in the open air, through the severe winter of 1779, 1780.

A change in our climate, however, is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory even of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep. They do not often lie, below the mountains, more than one, two, or three days, and very rarely a week. They are remembered to have been formerly frequent, deep, and of long continuance. The elderly inform me, the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now. This change has produced an unfortunate fluctuation between heat and cold, in the spring of the year, which is very fatal to fruits. From the year 1741 to 1769, an interval of twenty-eight years, there was no instance of fruit killed by the frost in the neighborhood of Monticello. An intense cold, produced by constant snows, kept the buds locked up till the sun could obtain, in the spring of the year, so fixed an ascendency as to dissolve those snows, and protect the buds, during their development, from every danger of returning cold. The accumulated snows of the winter remaining to be dissolved all together in the spring, produced those overflowings of our rivers, so frequent then, and so rare now.

Having had occasion to mention the particular situation of Monticello for other purposes, I will just take notice that its elevation affords an opportunity of seeing a phenomenon which is rare at land, though frequent at sea. The seamen call it looming. Philosophy is as yet in the rear of the seamen, for so far from having accounted for it, she has not given it a name. Its principal effect is to make distant objects appear larger, in opposition to the general law of vision, by which they are diminished. I knew an instance, at Yorktown, from whence the water prospect eastwardly is without termination, wherein a canoe with three men, at a great distance was taken for a ship with its three masts. I am little acquainted with the phenomenon as it shows itself at sea; but at Monticello it is familiar. There is a solitary mountain about forty miles off in the South, whose natural shape, as presented to view there, is a regular cone; but by the effect of looming, it sometimes subsides almost totally in the horizon; sometimes it rises more acute and more elevated; sometimes it is hemispherical; and sometimes its sides are perpendicular, its top flat, and as broad as its base. In short, it assumes at times the most whimsical shapes, and all these perhaps successively in the same morning. The blue ridge of mountains comes into view, in the north-east, at about one hundred miles distance, and approaching in a direct line, passes by within twenty miles, and goes off to the south-west. This phenomenon begins to show itself on these mountains, at about fifty miles distance, and continues beyond that as far as they are seen. I remark no particular state, either in the weight, moisture, or heat of the atmosphere, necessary to produce this. The only constant circumstances are its appearance in the morning only, and on objects at least forty or fifty miles distant. In this latter circumstance, if not in both, it differs from the looming on the water. Refraction will not account for the metamorphosis. That only changes the proportions of length and breadth, base and altitude, preserving the general outlines. Thus it may make a circle appear elliptical, raise or depress a cone, but by none of its laws, as yet developed, will it make a circle appear a square, or a cone a sphere.

QUERY VIII.

The number of its inhabitants?

The following table shows the number of persons imported for the establishment of our colony in its infant state, and the census of inhabitants at different periods, extracted from our historians and public records, as particularly as I have had opportunities and leisure to examine them. Successive lines in the same year show successive periods of time in that year. I have stated the census in two different columns, the whole inhabitants having been sometimes numbered, and sometimes the tythes only. This term, with us, includes the free males above sixteen years of age, and slaves above that age of both sexes. A further examination of our records would render this history of our population much more satisfactory and perfect, by furnishing a greater number of intermediate terms. These, however, which are here stated will enable us to calculate, with a considerable degree of precision, the rate at which we have increased. During the infancy of the colony, while numbers were small, wars, importations, and other accidental circumstances render the progression fluctuating and irregular. By the year 1654, however, it becomes tolerably uniform, importations having in a great measure ceased from the dissolution of the company, and the inhabitants become too numerous to be sensibly affected by Indian wars. Beginning at that period, therefore, we find that from thence to the year 1772, our tythes had increased from 7,209 to 153,000. The whole term being of one hundred and eighteen years, yields a duplication once in every twenty-seven and a quarter years. The intermediate enumerations taken in 1700, 1748, and 1759, furnish proofs of the uniformity of this progression. Should this rate of increase continue, we shall have between six and seven millions of inhabitants within ninety-five years. If we suppose our country to be bounded, at some future day, by the meridian of the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, (within which it has been before conjectured, are 64,461 square miles) there will then be one hundred inhabitants for every square mile, which is nearly the state of population in the British Islands.

Years. Settlers Imported. Census of Inhabitants. Census of Tythes.

1607 100 . . . . . .

. . . . . . 40 . . .

. . . 120 . . . . . .

1608 . . . 130 . . .

. . . 70 . . . . . .

1609 . . . 490 . . .

. . . 16 . . . . . .

. . . . . . 60 . . .

1610 150 . . . . . .

. . . . . . 200 . . .

1611 3 ship loads. . . . . . .

. . . 300 . . . . . .

1612 80 . . . . . .

1617 . . . 400 . . .

1618 200 . . . . . .

. . . 40 . . . . . .

. . . . . . 600 . . .

1619 1,216 . . . . . .

1621 1,300 . . . . . .

1622 . . . 3,800 . . .

. . . . . . 2,500 . . .

1628 . . . 3,000 . . .

1632 . . . . . . 2,000

1644 . . . . . . 4,822

1645 . . . . . . 5,000

1652 . . . . . . 7,000

1654 . . . . . . 7,209

1700 . . . . . . 22,000

1748 . . . . . . 82,100

1759 . . . . . . 105,000

1772 . . . . . . 153,000

1782 . . . 567,614 . . .

Here I will beg leave to propose a doubt. The present desire of America is to produce rapid population by as great importations of foreigners as possible. But is this founded in good policy? The advantage proposed is the multiplication of numbers. Now let us suppose (for example only) that, in this state, we could double our numbers in one year by the importation of foreigners; and this is a greater accession than the most sanguine advocate for emigration has a right to expect. Then I say, beginning with a double stock, we shall attain any given degree of population only twenty-seven years, and three months sooner than if we proceed on our single stock. If we propose four millions and a half as a competent population for this State, we should be fifty-four and a half years attaining it, could we at once double our numbers; and eighty-one and three quarter years, if we rely on natural propagation, as may be seen by the following tablet:

Proceeding on our present stock. Proceeding on a double stock.

1781 567,614 1,135,228

1808¼ 1,135,228 2,270,456

1835½ 2,270,456 4,540,912

1862¾ 4,540,912

In the first column are stated periods of twenty-seven and a quarter years; in the second are our numbers at each period, as they will be if we proceed on our actual stock; and in the third are what they would be, at the same periods, were we to set out from the double of our present stock. I have taken the term of four million and a half of inhabitants for example's sake only. Yet I am persuaded it is a greater number than the country spoken of, considering how much inarable land it contains, can clothe and feed without a material change in the quality of their diet. But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet from such we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it a heterogenous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures. But, if they be not certain in event, are they not possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience twenty-seven years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppose twenty millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here. If they come of themselves they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship; but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements. I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different considerations. Spare no expense in obtaining them. They will after a while go to the plough and the hoe; but, in the mean time, they will teach us something we do not know. It is not so in agriculture. The indifferent state of that among us does not proceed from a want of knowledge merely; it is from our having such quantities of land to waste as we please. In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labor being abundant; here it is to make the most of our labor, land being abundant.

It will be proper to explain how the numbers for the year 1782 have been obtained; as it was not from a perfect census of the inhabitants. It will at the same time develope the proportion between the free inhabitants and slaves. The following return of taxable articles for that year was given in.

53,289 free males above twenty-one years of age.

211,698 slaves of all ages and sexes.

23,766 not distinguished in the returns, but said to be tytheable slaves.

195,439 horses.

609,734 cattle.

5,126 wheels of riding-carriages.

191 taverns.

There were no returns from the eight counties of Lincoln, Jefferson, Fayette, Monongahela, Yohogania, Ohio, Northampton, and York. To find the number of slaves which should have been returned instead of the 23,766 tytheables, we must mention that some observations on a former census had given reason to believe that the numbers above and below sixteen years of age were equal. The double of this number, therefore, to wit, 47,532 must be added to 211,698, which will give us 259,230 slaves of all ages and sexes. To find the number of free inhabitants we must repeat the observation that those above and below sixteen are nearly equal. But as the number 53,289 omits the males below sixteen and twenty-one we must supply them from conjecture. On a former experiment it had appeared that about one-third of our militia, that is, of the males between sixteen and fifty, were unmarried. Knowing how early marriage takes place here, we shall not be far wrong in supposing that the unmarried part of our militia are those between sixteen and twenty-one. If there be young men who do not marry till after twenty-one, there are many who marry before that age. But as men above fifty were not included in the militia, we will suppose the unmarried, or those between sixteen and twenty-one, to be one-fourth of the whole number above sixteen, then we have the following calculation:

53,289 free males above twenty-one years of age.

17,763 free males between sixteen and twenty-one.

17,052 free males under sixteen.

142,104 free males of all ages.

284,208 free inhabitants of all ages.

259,230 slaves of all ages.

543,438 inhabitants, exclusive of the eight counties from which were no returns. In these eight counties in the years 1779 and 1780, were 3,161 militia. Say then,

3,161 free males above the age of sixteen.

3,161 free males under sixteen.

6,322 free females.

12,644 free inhabitants in these eight counties. To find the number of slaves, say, as 284,208 to 259,230, so is 12,644 to 11,532. Adding the third of these numbers to the first, and the fourth to the second, we have,

296,852 free inhabitants.

270,762 slaves.

567,614 inhabitants of every age, sex and condition.

But 296,852, the number of free inhabitants, are to 270,762, the number of slaves, nearly as 11 to 10. Under the mild treatment our slaves experience, and their wholesome, though coarse food, this blot in our country increases as fast, or faster than the whites. During the regal government we had at one time obtained a law which imposed such a duty on the importation of slaves as amounted nearly to a prohibition, when one inconsiderate assembly, placed under a peculiarity of circumstance, repealed the law. This repeal met a joyful sanction from the then reigning sovereign, and no devices, no expedients, which could ever be attempted by subsequent assemblies, and they seldom met without attempting them, could succeed in getting the royal assent to a renewal of the duty. In the very first session held under the republican government, the assembly passed a law for the perpetual prohibition of the importation of slaves. This will in some measure stop the increase of this great political and moral evil, while the minds of our citizens may be ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature.

QUERY IX.

The number and condition of the Militia and Regular Troops, and their Pay?

The following is a state of the militia, taken from returns of 1780 and 1781, except in those counties marked with an asterisk, the returns from which are somewhat older.

Every able-bodied freeman, between the ages of sixteen and fifty, is enrolled in the militia. Those of every county are formed into companies, and these again into one or more battalions, according to the numbers in the county. They are commanded by colonels, and other subordinate officers, as in the regular service. In every county is a county-lieutenant, who commands the whole militia of his county, but ranks only as a colonel in the field. We have no general officers always existing. These are appointed occasionally, when an invasion or insurrection happens, and their commission determines with the occasion. The governor is head of the military, as well as civil power. The law requires every militia-man to provide himself with the arms usual in the regular service. But this injunction was always indifferently complied with, and the arms they had, have been so frequently called for to arm the regulars, that in the lower parts of the country they are entirely disarmed. In the middle country a fourth or fifth part of them may have such firelocks as they had provided to destroy the noxious animals which infest their farms; and on the western side of the Blue ridge they are generally armed with rifles. The pay of our militia, as well as of our regulars, is that of the continental regulars. The condition of our regulars, of whom we have none but continentals, and part of a battalion of state troops, is so constantly on the change, that a state of it at this day would not be its state a month hence. It is much the same with the condition of the other continental troops, which is well enough known.

Situation. Counties. Militia.

Westward of the Alleghany 4,458. Lincoln 600

Jefferson 300

Fayette 156

Ohio ..

Monongalia *1,000

Washington *829

Montgomery 1,071

Greenbriar 502

Between the Alleghany and Blue Ridge. 7,673. Hampshire 930

Berkeley *1,100

Frederick 1,143

Shenando *925

Rockingham 875

Augusta 1,375

Rockbridge *625

Boutetourt *700

Between the Blue Ridge and Tide Waters. 18,828. Loudoun 1,746

Faquier 1,078

Culpepper 1,513

Spotsylvania 480

Orange *600

Louisa 603

Goochland *550

Fluvanna *296

Albemarle 873

Amherst 896

Buckingham *625

Bedford 1,300

Henry 1,004

Pittsylvania *725

Halifax *1,139

Charlotte 612

Prince Edward 589

Cumberland 408

Powhatan 330

Amelia *1,125

Lunenburg 677

Mecklenburg 1,100

Brunswick 559

On the Tide Waters, and in that Parallel. 19,012. Between James River and Carolina. 6,959. Greensville 500

Dinwiddie *750

Chesterfield 665

Prince George 328

Surrey 380

Sussex *700

Southampton 874

Isle of White *600

Nansemond *644

Norfolk *880

Prince Anne *594

Between James & York rivers. 3,009. Henrico 619

Hanover 706

New Kent *418

Charles City 286

James City 235

Williamsburgh 129

York *244

Warwick *100

Elizabeth City 182

Bet. York & Rappahannock. 3,269. Caroline 805

King William 436

King and Queen 500

Essex 468

Middlesex *210

Gloucester 850

Betw'n Rappahannock and Powtomac. 4,137. Fairfax 652

Prince William 614

Stafford *500

King George 483

Richmond 412

Westmoreland 544

Northumberland 630

Lancaster 332

East'n Shore. 1,638. Accomac *1,208

Northampton *430

Whole Militia of the State 49,971

QUERY X.

The Marine?

Before the present invasion of this State by the British, under the command of General Phillips, we had three vessels of sixteen guns, one of fourteen, five small gallies, and two or three armed boats. They were generally so badly manned as seldom to be in a condition for service. Since the perfect possession of our rivers assumed by the enemy, I believe we are left with a single armed boat only.

QUERY XI.

A description of the Indians established in that State?

When the first effectual settlement of our colony was made, which was in 1607, the country from the sea-coast to the mountains, and from the Potomac to the most southern waters of James' river, was occupied by upwards of forty different tribes of Indians. Of these the Powhatans, the Mannahoacs, and Monacans, were the most powerful. Those between the seacoast and falls of the rivers, were in amity with one another, and attached to the Powhatans as their link of union. Those between the falls of the rivers and the mountains, were divided into two confederacies; the tribes inhabiting the head waters of Potomac and Rappahannock, being attached to the Mannahoacs; and those on the upper parts of James' river to the Monacans. But the Monacans and their friends were in amity with the Mannahoacs and their friends, and waged joint and perpetual war against the Powhatans. We are told that the Powhatans, Mannahoacs, and Monacans, spoke languages so radically different, that interpreters were necessary when they transacted business. Hence we may conjecture, that this was not the case between all the tribes, and, probably, that each spoke the language of the nation to which it was attached; which we know to have been the case in many particular instances. Very possibly there may have been anciently three different stocks, each of which multiplying in a long course of time, had separated into so many little societies. This practice results from the circumstance of their having never submitted themselves to any laws, any coercive power, any shadow of government. Their only controls are their manners, and that moral sense of right and wrong, which, like the sense of tasting and feeling in every man, makes a part of his nature. An offence against these is punished by contempt, by exclusion from society, or, where the case is serious, as that of murder, by the individuals whom it concerns. Imperfect as this species of coercion may seem, crimes are very rare among them; insomuch that were it made a question, whether no law, as among the savage Americans, or too much law, as among the civilized Europeans, submits man to the greatest evil, one who has seen both conditions of existence would pronounce it to be the last; and that the sheep are happier of themselves, than under care of the wolves. It will be said, that great societies cannot exist without government. The savages, therefore, break them into small ones.

The territories of the Powhatan confederacy, south of the Potomac, comprehended about eight thousand square miles, thirty tribes, and two thousand four hundred warriors. Captain Smith tells us, that within sixty miles of Jamestown were five thousand people, of whom one thousand five hundred were warriors. From this we find the proportion of their warriors to their whole inhabitants, was as three to ten. The Powhatan confederacy, then, would consist of about eight thousand inhabitants, which was one for every square mile; being about the twentieth part of our present population in the same territory, and the hundredth of that of the British islands.

Besides these were the Nottoways, living on Nottoway river, the Meherrins and Tuteloes on Meherrin river, who were connected with the Indians of Carolina, probably with the Chowanocs.

WEST NORTH EAST

MANNAHOACS. POWHATANS.

Tribes. Country. Cf. Towns Warr's. Tribes. Country. Chief Towns. Warriors.

1669. 1607. 1669.

Between Patowinac and Rappahannoc. Whonkenties. Fauquier. Tauxenents. Fairfax. About Gen. Washington's 40 By the name of Matchotics, U. Matchodic, Nanzaticos, Nauzatico, Appomatox, Matox.

Tegninaties. Culpepper. Patówomekes. Stafford. King George. Pawtomac cr. 200

Ontponies. Orange. Cuttatawomans. King George. About Lamb Creek. 20 60

Tauxitanians. Fauquier. Pissasecs. King George. Richmond. Above Leeds Town.

Hassinungaes. Culpepper. Onaumanients. Westmoreland. Nomony river. 100

Rappahànocs. Richmond co. Rappahanoc creek. 100 30 By the name of Totuskeys.

Moàughtacunds. Lancaster. Richmond. Moratico river. 80 40

Secacaconies. Northumberland. Coan river. 30

Wighcocòmicoes. Northumberland. Wicocomico river. 130 70

Cuttatawomans. Lancaster. Corotoman. 30

Bet. Rappahannoc & York. Stegarakies. Orange. Nantaughtacunds. Essex. Caroline. Port Tobacco creek. 150 60

Shackakonies. Spotsylvania. Màttapomènts. Mattapony river. ... 30 20

Manahoacs. Stafford. Spotsylvania. Pamùnkies. King William. Romuncock 300 50

Wérowocòmicos. Gloucester. About Rosewell 40

Pay-ankatonks. Piankatank river. Turk's Ferry. Grimesby. 55

Between York and James. MONACANS. Youghtanunds. Pamunkey river. 60

Chickahòminies. Chickahominy r. Orapaks. 250 60

Powhatans. Henrico. Powhatan. Mayo's. 40 10

Monacans. James river above the falls. Fork of James river. 30 Arrowhàtocs. Henrico. Arrohatocs. 30

Monasiccapanoes. Louisa. Fluvanna. Wèanocs. Charles city. Weynoke. 100 15

Paspahèghes. Charles city. James city. Sandy-Point. 40

Chiskiacs. York. Chiskiac. 45 15 1699

Kecoughtáns. Elizabeth city. Roscows. 20

Between James & Carolina. Monahassanoes. Bedford. Buckingham. Appamàttocs. Chesterfield. Bermuda Hundred. 60 50 Nottoways. Meherrics. Tuteloes. .... 90 50

Quiocohànoes. Surry. About Upp. Chipoak. 25 3 Pohics

Massinacacs. Cumberland. Wàrrasqueaks. Isle of Wight. Warrasqueoc.

Mohemenchoes. Powhatan. Nasamónds. Nansamond. A't mouth W. branch. 200 45

Chèsapeaks. Princess Anne. About Lynhaven riv. 100

Eastern shore. Accohanocs. Accom. Northampton. Accohanoc river. 40

Accamàcks. Northampton. About Cheriton's. 80

SOUTH

The preceding table contains a state of these several tribes, according to their confederacies and geographical situation, with their numbers when we first became acquainted with them, where these numbers are known. The numbers of some of them are again stated as they were in the year 1669, when an attempt was made by assembly to enumerate them. Probably the enumeration is imperfect, and in some measure conjectural, and that a farther search into the records would furnish many more particulars. What would be the melancholy sequel of their history, may, however, be argued from the census of 1669; by which we discover that the tribes therein enumerated were, in the space of sixty-two years, reduced to about one-third of their former numbers. Spirituous liquors, the small-pox, war, and an abridgement of territory to a people who lived principally on the spontaneous productions of nature, had committed terrible havoc among them, which generation, under the obstacles opposed to it among them, was not likely to make good. That the lands of this country were taken from them by conquest, is not so general a truth as is supposed. I find in our historians and records, repeated proofs of purchase, which cover a considerable part of the lower country; and many more would doubtless be found on further search. The upper country, we know, has been acquired altogether acquired by purchases made in the most unexceptionable form.

Westward of all these tribes, beyond the mountains, and extending to the great lakes, were the Maffawomees, a most powerful confederacy, who harassed unremittingly the Powhatans and Manahoacs. These were probably the ancestors of tribes known at present by the name of the Six Nations.

Very little can now be discovered of the subsequent history of these tribes severally. The Chickahominies removed about the year 1661, to Mattapony river. Their chief, with one from each of the Pamunkies and Mattaponies, attended the treaty of Albany in 1685. This seems to have been the last chapter in their history. They retained, however, their separate name so late as 1705, and were at length blended with the Pamunkies and Mattaponies, and exist at present only under their names. There remain of the Mattaponies three or four men only, and have more negro than Indian blood in them. They have lost their language, have reduced themselves, by voluntary sales, to about fifty acres of land, which lie on the river of their own name, and have from time to time, been joining the Pamunkies, from whom they are distant but ten miles. The Pamunkies are reduced to about ten or twelve men, tolerably pure from mixture with other colors. The older ones among them preserve their language in a small degree, which are the last vestiges on earth, as far as we know, of the Powhatan language. They have about three hundred acres of very fertile land, on Pamunkey river, so encompassed by water that a gate shuts in the whole. Of the Nottoways, not a male is left. A few women constitute the remains of that tribe. They are seated on Nottoway river, in Southampton country, on very fertile lands. At a very early period, certain lands were marked out and appropriated to these tribes, and were kept from encroachment by the authority of the laws. They have usually had trustees appointed, whose duty was to watch over their interests, and guard them from insult and injury.

The Monacans and their friends, better known latterly by the name of Tuscaroras, were probably connected with the Massawomecs, or Five Nations. For though we are[46] told their languages were so different that the intervention of interpreters was necessary between them, yet do we also[47] learn that the Erigas, a nation formerly inhabiting on the Ohio, were of the same original stock with the Five Nations, and that they partook also of the Tuscarora language. Their dialects might, by long separation, have become so unlike as to be unintelligible to one another. We know that in 1712, the Five Nations received the Tuscaroras into their confederacy, and made them the Sixth Nation. They received the Meherrins and Tuteloes also into their protection; and it is most probable, that the remains of many other of the tribes, of whom we find no particular account, retired westwardly in like manner, and were incorporated with one or the other of the western tribes. (5.)

I know of no such thing existing as an Indian monument; for I would not honor with that name arrow points, stone hatchets, stone pipes, and half-shapen images. Of labor on the large scale, I think there is no remain as respectable as would be a common ditch for the draining of lands; unless indeed it would be the barrows, of which many are to be found all over this country. These are of different sizes, some of them constructed of earth, and some of loose stones. That they were repositories of the dead, has been obvious to all; but on what particular occasion constructed, was a matter of doubt. Some have thought they covered the bones of those who have fallen in battles fought on the spot of interment. Some ascribed them to the custom, said to prevail among the Indians, of collecting, at certain periods, the bones of all their dead, wheresoever deposited at the time of death. Others again supposed them the general sepulchres for towns, conjectured to have been on or near these grounds; and this opinion was supported by the quality of the lands in which they are found, (those constructed of earth being generally in the softest and most fertile meadow-grounds on river sides,) and by a tradition, said to be handed down from the aboriginal Indians, that, when they settled in a town, the first person who died was placed erect, and earth put about him, so as to cover and support him; that when another died, a narrow passage was dug to the first, the second reclined against him, and the cover of earth replaced, and so on. There being one of these in my neighborhood, I wished to satisfy myself whether any, and which of these opinions were just. For this purpose I determined to open and examine it thoroughly. It was situated on the low grounds of the Rivanna, about two miles above its principal fork, and opposite to some hills, on which had been an Indian town. It was of a spheroidical form, of about forty feet diameter at the base, and had been of about twelve feet altitude, though now reduced by the plough to seven and a half, having been under cultivation about a dozen years. Before this it was covered with trees of twelve inches diameter, and round the base was an excavation of five feet depth and width, from whence the earth had been taken of which the hillock was formed. I first dug superficially in several parts of it, and came to collections of human bones, at different depths, from six inches to three feet below the surface. These were lying in the utmost confusion, some vertical, some oblique, some horizontal, and directed to every point of the compass, entangled and held together in clusters by the earth. Bones of the most distant parts were found together, as, for instance, the small bones of the foot in the hollow of a scull; many sculls would sometimes be in contact, lying on the face, on the side, on the back, top or bottom, so as, on the whole, to give the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or a basket, and covered over with earth, without any attention to their order. The bones of which the greatest numbers remained, were sculls, jaw-bones, teeth, the bones of the arms, thighs, legs, feet and hands. A few ribs remained, some vertebræ of the neck and spine, without their processes, and one instance only of the[48] bone which serves as a base to the vertebral column. The sculls were so tender, that they generally fell to pieces on being touched. The other bones were stronger. There were some teeth which were judged to be smaller than those of an adult; a scull, which on a slight view, appeared to be that of an infant, but it fell to pieces on being taken out, so as to prevent satisfactory examination; a rib, and a fragment of the under-jaw of a person about half grown; another rib of an infant; and a part of the jaw of a child, which had not cut its teeth. This last furnishing the most decisive proof of the burial of children here, I was particular in my attention to it. It was part of the right half of the under-jaw. The processes, by which it was attenuated to the temporal bones, were entire, and the bone itself firm to where it had been broken off, which, as nearly as I could judge, was about the place of the eye-tooth. Its upper edge, wherein would have been the sockets of the teeth, was perfectly smooth. Measuring it with that of an adult, by placing their hinder processes together, its broken end extended to the penultimate grinder of the adult. This bone was white, all the others of a sand color. The bones of infants being soft, they probably decay sooner, which might be the cause so few were found here. I proceeded then to make a perpendicular cut through the body of the barrow, that I might examine its internal structure. This passed about three feet from its centre, was opened to the former surface of the earth, and was wide enough for a man to walk through and examine its sides. At the bottom, that is, on the level of the circumjacent plain, I found bones; above these a few stones, brought from a cliff a quarter of a mile off, and from the river one-eighth of a mile off; then a large interval of earth, then a stratum of bones, and so on. At one end of the section were four strata of bones plainly distinguishable; at the other, three; the strata in one part not ranging with those in another. The bones nearest the surface were least decayed. No holes were discovered in any of them, as if made with bullets, arrows, or other weapons. I conjectured that in this barrow might have been a thousand skeletons. Every one will readily seize the circumstances above related, which militate against the opinion, that it covered the bones only of persons fallen in battle; and against the tradition also, which would make it the common sepulchre of a town, in which the bodies were placed upright, and touching each other. Appearances certainly indicate that it has derived both origin and growth from the accustomary collection of bones, and deposition of them together; that the first collection had been deposited on the common surface of the earth, a few stones put over it, and then a covering of earth, that the second had been laid on this, had covered more or less of it in proportion to the number of bones, and was then also covered with earth; and so on. The following are the particular circumstances which give it this aspect. 1. The number of bones. 2. Their confused position. 3. Their being in different strata. 4. The strata in one part having no correspondence with those in another. 5. The different states of decay in these strata, which seem to indicate a difference in the time of inhumation. 6. The existence of infant bones among them.