Advance of Civilization.

Aboriginal America (American History, Vol. I)

Part 1

by
Jacob Abbott
New York: Sheldon & Company. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1860

Preface
It is the design of this work to narrate, in a clear, simple, and
intelligible manner, the leading events connected with the history of our
country, from the earliest periods, down, as nearly as practicable, to the
present time. The several volumes will be illustrated with all necessary maps
and with numerous engravings, and the work is intended to comprise, in a
distinct and connected narrative, all that it is essential for the general
reader to understand in respect to the subject of it, while for those who have
time for more extended studies, it may serve as an introduction to other and
more copious sources of information.
The author hopes also that the work may be found useful to the young, in
awakening in their minds an interest in the history of their country,
and a desire for further instruction in respect to it. While it is doubtless
true that such a subject can be really grasped only by minds in some degree
mature, still the author believes that many young persons, especially such as
are intelligent and thoughtful in disposition and character, may derive both
entertainment and instruction from a perusal of these pages.

Chapter 1
Types of Life in America.
Subject of the Volume
The first step to be taken in studying the history of our country is to form
some clear and proper conception of the characteristics and condition of the
territory which is now occupied by the American people, as it existed when first
discovered and explored by Europeans. The aboriginal condition of the country,
therefore, anterior to its occupation by white men, and the character and
condition of the native tribes which then inhabited it, will be the subject of
this volume.
Origin of Vegetable and Animal Life in America
When the new world was first discovered it was found to be, like the old,
well stocked with plants and animals, and inhabited by a great many tribes and
nations of men; and yet the plants and animals, if not the men, were all essentially different from those known in the old
world. This was unexpected; it was thought to be quite remarkable, and it added
greatly to the difficulty of deciding the question, which, of course, at once
arose, in respect to the origin of these plants and animals and men, and to the
manner in which they came in possession of a continent thus cut off apparently
from all intercourse and connection with the rest of the world.
For the American continent is entirely separated from the old. The nearest
approach which it makes to it in any part is at Behring's Straits, on the
north-west, where it is divided form the Asiatic continent by a channel about
forty miles wide.
Means of Communication With the Old World.
Some animals and perhaps some plants, and most certainly man, may be supposed
to have been transported across such a channel of water as this of Behring's
Straits, either by boats made by the savages living on the coasts, or possibly
by means of ice, either upon moving fields driven by the wind, or upon the solid
surface, at some time when the whole channel was entirely frozen over.
There is also at some distance south of Behring's Straits a remarkable chain
of islands, called the Aleutian Islands, which extend in a regular and continuous line from the
American to the Asiatic shore. These islands are nearly all inhabited, and the
natives navigate the seas around them in boats made of a frame-work of wood or
bone, covered externally with seal skins.
These islands are volcanic. They contain now numerous volcanoes, some active
and some extinct, and also hot springs and other indications of subterranean
fire. They bear no trees, but they produce a great variety of animals. They
look, upon the map, like a row of stepping stones, placed on purpose to enable
men and animals from the old world to make their way to the new.
It is perhaps possible to imagine also that a company of men might have been
forced accidentally to sea in some large canoe from the coast of Africa, or on
the other side from some of the islands of the Pacific, and so driven across the
intervening water, and landed upon the American shores. It is true that it would
be exceedingly improbable that any such combination of circumstances would occur
as could lead to such a result. The canoe or boat must have been very large, the
stock of provisions very great, and the wind, while it must not have been
violent enough to engulf the boat, must still have blown very long and very steadily to have carried a company of men so far before they all
perished of hunger and thirst. All this would have been very improbable. Still
it would be difficult to show that it could not occur. From the hundreds and
perhaps thousands of boats full of savages that have been blown off to sea from
the coasts of Africa, or from the South Sea Islands, it would be impossible to
prove positively that there could never have been one that by any chance could
have reached the American shores.
There is still another mode by which we can imagine the animal and vegetable
life of America to have been communicated to it from other regions, and that is,
by supposing that there was in former ages some direct connection between the
two continents by a tract of land which has since become submerged. It is well
known now that the crust of the earth is not in a stable condition. It is
subject to changes and movements of various kinds, which are now going forward
all the time, and have probably always been going forward. In some places the
land is slowly rising; in others it is slowly subsiding. There are many places
in the world where towns and cities which formerly stood high and dry on the
land are now under water. The land has slowly subsided, so that the sea at the present time flows over it, and people passing in boats now look down and
see the old foundations, and fragments of the fallen walls and columns, at the
bottom.
The rising and sinking of the land in this way can only be directly and
positively proved in places which lie along the sea shore, for nowhere else is
there any exact standard of comparison by which the rising or falling may be
measured. But it is now generally believed by geologists and philosophers that a
state of gradual motion, rising in some places and sinking in others, is the
natural and constant condition, or, as it is more scientifically expressed, the
normal condition of the strata which form the crust of the globe. Of the causes
which lead to this state of things it would be out of place to speak here, but
there is no doubt of the fact; and this action is in no part of the world going
on so actively and with so sensible an effect as on some of the coasts of
America.
Now, although these changes of level proceed in an extremely gradual manner,
so that the inhabitants that dwell upon the territory thus slowly rising or
falling are, in most cases, wholly unconscious of the motion, still the effect
might be sufficient, in the course of forty or fifty centuries, to submerge a
very extensive tract of land, which in remote ages may have formed a connection between the American continent and
other lands lying to the eastward or westward of it.
The Plants and Animals of America Generally New.
These and various other similar theories were devised in former times in
endeavors to contrive some way of bringing plants and animals from other
countries to America; but they have been generally considered unsatisfactory,
since on coming fully to examine the plants and animals living here, they were
found to be, as it seemed, essentially different from those found in other
countries, so different as to render it very improbable, according to the ideas
on this subject that have hitherto generally prevailed, that they could ever be
descended from the same stock, at least by ordinary generation. The fauna and
the flora were both found to be in general essentially dissimilar.
We say in general, for there are some animals, such as birds, that might
easily fly across the ocean, and sea-weeds, that might drift across, and polar
animals, such as bears, seals, foxes and dogs, and the like, which go and come
as they will, all over the Arctic seas, that were found common to both worlds.
With a moderate number of exceptions such as these, however, the plants and animals found in America proved on
examination to be entirely new.
By the fauna of a country is meant the system of animals that inhabit it. The
flora is its system of plants. Now, inasmuch as both the fauna and the flora of
America were so essentially different from those of the old world, that, so far
as could be judged from all that was known of the propagation of plants and
animals, and of the changes which they may undergo from the influence of climate
and soil, and other conditions, the one system, in the opinion of naturalists,
could not have been produced from the other, it seemed to be wholly useless to
attempt to contrive means by which the progenitors of the present races in
America could have been wafted across the ocean, or could have migrated by means
of countries and territories which once existed, but are now submerged.
Man Admitted to be an Exception
This reasoning, however, applied only to plants and to inferior animals, but
not to man; for the races of men found upon this continent were deemed by
naturalists to be of the same species with all the other races now existing in
the world: that is, too difference between the different races of men were judged to be not specific
differences, that is, not such as to preclude the possibility of their all being
deduced from one original pair. This has always been the general opinion among
naturalists, and in their systems of classification all the various races of men
are classed as one species. Man, therefore, it has always been admitted, may
have been brought to America over the ice at Behring's Straits, or by boats
blown off from the coast of Africa, or from the islands in the Pacific; but the
general stocking of the country with its countless thousands of species, both of
animals and vegetable life, it was thought could not be thus explained.
What is a Species?
The degree of probability that the present plants and animals of America
could not have been derived, within a modern period, and by direct descent, from
those of the old world, depends, of course, upon the degree of difference there
is between them, because there is a certain degree of difference, and that not
small, which changes of climate and soil, and of other conditions of that kind
will account for; but the difference in question was found to be very great
indeed. It is a specific difference, that is, a difference in the species.

A species of plants or animals, as the term has been generally used by
naturalists, comprises all such individuals as are so similar to each other that
we may suppose them all to have proceeded from one common parentage, and so
dissimilar from all others that they could not have been reproduced from the
others, nor the others produced from them, by ordinary generation.
Whether there be or not some extraordinary mode by which at rare and distant
intervals, and under conditions seldom occurring, and which have not occurred
under the observation of men, by which a new species can arise, having its
origin, in some way or other, in a former species, in the same sense as now a
new individual, of the same species, has it origin in a former individual of the
same species, by the production of a seed or an egg, for example; or whether it
may not be possible that in an exceedingly great length of time, and by means of
a very long-continued accumulation of minute and almost imperceptible changes,
one species should be transformed into another, or, by branching, give origin to
several others, adapted to new and peculiar circumstances arising in the world's
history, are questions which are now greatly agitated among the learned, and may
not soon be settled. All we know is, that the plants and animals throughout the world exist in species, each one of which stands at present
distinct and isolated wholly apart from all the rest, and one cannot be
transformed into another by ordinary generation, through changes of soil and
climate, or any other causes whatever known to man, within so short a period as
six thousand years.
The apple, for instance, is one species, and the pear is another. In many
respects they are similar to each other, and each may be changed by cultivation
and by the operation of other causes a great deal, but by no possibility can one
be derived from the other. By different modes of cultivation, by different
selections of seeds, by changes in soil, and by other such means, a
horticulturist may vary the character of his apples very much. He may produce
large apples and small apples, sweet apples and sour apples, apples with a skin
red, green, yellow, or brown, but he can never produce a pear. The apple, under
all it modifications, will remain an apple still. It is a species by itself,
separated from all other species whatever by a fixed and permanent bound, which
it is impossible, as has always been supposed, that it can ever pass.
It is the same with animals. Each one is subject to a great many
modifications in respect to its form, its size, its color, and even it
faculties, but through all these changes each on remains entirely within its own bounds, as it
were. The distinguishing characteristics of the species remain distinguishing
characteristics of the species remain unchanged. Take for instance, any species
of the dog. We may, perhaps, by means of differences of treatment, of food, of
climate, or of immediate parentage, procure big dogs and little dogs, weak dogs
and strong dogs, gentle dogs and fierce dogs, all proceeding from the same
original stock, but we can have no cats, nor anything that shall bear the least
specific resemblance to a cat.
The Distinction of Species Very Permanent
It may, perhaps, be said that although in the comparatively short periods of
time that have been covered by the experiments and observations which have been
made by man, the transformation of one species into another may have been
impossible, still such changes may have been effected in longer periods, and
that the various forms of animal and vegetable life which now exist upon the
earth may have proceeded from some common origin, or at least from some moderate
number of original types existing in former ages. And, indeed, this may possibly
be so. But there seems to be quite satisfactory evidence to prove that the
distinction of species is as permanent in respect to the past and the future, at least for very long periods, as it is decisive at the present
time.
Evidence of Ancient Records
In the first place, we have in Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, which go back
with their records several thousand years -- much more than half the time,
according to the usually received opinion, since the earth was stocked with the
present races of animals -- many drawings and other representations of plants
and animals as they existed then, and even seeds, in some cases, found in the
wrappings of Egyptian mummies, all of which show that these plants and animals,
and even the races of men, were specifically the same then as now. There have
been no changes whatever that encroach at all upon the limits and bounds by
which the different species are separated from each other at the present day, or
confuse the lines of demarcation in any degree. There is no approach of one type
toward another, nor any tendency to such an approach. Now, is a change could be
effected in the specific character of a plant or of an animal, in any limited
series of generations, we should be very likely to find evidences of it in a
period of three or four thousand years, especially in the case of such animals
as arrive at maturity in a short time, and thus in any given period reckon as
many generations as years. Between the bird carved upon an Egyptian or Assyrian
slab, and its representative at the present day, probably three thousand
generations may have intervened, and yet the present living specimen is
specifically identical with the delineation of its ancestor. The great
comparative anatomist Cuvier examined the mummy of an ibis, from three to four
thousand years old, comparing it minutely with a living bird of the present day,
and found the two specimens in all respects identically the same.
There is also a bass-relief from the ruins of Babylon, with a dog represented
upon it, which is found by naturalists to be identical with a species of the dog
existing in Asia at the present day.
Evidence of Fossil Remains
But we have still more conclusive evidence than this derived from ancient
monuments of the very great permanence of the characteristics by which different
species of plants and animals are distinguished from each other, in the fossil
remains which exist in the strata of the earth. By means of these our
observations upon the forms of vegetable and animal life which have existed upon
our globe may be carried back to an immense antiquity, and extended over so vast a
number and variety of species as to furnish us, as it has always been supposed,
with all the means of information on this subject that can be desired. It has
been thought to be fully proved by these observations that every species which
exists upon the earth remains unchanged so long as it exists. When at length its
period has expired, it disappears from the field, while new ones are continually
arising to take the place of those that are gone. But no one passes, by
gradations, into any other; and the lines of distinction by which each is
separated from all the rest remain sharp and well-defined from the beginning to
the end.
Opinions of Naturalists and Philosophers
At least, this has been hitherto the view which naturalists and philosophers
have almost unanimously taken of this subject, though there have not been
wanting writers who have maintained the contrary opinion. Notwithstanding the
evidence furnished by the appearance of fossil remains, that the lines of
demarcation separating the different species are absolutely and forever
impassable, there have been some advocates of the theory that all the present
races of animals may have been derived by insensible gradations from a few primordial types. This theory has very
recently been brought forward anew in a form to attract general attention.
Still, so unanimous and so decisive has been the testimony of geologists in
respect to the evidence furnished by the fossil remains, and so inconsistent is
it with the development theory, as it is called, that very great changes must
take place in the opinion of naturalists in respect to the true import of the
geological records before this opinion can be generally received.
But however the great question in respect to the absolute and perpetual
permanence of the distinction of species may be ultimately decided, there is no
doubt that all naturalists fully concur in the opinion that this permanence is,
at all events, so great as entirely to preclude the possibility that the
American species of plants and animals can have descended from the stocks of the
old world within so short a period as six thousand years. Some other supposition
must, therefore, be made than that the forms of life existing here could have
been derived, within that period, by ordinary generation from those prevailing
in other portions of the world. Some of the principal suppositions which have
been made will be presently alluded to.

Examples of Diversity
Some of the American plants and animals attracted great attention in Europe
when they were first made known there, being recognized as entirely new, and
found to be quite peculiar in character. The potato was one; the turkey was
another. No turkey was ever known to exist in Europe, Asia, or Africa before
that time, and no fossil remains of such an animal have ever been discovered
there. The tobacco plant was another species that was originally first found in
America, though it has since become extensively diffused throughout the world. A
more particular account of some of these plants and animals will be given in
future chapter. They are only mentioned here as illustrations of the great
truth, that when this country was first explored by European visitors an
entirely new series of forms of vegetable and animal life was found to prevail
here, and such as could not have resulted from any of the forms that prevail in
the old world, within the period of six thousand years, through the operation of
any laws that are known to us, in respect to the relation of parent and
offspring.
The General Types the Same
And yet, though the plants and animals that are found in America are all
different, and seem to be essentially different, so far as relates to derivation from the same
parentage within any moderate period, from those of the old world, it is a very
curious and a very significant fact, that there is a very close analogy between
the two great stocks -- an analogy so close as to furnish very strong reason to
believe that they must have had a common origin, or at least have derived their
existence from some common law. All, or nearly all, the great types of animal
and vegetable life which are known in the old world, have their representatives
in the new, and yet no particular species are so represented. While there is a
generic similarity, there is also a specific difference. We scarcely knew which
excites most our wonder and curiosity, the analogy in the great types, or the
total, or almost total diversity in individual species. We say almost total,
for, in addition to the exceptions already referred to, by the time that the
fauna and flora of America came to be fully examined, great numbers of animals
had been brought over, either by accident or design, from Europe, and mingled
with the animals in America; and there are many plants which are now found
growing wild in various parts of the country, and seem to be natives, but which
are identical in species with those growing in Europe. It is inferred in such
cases that

the seeds were originally brought from the old world, though perhaps it cannot
in all cases be positively proved that they were. It may however be said with
certainty, that, as a general rule, of

Lammergeyer of the Alps

the hundreds and thousands of plants and animals, natives of America, that have
been examined and described, all or nearly all are essentially different from
those of corresponding type produced by the old world.
The accompanying engravings, which represent the gigantic vultures which inhabit the mountain summits respectively of the new
world and the old, strikingly illustrated this principle. While they are
generically similar, both in their structure and in

Condor of the Andes

their habits, still, in respect to what the naturalists call specific
characters, they are entirely distinct.
The Mystery General
The mystery which attends the origin of these different and peculiar species
of plants and animals inhabiting the new continent, has been found, since America was discovered, to
be general, for it is now known that not merely America, but also every part of
the globe, so far as the different zones and districts of the earth are
separated from each other by seas, or mountains, or other great natural
boundaries, has each its own fauna and flora different from those of every other
region. These differences of species, too, exist not in space only, but in time.
From the evidence that an examination of the strata of the earth affords, we
find that every different period of the earth's history, going back to very
remote ages, had its own system of plants and animals, so that thousands of
species that existed once do not exist now, and those which exist now did not
exist then. Thus it is established by evidence that seems to be conclusive, that
just as in the history of any one species, there is a succession of individuals,
each of which is born, grows, flourishes, declines, and dies, to be succeeded by
others which rise into being, and come forward to maturity, while their
predecessors decline; in the same manner, in the history of the world, there has
been a succession of species. each of which has come into being in its own time,
increased in numbers, become widely extended, and then has gradually diminished
and finally.

disappeared, to be succeeded by other species that arise in the same manner, and
go through in the same manner the successive periods of youth, maturity, and
decay. Thus it would appear that, of the vast congeries of animal and vegetable
creations which the history of the globe presents to view, each separate period
of its existence, and also every different district on its surface, has received
its own peculiar and exclusive forms. There are several different opinions in
regard to the proper explanation of this remarkable fact. Of these opinions only
two are now seriously entertained by naturalists and philosophers, and the
question between these two is, at the present time, a subject of earnest
discussion throughout the whole scientific world.
The Two Principal Theories
The first opinion is, that each species is, in its essential nature, and has
been throughout its whole history, entirely distinct from every other one, and
that it was called into being in its own appointed time, either by a special act
of creation exerted for this end, or else by the operation of some general laws
to us wholly unknown, by which, when certain conditions are combined, a new
species is derived in some mysterious way from one or more other species existing before it, just as individuals of any given species are
known to proceed from other individuals of the same. This opinion has been
hitherto a prevailing one among naturalists and philosophers, and a great desire
has been felt to discover the general conditions and laws, if such there are
within the reach of human observation, under which new species arise.
The second opinion is, that life, in all its manifestations, throughout the
whole vegetable and animal world, is one, and that all organizations that now
exist, or have ever existed, have been produced, by a succession of exceedingly
gradual and long-continued changes, from one, or at most a very few, primordial
forms.
These changes, it is supposed, result from a constitution of vegetable and
animal life such that very slight modifications of structure occur in all cases
in the descent from parent to offspring; that these modifications, which are
insignificant, and sometimes scarcely perceptible in the first generation,
become very great by being accumulated in a long series of years, and that
changes thus resulting, branching off in different directions, as it were,
according as the conditions and influences to which different races are exposed,
vary, in different places and time, and acting through immensely long periods of time, have given rise to all the countless forms of animal and
vegetable life with which the world now teems.
Inquiries Into This Subject Right and Proper
This is not the place to discuss, nor even to explain these opinions. They
are only briefly alluded to here, on account of the bearing of this general
question on the origin of life in America. Some persons feel a degree of
hesitation in following the guidance of naturalists in their inquiries in
respect to the laws of life, as if the object of those engages in these studies
was to discover some way of accounting for the works of creation without
acknowledging the hand of a creator. But this is not so. Scientific inquiries
into the causes of what we see are not attempts to dispense with a divine agency
in nature, but to discover the manner in which this agency is exercised, and the
laws by which it regulates it action. When Franklin, and the other philosophers
of his time, made known to the world that they had discovered the cause which
produced thunder and lightning, many people thought it was impious for them to
pretend to have done so. For the philosophers to attribute a phenomenon which
had always been regarded as produced directly by the power of God to petty
secondary causes, which they had themselves discovered, was, in the opinion of these
persons, atheistical and profane.
But it is now universally admitted that such a discovery does not limit or
control the power of God at all. It only enables us to see somewhat further into
his ways. No one detracts from the honor due to an engineer for any grand result
that he produces, by explaining the mystery of the secret mechanism that he has
contrived by which to produce it.
It is so with all the works of nature. We may push our inquiries in every
direction with the utmost diligence and vigor, and carry them to any extent,
without the least fear of ever making any discoveries which will tend in the
smallest degree to supersede the agency of a supreme and all-pervading power,
either in the original constitution of nature, or in the constant control of all
that takes place under the operation of its laws.
The Testimony of Scriptures
There is another source of apprehension, of a religious nature, by which the
mind is sometimes restricted and hampered in studying the laws of nature and the
past history of the globe, and that is the fear that something will be found
which may conflict, or at least appear to conflict, with the testimony of Scripture, and
thus shake the foundation of our Christian faith. But we must consider that the
book of revelation is intended to instruct us solely in moral and spiritual
truths, while the book of nature has been opened before us to teach us science
and philosophy. They are both equally from God. In one as much as in the other,
it is his voice that we hear, and his instructions that we receive; and we must
not allow our ears to be closed, or our reason to be trammeled, in respect to
what he teaches us directly in one, by too literal interpretations of what is
said incidentally and indirectly in the other. Since the great mistake which was
made in the time of Galileo, when it was attempted to shut out from mankind the
evidences presented by mathematics and astronomy, in respect to the laws of the
solar system, by inferences ignorantly drawn from incidental allusions in the
Scriptures to the motions of the heavenly bodies, all wise and good men have
come to the conclusion that we must look to the word of God for instruction in
moral and religious truth alone, while for science and philosophy we must go to
that other volume -- the great system of creation and providence -- which the
same infallible teacher has spread open before us. Each comes from the same

hand, and each in its own sphere it, in a certain sense, equally, for us, the
word of God.
Means of Transportation for Animals and Plants
A great many very curious modes by which plants and animals may be
transported from one country to another, even across wide and deep seas, have
recently been brought to light, which very much diminish the difficulty of
supposing that America might have been stocked from the old -- provided always,
we grant that plants and animals are subject to extensive modifications in the
course of long periods of time, by which the species is finally changed, and new
forms adapted to new situations and conditions are developed.
In the first place, the sea, instead of lying motionless, except so far as it
is agitated by winds, as is often supposed, is subject to a great number and
variety of currents, flowing in all directions, many of them at the rate of from
twenty to sixty miles a day. These currents convey fields of ice, masses of
drift wood, branches of trees with nuts, fruits, or other capsules containing
seeds attached to them, and the bodies of dead birds, with seeds in their crops.
There are many savage nations, living in countries that produce no trees, that
depend on drift wood altogether for all the material of this sort that they use in making utensils and weapons, and even sometimes for
building and for fuel. Now, the trunk of a single tree might contain the seeds
and eggs of a hundred different species of minute plants and animals, and though
great numbers would doubtless perish, many would probably be preserved.
Experiments have recently been made to ascertain how long seeds can remain
submerged in sea water without losing their power of germination, and it was
found that out of many hundreds subjected to the trial quite a large number grew
after being in the water from twenty to ninety days. This would give them time
to be conveyed a great distance by a current of the sea flowing at the rate even
of twenty-five miles a day.
A certain philosopher wishing to ascertain how far aquatic birds might convey
seeds from one lake or pond of fresh water to another, in the mud adhering to
their feet, took out a portion of such mud, in order to ascertain how far it
might be supplied with the germs of vegetable life. The quantity which he took
was about a tea-cup full. This mud he placed in a situation to allow the seeds
which it contained to germinate, and as fast as little plants appeared he pulled
them out and counted them. He obtained from this single tea-cup full of soil more than two hundred living plants ! Thus great numbers of
transfers of plants from one region to another are doubtless made, merely by the
feet of aquatic birds.
In a somewhat similar manner the young of many small animals are conveyed
from lake to lake and from river to river, by attaching themselves to the feet
and legs of birds, floating or wading in the water.
A great many other curious examples like these of the manner in which nature
has provided for the wide dissemination of the minuter forms of animal and
vegetable life might be given if time and space would allow.
Glacial Action
Whenever the temperature of a country, either from its great elevation or
from its high latitude, is such that the summer cannot thaw the snow and ice
which the winter produces, what are called glaciers are formed. These glaciers
are beds of solid ice, of many hundred feet in thickness, which are formed in
valleys or upon broad slopes of land, and which all the time slowly move down
the descent upon which they lie, as if there were a certain slight and imperfect
fluidity in the constitution of the ice. When such a glacier has it lower
termination in a valley it sometimes ploughs up the ground before it, and deposits stones,
which it has brought down upon its surface, in a particular way, and produces
other curious effect, the results of the glacial action, by which the geologists
feel confident that they can determine, upon a proper examination of any
district or valley, whether or not a glacier has ever been at work there.
When these glaciers terminate upon the shore of the sea, the lower edge is
forced out over the water by the pressure of a mass above and behind, until the
projecting mass, sometimes many hundred feet in thickness, is broken off, falls
over, and is borne away by the current or the wind, This is the way in which the
immense icebergs that are seen floating about even in the middle of the ocean
are formed.
The Glacial Period of North America
It is alleged by geologists that there are abundant evidences of former
glacial action throughout all the northern and central parts of North America,
and also of Europe and Asia, indicating that at some remote period the climate
in all the northern latitudes was very much colder than it is now. Indeed, some
astronomical arguments have recently been advanced showing that the earth, by
the laws of its motion round the sun, which lead to a change in the position of its axis in relation to the sun, is subject to
certain grand oscillations of temperature, in which the regions of the north and
of the south poles are alternately made warmer and colder, and that at the
present time the condition of the north pole is intermediate between the two
extremes. However this may be, there are undoubted geological proofs that in
former ages the northern countries, both of the old continent and the new, have
been at one period much colder, and at another much warmer, than at present.
When the climate was colder the reign of ice in all the northern regions, and
the influence of it in connecting continents and transporting animals and men,
would be of course greatly increased. If now we suppose that at such a time
great numbers of the then existing species of animals were transported across
the intervening seas, and then gradually spread themselves southward, undergoing
slow modifications as they advance, to fit them for the new conditions to which
the changes of the climate or their own changes of habitation exposed them, we
should have very nearly the result which is now observed to exist.
These ideas, however, are, after all, at present only the speculations of
naturalists and philosophers, ingenious and interesting as they are.

Physical Features of the Country

Chapter 2
Face of the Country
The Map
The map on the adjoining page represents the portion of the North American
continent which is at the present time occupied by the people of the United
States. It will assist very much in reading intelligently the history of the
country if we first obtain a clear and comprehensive view of the great and
leading features of its geography.
These features are very marked and striking -- more so, perhaps, than those
of any other country on the globe. This will clearly appear by an inspection of
the map, and by filling out, in imagination, the outline which the map presents,
with the details which will be given in this description.
As you look upon the map imagine that you are in the air, looking down upon
it as from a balloon, and take notice of what you see. On the east and on the
west are the shores of two oceans, That on the east is the Atlantic. The Pacific
is on the west.

The Lake Country.
Toward the north is an immense tract of nearly level land, covered with
forests, but containing a vast number of depressions in the surface of the land,
all of which are filled with water and form lakes, some large and others small.
This land, though level, is high, so that there is a very considerable though
gradual descent from the lakes to the ocean. The lakes are kept constantly full
by the rains and by the melting of the snows, and the surplus waters flow off in
one vast channel, northward and eastward to the sea.
One of the large lakes, though still much higher than the sea, is marked as a
low lake, for it is two or three hundred feet below the level of the others, and
the water flowing from the upper lakes into it, in descending from one level to
the other, passes over a high precipice, thus producing an immense fall, which
is the celebrated Niagara.
The surplus waters of all the large lakes flow off finally in a northeasterly
direction, almost exactly parallel to the coast until they reach the sea. The
river thus formed is now known as the St. Lawrence. Observe, that between the
river and the coast there is a long and somewhat narrow strip of land, which
will be spoken of more particularly under another head.

All this region of the lakes is inhabited -- during the summer season by
immense numbers of beasts upon the land, of birds in the regions of the air, and
of fishes in the water. In the winter it is buried deep in ice and snow. The
birds at that season have all flown. The animals have retired to dens and holes,
where some sleep, torpid, till the spring returns, and others burrowing beneath
the frosty covering which clothes the ground, gain their livelihood there by
digging for roots, or gnawing the bark of trees, or catching the fish that are
still swimming in the imprisoned waters.
Fur-Bearing Animals
Almost all the land animals that inhabit these regions -- being exposed for
six months in the year to intense cold -- are protected by a thick and warm coat
of hair and fur. In the larger animals the hair is coarse, but thick and warm,
though much less so than in the case of the smaller animals; for the smaller the
body is that is exposed, the more perfect the protection that it requires, one
large mass being more easily kept warm than a multitude of small ones.
The region of these lakes, and of the country north of it, which, for many
hundreds of miles, maintains the same character, is one of the most extensive and most celebrated fur-bearing districts in the world. The shores of
the lakes, and the banks of all the millions of little brooks and streams, are
full of minks, otter, beavers, sables, and multitudes of other swimming and
burrowing animals of that kind, whose fur is softer than silk and warmer than
wool. When, therefore, you look upon the map and imagine that your eyes are
surveying the real country, you must picture it to your mind as swarming with
all this life, winter and summer.
In the summer these animals ramble about in the forests, or along the borders
of the lakes and streams, amid a profusion of the most luxuriant and most
beautiful flowers. Some climb the trees, and run along upon the branches in
search of nuts for their winter stores. Some burrow in the ground, at the margin
of the water, with the orifices of their dwelling convenient either for foraging
upon the land, or for fishing and swimming in the ponds and streams.
The Indian Inhabitants
There is one thing more to be brought to mind in order to complete the
picture, and that is, the presence of many wandering tribes of Indians roaming
over the country. The smokes from their scattered wigwams rise among the trees both in summer and in winter. They build
their habitations of the bark of trees. They hunt and trap the land animals, and
snare the fish. They eat the flesh for food, and clothe themselves with the
skins and furs. Each tribe preserves in a measure its own range, and yet
sometimes they become involved in dreadful quarrels, in which the ordinary
repose of the silent and solitary forests is broken by the frightful yells of a
troop of maddened savages breaking at midnight into the encampment of their
foes, or by the piercing cries of women and children whom they massacre in their
fury.
Influence of the Moral Instincts
These scenes of war and devastation are, however, only incidental and
occasional interruptions to the ordinarily peaceful flow with which the current
of life here, as in all other countries and climes, flows on. The Creator has
implanted in the human mind a natural sense of justice, a love of what is right
in the dealings between man and man, and a disapproval of what is wrong, the
influence of which, in all human communities, is ordinarily sufficient to
preserve peace, even in the most rude and savage states of society. Thus, in
picturing to our imaginations the scenes that were presented in this lake country, while in its aboriginal condition, we must
conceive of the inhabitants as ordinarily employed in their various industrial
pursuits of hunting and fishing, of fabricating implements and clothing, of
building wigwams and making encampments, and of rearing their children. The
scenes of violence and war that occurred to disturb the usual quite of their
lives, through very serious in their results, were exceptional, and
comparatively rare. It is very doubtful, indeed, whether they were more
frequent, or more destructive, in proportion to the numbers affected by them,
than the similar quarrels which have occurred among Christian and civilized
nations, as shown by the history of Europe during the last five hundred years.
The Great Central Valley
South of the lake country, and occupying a very large portion of the whole
interior of the continent, is a broad though shallow valley, bounded both on the
east and on the west by ranges of mountains. The extent of the valley is marked
on the map, not only by the mountains which bound it on the east and on the
west, but also by the ramifications of the great river which drains, it. These
ramifications are seen spreading in every direction, like the branches of a mighty tree, and terminating in the south in one great trunk,
through which the united volume of waters is poured out into the great gulf
which is seen delineated there. This is the great river Mississippi, with its
thousand tributaries. If is were the real scene, instead of a mere map that we
were looking upon, we should see all the branches of this immense system
glistening in the sun between banks loaded with luxuriant forests, and adorned
with fruits and flowers of every conceivable character and form.
The Soil of the Great Valley
The soil of the whole valley, which, however, is so broad and so shallow
that, seen as we have imagined from above, it would have more the appearance of
an extended plain than of a valley, is extremely fertile. It is what is called
an alluvial formation; that is, a very large portion of the territory has been
covered with deposits from the rivers themselves, left after overflows and
inundations. These deposits have accumulated, in the course of ages, to a great
depth, and they form an exceedingly rich and fertile soil. The rivers twist and
turn this way and that in meandering through these plains; and when swollen by
rain or by the melting snows, they undermine the banks, and bring down great masses of earth, and great numbers of immense trees into the
water. The earth thus washed in is carried down by the flood, and after being
mingled with a great variety of animal and vegetable remains, is distributed
over widely extended districts below, when the water has overflowed the banks,
and thus adds, throughout all the country so covered, a new layer of fertility
to the soil.
Formation of Islands in the River
The trees float on, too, upon the current. Some drag by the roots and get
lodged along the banks or upon shoals, in the bed of the stream. In this latter
case they intercept others coming down, and so create an obstruction, around
which sand and sediment collect, until an island is formed. When this new
formation becomes consolidated, it turns the current of the steam, and perhaps
in the end is the means of deflecting the river into a new channel.
There is another way by which islands are formed. The river wearing
continually upon its banks, and making immense convolutions in its course,
sometimes cuts through a narrow neck, where previously it flowed around in a
great circuit. A new channel is thus made for a part of the water, while the rest flows on round the circuit in the old course. By this means an
island is formed, which may, perhaps, continue for centuries to divide the
stream.
Swamps
At length, perhaps in the case of such an island, the old channel becomes
choked up and closed at the opening, having previously become half filled with
the floating trunks of trees, and all manner of brush and rubbish. Henceforward
it remains a stagnant pool, a mile perhaps wide, and fifty miles long, filled
with aquatic plants of every kind, and with decaying and half sunken trunks of
trees, all covered and adorned, where they emerge into the atmosphere, with rich
mosses, green and brown, and with graceful ferns, which hang drooping like tufts
of feathers along the bands, or clinging, wherever they can get a foothold, to
the trunks of the decaying trees.
The lagoons and morasses formed in this manner, in ancient times, became the
peaceful and happy abode of vast numbers of animals adapted to such a
habitation. Alligators, lizards, serpents, and reptiles of all kinds, crawled
along the banks or slept in the sun upon the logs that line the shore; while
long-legged birds waded in the water fishing for their food among the sedges, and flocks of ducks and other wild fowl, some of
them resplendent in plumage, and adorned with the most gorgeous hues or orange,
crimson, blue and gold, lay floating on the surface, or flew in flocks hither
and thither through the air. The lagoons and morasses were inhabited by these
animals in millions.
the Old Forsaken Channels
In other parts of this great valley swamps and morasses were formed in
another way. The river, when it overflowed its banks, carried over with it, upon
the land, immense quantities of sand, gravel, and driftwood, and other such
substances, whether floating upon the water or suspended in it. These substances
would, of course, be caught and retained, or, if heavier than the water, would
subside in greater quantities near the bank than further inland; that is, the
largest and heaviest would become lodged, while the water itself, carrying with
it the finer sediment, would flow further into the interior. Thus the land would
become built up, so to speak, faster near the river than further inland, and
consequently would rise higher; and the water which was carried over into the
plains beyond could not flow back into the river again. Instead of this, it
would find its way into every

Forsaken Channels

low and sunken tract, which would, of course, in this way become half submerged,
and long before the water could be evaporated by the sun a new supply would come
in from another inundation.
The result is, that throughout the whole extent of the valley, especially in
the southern and lower portions of it, great tracts of land have become half
submerged, and continue permanently in that condition, and thus, though teeming
with animal and vegetable life, are wholly unfit, in their present state, for
the abode of man.
The Mouth of the Mississippi
The mouth of the river, as might be expected from the prevailing character
which it bears throughout its course, presents a very extraordinary spectacle.
The torrents that come down in the great floods bring with them vast numbers of
trees and immense quantities of brush and drift wood, and also of sand and mud
held in suspension by the water, all of which are swept out in every direction
around the mouth of the river and deposited there. In this way, in process of
time, a delta, or projection of the land has been formed, which is so large as
to be plainly perceptible upon the map. This land rises scarcely above the level
of the sea, and the water of the river makes its way through it in every direction, in many different and devious channels. The whole
tract is, in fact, an entangled mass of trees and brushwood, matted together and
gone to decay, and covered with mud and slime; and so unfit for the habitation
of man that when, on the coming of the Europeans, a landing-place was required
on the bank of the river; it was found necessary to ascend more than one hundred
miles before a site suitable for a town could be found. And even at that spot
the surface of the river is now often higher than the streets of the town which
has been build there, and in digging a foot or two anywhere in the soil we come
to the water.
The Prairies
In the northern part of this great fertile basin, watered by the Mississippi
and its branches, there is a vast extent of country void of forests, or nearly
void of them, there being no wood upon it except narrow belts of trees growing
along the margins of the rivers. This country consists of boundless plains of
grass land, called prairies. The soil is very fertile, and the grass grows high;
and when from any small elevation the traveler takes a survey of the scene,
looking out, as he may, to an unobstructed horizon on every side, and seeing the grass waving in the wind throughout the whole expanse around him, he might well
imagine himself in the midst of an ocean -- only that the billows that roll over
it are green instead of blue. These plains, in aboriginal times, furnished food
for buffaloes, elks, antelopes, and other animals that feed on herbage, the
whole mass moving continually to and fro over the vast expanse as the season
changed, or as the state of the pasturage invited them to new fields.
The Northern Atlantic Slope
The most important part of the whole territory represented on the map, in a
historical point of view, is the Atlantic slope, as it is called -- that is, the
portion of the country between the mountains bordering the valley of the
Mississippi, on the east, and the sea. You will see by the map that this is a
long and narrow strip of land. It is divided naturally into two portions. The
stormy cape which is seen projecting into the sea about midway of the coast
marks this division. To the northward of this there is a tract of land lying
between the sea on the one hand, and the river which carries off the surplus
water of the great lakes on the other. This is the northern part of the Atlantic
slope, and it was the scene of many of the most interesting events connected with the history of the country.
The country in this district is mountainous or hilly in every part. In former
times it was covered with forests, except where the Indians had cleared small
patches of ground, by burning down the trees, to make fields for the cultivation
of maize. This tract of land was exactly adapted by nature for producing the
grasses and other herbaceous plants, which form the food of the sheep, the
horse, the ox, and other such grazing animals -- the most useful of all to man.
But no such animals were produced in this region. It would be impossible,
indeed, that they should live here, in a state of nature, on account of the fact
that, though in summer everything is favorable for the production of their food,
in the winter, which season here lasts from four to six months in the year, the
whole country is buried under the snow, and, of course, all such animals, if any
there were, would perish.
Such animals are now, however, raised in great numbers in all this region.
Indeed, they are the great staple of production. They feed themselves during the
summer season from the grass that grows upon the hill-sides and upon the
mountain slopes; while such as grows on the more smooth and level lands below is husbanded for them by the farmer, by being cut, and
dried, and stored in barns, and so fed out to them under shelter during the
winter season, when the fields and hill-sides are all alike buried under four or
five feet under the snow.
Native Animals
Thus, in its native state, there were no animals in this region except such
as could provide themselves with food, or live without it during the protracted
winters. The moose, with his long legs to wade through the snow, and his long
neck and head to reach up to the branches of the trees and underwood, could live
by browsing upon the buds and the tender bark which grows upon them. The
squirrels and other such smaller animals were endowed with instincts which led
them to lay up food for the winter in hollow logs or holes in the ground. The
bears went into a torpid sleep in which they remained insensible and without
food for months at a time, and the minks and other burrowing creatures of that
kind continued their operations under the ice and snow all winter long, feeding
on roots or on fish; and whatever might be the severity of the cold above,
finding it always warm and comfortable for them below.

Man
This northeastern region had its human inhabitants, too, notwithstanding the
depth of the snow which covered it, and the intensity of the cold which
prevailed during so large a part of the year. These inhabitants easily provided
themselves with food during the summer season, partly by hunting and fishing,
and partly by cultivating the ground in such spots as they had been able to
clear of trees. They had a double resource in winter, too. In the first place
there were the stores of provisions which, like the squirrels, they had laid up
in the season of abundance, and then, even in the winter, the supplies which
nature afforded them were not wholly cut off. For, although all above the
surface of the earth, both of land and water, formed one lifeless and desolate
expanse of frost and ice and snow, and was enveloped in an atmosphere so
intensely cold that no active vegetable or animal life could endure exposure to
it, still beneath this surface, both upon the land and upon the water, there was
a protected stratum teeming with life in every form, and there were a thousand
ways which their savage ingenuity devised of penetrating to this stratum, and
drawing from it at least a portion of their needed supplies.

All this, however, will be more fully explained in a subsequent chapter.
The Southern Atlantic Slope
To the south of the stormy cape represented on the amp, and between the
mountains and the sea, is the southern Atlantic slope, of nearly the same size
and form as its northern counterpart, but extremely dissimilar in character. It
consists mainly of level plains, covered, in a great measure, with forests of
pine; and across these plains innumerable rivers flow from the mountains to the
sea, through valleys of the most extraordinary richness and beauty. In this
country the grasses do not grow,, but their place is filled by tropical plants.
The two chief plants that have been cultivated here are rice and cotton.
Character of the Coast
One very curious and extremely important result of the difference of the
conformation of the land in the northern and southern portion of the Atlantic
slope, is a great difference in the accessibility of the coast in the two
sections. Where a district of country is mountainous and rocky, the shores are
usually bold, and the indentations in the land are filled with deep water. The
rivers, too, in flowing through such a country, are bounded generally by steep and permanent
banks, which yield but little sand or soil, to be borne away by the current of
the stream. The rivers are consequently more likely to be deep, and their mouths
to be comparatively unobstructed.
On the contrary, where a coast is low and sandy, it is undermined and washed
away by the waves, and shoals and sandbars and low islands are formed all along
the line of it. The rivers, too, in flowing through such a country, undermine
and wear away the banks, and bring down great quantities of sand and gravel to
fill the beds of the rivers, and choke up the entrances at their mouths.
These causes operate powerfully in the two portions of the eastern coast of
this country. The shores in the northern portion are bold and permanent, and
almost every considerable indentation in them forms a deep and safe harbor for
shipping. In the southern portion, on the other hand, the coast is lined with
shoals and sandy islands; and although there are numerous inlets and bays
between and among them, they are almost all shallow, and the approaches to them
are choked up with continually shifting sands.
It is so with the rivers. The Hudson river has one-third greater depth of
water at its mouth than the Mississippi, although the Mississippi reckons twice as many thousands of
miles as the Hudson hundreds, in its length, and discharges, doubtless, into the
sea, judging from the area which it drains -- more than a hundred times the
quantity of water.
From these causes the northern coast is much more accessible to ships coming
from sea than the southern, and to this advantage, doubtless, and to the
facilities for commerce resulting from it, it is owing, in some considerable
degree, that so many early settlements were made on the shores of the
northeastern slope, and that the section of country lying contiguous to them has
made such rapid advances in wealth and population.
The Western Slope
If we pass now across the country to the western slope, we see a range of
mountains running parallel with the coast at a comparatively short distance from
the sea. This chain of mountains was named by the Spaniards who first explored
the country the Sierra Nevada, which means snowy chain. The strip of land which
lies between these mountains and the sea is too narrow to produce any
considerable rivers. One, however, is seen crossing the chain of mountains,
flowing through a gap or gorge, left, it would almost seem, on purpose to allow a passage. The mouth
of this river forms a deep and spacious harbor, the only one of importance upon
the coast. It is this harbor that has given rise to the city of San Francisco.
The Great Salt Desert
There remains one more district, and that a most remarkable one, to be
described. It is the great desert which lies between the Snowy Chain and the
range of mountains which bounds the Mississippi on the west. The desert
character of this tract arises, it would seem, from the scarcity of rain, and
from the sandy and porous character of the soil, which causes all the water that
falls upon it to be absorbed so suddenly that it cannot serve the purposes of
vegetation. Streams rise in the mountains around it, and some of them, by the
confluence of tributaries, become quite large rivers in going down into the
valley. But in flowing over the great sandy waste which here receives them, the
water is rapidly absorbed. The streams grow smaller and smaller as they go on,
and finally disappear. In the spring of the year, when the snows melt, or in
times of great rains, these rivers are swollen so as to extend in length a
hundred miles or more, but even at such times they finally dwindle away and disappear.
Some of the rivers, however, before they disappear, reach great hollows or
depressions in the land, which depressions, of course, they fill, and thus are
formed lakes. The smaller of these lakes, in summer, dry up and disappear,
leaving only salt incrustations upon the ground; others being larger, are
permanent. There is one, the Great Salt lake, which is some hundreds of miles in
extent. The water from these permanent lakes is, of course, all the time
infiltrating into the sand below, and evaporating into the air above, but before
the whole quantity is exhausted, the rains upon the mountains send down a fresh
supply, and thus the vast reservoir is never wholly emptied.
The Deposits of Salt
There is one very curious phenomenon which occurs throughout this region, and
that is the tendency to deposit salt, which the waters indicate. The great lake,
as its name denotes, is salt, and saline incrustations are found upon the ground
in various places where lakes and pools have dried away. It is found to be a
general law, though perhaps not universal, that wherever lakes exist that are
fed by rivers or other streams flowing over the surface of the ground -- and not by springs -- and which have no outlet to
the sea, they are salt. There may be exceptions, but this is the general law.
For a long time the cause of this phenomenon was enveloped in great mystery,
but this mystery has at length been solved. It is found that the earth contains,
and continually produces saline substances in the soil. The rain falling upon a
district of country dissolves a portion of these substances, and they are borne
away by the water into brooks and streams. The quantity is too small to affect
the taste of the water while it is in this condition, and so we call the water
fresh, and it continues fresh until it reaches the sea.
If, however, it never reaches the sea, but like the water that comes down
from the mountain sides into the great American desert it spreads itself out
into lakes and pools, and there evaporates, the salt then becomes concentrated
so as to manifest itself very decidedly to the taste, and to the other senses.
For in the process of evaporation it is the water only that is taken up into the
air. The saline particles which it contained are all left behind. Thus the
saline element accumulates. Every fresh rain brings down an exceedingly small,
it is true, but still an additional supply; and as nothing is taken away, the quantity, after the lapse of ages, becomes very great. The
Dead Sea, which is isolated in this manner, and has been for thousands of years
receiving a small continual supply from the saline substances which the Jordan
and its branches have washed from the soil, has become more salt than the ocean.

The Diggers
The great desert valley which lies thus between the Rocky Mountains and the
Snowy Chain of the Pacific, is not wholly desert and uninhabited. There are
regions on the mountain sides and in the valleys in which a scanty vegetation
thrives, and where reptiles and other animals of a humble order are produced.
There are even tribes of Indians low and degraded enough to be fitted to these
gloomy and desolate abodes. They are called Diggers, from the fact that they
obtain their subsistence by digging into the ground for roots and for snails and
reptiles of every kind.
Climate of the Country
For nearly six months of the year, throughout the whole breadth of the
continent from east to west, the polar cold, following the sun as he withdraws
during that season of the year beyond the equator to the south, comes down from the Arctic regions, and envelopes all the
northern half of the country in ice and snow, and then, during the remaining six
months, the returning sun brings back warmth, and with it spreads verdure and
beauty again over the whole.
During the winter season, all along the northern frontier, the snow in the
forests lies often for months at a time four and five feet deep, while the ice
is at least half that thickness upon the rivers and ponds. The intensity of the
cold of course rapidly diminishes in advancing to the southward, and along the
southern frontier it is very seldom that either snow or ice is seen.
It is a singular circumstance that the difference of the temperature at the
different seasons of the year is very much greater on this continent than on the
other. There is about twice as great a difference between the average heat of
summer and winter in Quebec as at Paris, it being here much warmer in the one
season and much colder in the other. In Scotland the summers are not warm enough
to ripen grapes or Indian corn, and yet in the winters the sheep can feed in
their pastures almost without interruption during the whole year. In the
corresponding region on this side of the Atlantic, while the rays of the summer
sun are sufficiently concentrated and continuous to ripen the grapes and the corn, the winter's cold
is so intense that, for six long months, the sheep and cattle have no access to
the pasturage at all, the whole surface of the ground having become solid as a
rock, and being also buried many feet under the snow.
Recapitulation
Look now once more upon the map and take a general survey of the country
which it represents, by way of fixing the great leading features of it upon your
mind. There is the lake country at the north, covered with forests, and the
summit level occupied by four great inland seas, which pour their waters down
over the precipice of Niagara into the lowermost lake, and thence flow off in a
northeasterly direction into the ocean. South of this is the great Mississippi
Valley, occupying almost the whole interior of the country, and displaying a
vast net-work of rivers which, collecting the waters of the whole region, brings
them all together into the center of the valley and carries them through one
immense channel southward into the sea. By the side of this valley to the
westward is a great dry and barren basin, bordered by mountains on every side,
and with no rivers except such as are formed by streams coming down from the
mountains after rains, or from the melting of the snows, and are soon absorbed by the
thirsty sands. These two great basins occupy the center of the continent.
To the westward of them is the narrow strip which forms the Pacific slope,
between the mountains and the sea, and to the eastward of them is the Atlantic
slope, level and plain in the southern part, but mountainous and rugged toward
the north.
These are the great leading features of the country, which it is necessary to
keep distinctly in mind in studying its history.

Chapter 3
Remarkable Plants
Distinction of Indigenous and Exotic
A plant that grows originally in any locality as a native of it is said to be
indigenous to that locality. Those which have been brought to it by man, either
by accident or design, are exotic. Thus the orange tree that grows in a pot or a
tub in a lady's parlor in any northern part of America is an exotic; so is the
wheat that grows in the farmer's fields -- both plants having been brought to
that locality by man. But the Indian corn, or maize, as it is more properly
called is indigenous, that plant being, so far as is known, a native of the
country.
Of the numerous plants found growing in America at the time it was discovered
by Europeans, some very strongly resembled plants of the same class growing in
the old world, though different in species from them. There were others,
however, that possessed characteristics almost wholly new, and some of them soon
began to attract great attention. Among these may be named the cotton plant, rice, the tobacco plant,
the potato, and maize.
The Cotton Plant
Man is the only animal needing clothing that is not furnished with it by
nature, but he is provided instead with the faculty of clothing himself, and one
of the most striking of the marks of design, and of the adaptation of a want to
a supply, which we find everywhere around us, consists in the provision which is
made for furnishing him with materials for this work.
In all the cold regions of the earth there are the skins of beasts at hand in
great abundance, covered with warm wool and fur, ready for his use. In all the
warm regions are the cotton plants.
Many Species
There are a great many different species of cotton plants in the world, each
great tropical district producing its own kind. These different species are very
unlike in many respects, and cannot be changed into one another by the influence
of climate or soil, or by different modes of cultivation. They all agree,
however, in this, that when the seed is ripe the capsule bursts open, and
presents a white fleecy tuft to view, inviting the naked savage, as it were, to come and
spin and weave himself a garment with it.

The Savage and the Cotton

Savages have in all ages and in every clime shown themselves ready to accept
the invitation, and in Egypt and India, and in many tropical islands of the sea,
cotton has been spun and woven from periods long antecedent to any records of
history.
America, too, it was found, very soon after it was discovered, had its cotton plants, and cloth made from the little fleeces
which they bore was worn by the natives in all the tropical regions. Specimens
of the cloth have been found in some ancient tombs in South America, showing
that it has been in use here from a very ancient period. In the colder regions
the plant did not grow. Here the natives were compelled to content themselves
with the skins of beasts, and with such fabrics as they could make from the
fibrous bark of trees.
The name of the genus that comprises all the species of cotton plants is
gossypium. Some of the species which were found in America proved to be superior
to any others previously known. There is one species, in particular, which was
found in some of the West India Islands, and was brought to the United States in
1786, and is now cultivated on the low and level islands lying along the
southern coast, that we described in the last chapter, and which is far more
valuable than any other found upon the globe. Its superiority consists in the
fineness and softness and length of the fibre. It will not grow anywhere and
retain its qualities except on, low rich land along the sea shore, and it thrives best upon the islands above referred to. It is called on that account
sea island cotton.
The fibres of cotton, seen under a powerful microscope, appear like long
ribbons, perfectly smooth and continuous from beginning to end. They are
transparent, too, though the reflection of the light from so many countless
millions of them when they lie together gives the whole mass a white appearance,
just as a mist or fog appears white while the sun shines upon it, although it
consists of millions of drops of perfectly pellucid water.
Cotton Intended for the Clothing of Men
It is not known that the tuft of cotton is of any advantage to the seed which
it envelopes, or that it fulfills any other useful purpose in the economy of the
plant. It would seem that it was expressly intended for the clothing of man,
just at the fruits and the grains which other plants produce were intended for
his food. There is this difference in the two cases, however, namely, that while
the fruits and grains have a useful purpose to accomplish in respect to the
plants which produce them, as well as being available for the purposes of man,
the little fleece which envelopes the seed of the cotton plant seems, so far as
we know, not be necessary to the plant at all, thus leaving us to infer that nature produces it with very special, if not exclusive, reference to the
wants of man.
The birds in the countries where it grows make great use of it too to give a
soft and downy lining to their nests.
Rice,
Several species of rice were found indigenous to America. Rice is the most
productive food-bearing plant, for the use both of men and animals, that is
known. It grows wild in the water in low and swampy lands along the borders of
the rivers in tropical countries. Countless millions of birds gather over all
the region where it grows in the season of its ripening, and multitudes of other
animals, such as gain access to the ground when the water subsides, live upon
it.
The Indians used to gather it by sailing in through the midst of it in their
canoes, where bending down the heads of the rice, they would beat off the grains
into the boat by means of a sort of threshing stick made for the purpose.
Maize
The most important and valuable plant, however, for the American Indians,
especially for those who lived beyond the limits of the rice country, was the maize, or Indian corn. A great many of the tribes cultivated
this plant in fields which they cleared for this purpose, by digging around the
roots of trees and burning them off. Such fields were very numerous in the
northern parts of the country when it was first discovered by white men.,
Indeed, this plant seems to have been their chief reliance for vegetable food.
they considered it as the special gift of the great Spirit, and it figures very
conspicuously in all their traditionary legends in respect to the creation of
the world, and the early history of the human race.
An Indian Tradition
One of these legends is as follows: --
The first men who were created, says the tradition, proved to be bad men, and
the great Spirit, finding them to be incorrigible, destroyed them all by
drowning them in a great lake.
This story of the destruction of the first race of men by water is supposed
to by some to have originated in a tradition of the general deluge described in
the Sacred Scriptures.
After having thus destroyed one generation, the Great Spirit created another man, and finding, after he had lived alone for some
time, that his condition was too solitary, he made him a sister. The brother and
sister lived together quite happily for a while, when at last one morning the
brother said that he had had a dream.
Five young men he saw in his dream, he said, coming one after another to see
his sister, desiring her in marriage. She rejected the first four and accepted
the fifth. This was a token, he thought, that if such young men should come she
was to refuse the four first and accept the last. His sister said that she would
do so.
In a short time the young men began to come. The first was named Tobacco.
This was, however, before any such plant as tobacco was known. The young lady
refused his suit, and he immediately fell backward and died.
Note: We use here the English names of the plants referred to. Of course in the
original legend the Indian names are given.
Next came a young man named Bean. He, too, was refused, and fell back and
died like the other.
The next one was named Pumpkin, and the next Melon. Thy both met with the
same fate as their predecessors. All fell backward when they found themselves
rejected, and died.

Finally the fifth young man came. His name was Maize. The girl smiled upon
him, and gave him her hand. They were married, and from them proceeded all the
subsequent generations of the human family.
From the ground where the bodies of the others lay buried there sprang up the
several plants bearing these persons' names, the tobacco, the pumpkin, the
melon, and the bean.
The narration of this legend here answers the double purpose of showing how
important a place in the estimation of the Indians the maize plant occupied as
an article of food for them, and also of giving an example of the traditionary
tales which have come down from former generations in respect to the origin of
the human family.
The Distinction of Exogenous and Endogenous
The maize plant brings to our view one of the greatest and most important
distinctions that appear in the vegetable world, that of exogenous and
endogenous plants, or, as they are sometimes termed, EXOGENS and ENDOGENS.
The word exogenous means outgrowing. An exogenous plant is one that grows by
successive layers deposited at intervals beneath the bark upon the outside of the stem, as is the case with early all trees and shrubs that
grow in cold or temperate climates. They all have a pith in the center and a
bark upon the outside, and the wood of the stem between is formed by layers
deposited in succession immediately beneath the bark.
An endogenous plant, on the other hand, grows by a uniform expansion of the
whole substance of the stem within. It has no pith and no bark. The external
surface is hard, however, and smooth. It is sometimes even glossy. The maize is
perhaps the largest specimen of an endogenous plant which grows in northern
latitudes. Very large specimens grow in tropical regions. The date, the bamboo,
the rattan, the sugar cane, and various other canes, such as those used for
fishing poles, are all endogenous. Indeed, this is the prevailing type of
tropical vegetation, and the fact that maize is of this character seems to
indicate that it is of tropical origin.
It is a very curious circumstance that the seeds of all exogenous plants have
two lobes, while those of endogenous plants have only one. The lobes of a seed
are by the botanists called cotyledons. Hence the class of endogens are
sometimes called monocotyledonous plants, while that of exogens are called
dicotyledonous. What connection there should be between the single cotyledon of the seed and the peculiar character
and growth of the endogenous plant, its hard and shining outside surface, with
no bark and no successive layers of wood, and on the other hand between a
two-lobed constitution of the seed, and a bark, a pith, and a growth by
successive outside layers, is a profound mystery. That there is some latent
connection, however, is sure, for the two distinctions correspond with each
other throughout the whole domain of the vegetable world.
In some plants, as in the bean, for example, the two cotyledons of the seed
come out of the ground when the seed germinates, and appear above the surface in
the form of two thick oval leaves. The division exists, though it is not so
apparent in the seeds of all bark bearing trees, shrubs, and herbs of every
kind.
The Tobacco Plant
Perhaps the most extraordinary of all the native American plants, considered
in respect to the influence which it has exerted, and the effects which it has
produced in the world since the discovery of America, is the tobacco plant. The
attention of the Europeans was called to it almost from the outset. Columbus,
when he first landed, sent some messengers into the interior on an exploring tour, and on their return, among
other things that they reported, they said they found the natives smoking little
rolls formed of the leaf of some sort of plant. One end of these rolls, they
said, the people put into their mouths, and thus drew the smoke in from the
other end which was lighted.
The plant was afterward found to be a narcotic, that is, to have the power of
producing a sleepy and dreamy sensation when taken into the system. There are a
great many plants produced in other parts of the world, the effects of which
upon the system are narcotic, but those of the tobacco plant are peculiar. They
are far more agreeable, and perhaps less injurious -- so they say at least that
use it -- than those of any other narcotic plant.
It was, however, sixty or seventy years after the time that the attention of
Columbus was first called to the plant before it was known in Europe. During all
this time, though its existence and its effects were known to travelers visiting
America, the use of it was regarded as a repulsive habit of savages, not to be
imitated by civilized men. At length, in the year 1560, a small quantity of it
was sent across the Atlantic to a certain Flemish merchant, and he sent a
portion as a curiosity to the French minister at the court of Portugal, at Lisbon. The name of this minister was
Nicot.
Nicot presented some specimens of the tobacco to the king of Portugal and to
other distinguished personages, and they made trial of its effects. They were
all so much pleased with the dreamy exhilaration which it produced upon them
that they sent for more, and in this way it was soon introduced into Europe,
where its fame spread with great rapidity. A very strenuous opposition arose to
the use of it at the same time, and kings and governments, both civil and
ecclesiastical, made earnest efforts to suppress it, but all in vain; and it has
since, as is well known, become one of the most widely extended articles of
consumption, and the most important in its effects, either for good or for evil,
that the vegetable kingdom produces for man.