future day, and in proper person, will probably invade the territory of France. In the course of this work of alluvion, as it relates to this country, the reflugent waters of the Atlantick will be forced to recede from Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake; the beds whereof will become fertile valleys, or, as they are called here, river bottoms; while the lands in the lower district of the state, which are now only a very few feet above the surface of the sea, will rise into majestick eminences, and the present sickly site of Norfolk be converted into a high and salubrious mountain. I apprehend, however, that the present inhabitants of Norfolk would be extremely unwilling to have such an effect wrought in their day; since there can be little doubt that they prefer their present commercial situation, incumbered as it is by the annual visits of the yellow fever, to the elevation and health of the Blue Ridge.

In the course of this process, too, of which I have been speaking, if the theory be correct, the gulf of Mexico will be eventually filled up, and the west India Islands consolidated with the American continent.

These consequences, visionary as they may now appear, are not only probable; but, if the alluvion which is demonstrated to have taken place already, should continue, they are inevitable. There is very little probability that the isthmus of Darien, which connects the two continents, is coeval with the Blue Ridge or the Cordilleras; and it requires only a continuation of the cause which produced the isthmus, to effect the repletion of the gulph and the consolidation of the islands with the continent.

But when? I am possessed of no data whereby the calculations can be made. The depth at which Herculaneum and Pompeia were found to be buried in the course of

sixteen hundred years, affords us no light on this inquiry; because their burial was effected not by the slow alluvion and accumulation of time, but by the sudden and repeated eruptions of Vesuvius. As little are we aided by the repletion of the earth around the Tarpeian rock in Rome; since that repletion was most probably effected in a very great degree, by the materials of fallen buildings. And besides, the original height of the rock is not ascertained with any kind of precision; historians having, I believe, merely informed us, that it was sufficiently elevated to kill the criminals who were thrown from its summit.

But a truce with philosophy. Who could have believed that the skeleton of an unwieldly whale, and a few mouldering teeth of a shark, would have led me such a dance!

Adieu, my dear S......., for the present; May the light of Heaven continue to shine around you!

LETTER III.

Richmond, September 15.

You inquire into the state of your favourite art in Virginia. Eloquence, my dear S......, has few successful votaries here: I mean eloquence of the highest order; such as that to which, not only the bosom of your friend, but the feelings of the whole British nation bore evidence, in listening to the charge of the Begums in the prosecution of Warren Hastings.

In the national and state legislatures, as well as at the various bars in the United States, I have heard great volubility, much good sense, and some random touches of the pathetic; but in the same bodies, I have heard a far greater proportion of puerile rant, or

tedious and disgusting inanity. Three remarks are true as to almost all their orators. First they have not a sufficient fund of general knowledge.

Secondly they have not the habit of close and solid thinking.

Thirdly they do not aspire at original or

naments.

From these three defects, it most generally results, that although they pour out, easily enough, a torrent of words, yet these are destitute of the light of erudition, the practical utility of just and copious thought, or those novel and beautiful allusions and embellishments, with which the very scenery of the country is so highly calculated to inspire them. The truth is, my dear S..... that this scarcity of genuine and sublime eloquence, is not confined to the United States: instances of it in any civilized country have always been rare indeed. Mr. Blair is cer