eruel discipline of the task-master, it is not to be compared with that of necessity. A man discharged from all concern about his future situation in life, will never be brought to labour so hard, or so much, or to live upon so little, or to be so careful of his implements, his clothing, &c. by the exaggerated terrors of arbitrary punishment, as he would be under other circumstances, by the prospect of such evils as threaten the operatives of England every day and every moment of their lives.

It is for these reasons, that slave-labour is profitable only where the article raised, sells at a price somewhat higher than those articles which may be produced every where, and are every where of first necessity. "The planting of sugar and tobacco," Adam Smith, says 66 can afford the expense of slave cultivation. The raising of corn, it seems, in the present times, cannot. In the English Colonies, of which the principal produce is corn, the far greater part of the work is done by freemen. The late resolution of the Quakers in Pensylvania, to set at liberty all their negro slaves, may satisfy us that their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to. In our Sugar Colonies, on the contrary, the whole work is done by slaves, and in our Tobacco Colonies, a very great part of it," &c.

As to the abstract question, whether slavery is consistent with the law of nature, with humanity and with justice, we repeat, that it is not our purpose to go at large into it on the present occasion. The Christian religion, we conceive, to have nothing to do with the matter, except, indeed, that the total silence of its Divine Author upon this subject, and the positive injunction of obedience upon bondmen, in the midst of the sternest, the harshest, and the most indiscriminate system of servitude that ever existed,* seem to make the inference inevitable, that He considered the institution as altogether a matter of political expediency. Grotius, who had some pretensions to humanity, and was withal, not altogether ignorant of the law of nature, and the principles of the Christian faith, maintains distinctly, that slavery is not contrary to natural right. His view of the matter may be worth presenting to the reader. Est autem servitus perfecta quæ perpetuas operas debet pro alimentis et aliis, quæ vitæ necessitas exigit; quæ res si ita accipiatur in terminis naturalibus, nihil habet in se nimiæ acerbitatis: Nam perpetua ista obligatio compensatur perpetua alimentorum certitudine, quam sæpe non habeat, qui diurnas operas locant, &c. de J. B. et P. l. ii. c. 5. § 27-2. See also, 1. iii. c. 7. § 1. where speaking of the saying of the civilians, that the Jus Gentium did not in this respect coincide with the law of nature, he affirms, that it can mean nothing more than that servitude could not exist, citra factum humanum aut primævo naturæ statu, &c.

The remark, that the obligation on the part of the master, to afford a perpetual subsistence to the slave, whether he be able to earn it or not, for the obligation of perpetual service, seems entitled to some weight.

* In Sicily, one of the granaries of the Roman Empire, Florus tells us that the slaves worked in chains. Terra frugum ferax, et quodammodo suburbana provincia, latifundiis civiùm Romanorum tenebatur. Hic ad cultum agri frequentia ergastula, catenatique cultores materiam bello præbuere. Lib. iii. c. 19. 30

VOL. I.-NO. 1.

What are the operatives of England, or any other very populous country, even in health and an ordinarily prosperous state of business, but slaves? How much free will is left them? But the moment they cease to be able to get or to do work, their bondage becomes complete and hopeless. A purish pauper is, to all intents and purposes, a slave, and the overseers of the poor have powers and duties, that fully entitle them to be classed in the same category with the vilified and detested race of West-Indian overseers. Indeed, as every very prosperous manufacturing country inust be, we think, a very populous one, pauperism or slavery is an incident inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in that way. Villenage in gross disappeared in England upwards of two centuries ago, and since that time, it seems, the air of that fortunate island is too pure to be breathed by a bondman. Yet we are at a loss to perceive the difference, in any essential particular, between the imates of a parish work-house, and those even of a Roman Ergastulum.* Malthus is right. Accumulation of capital, as we have remarked, can seldom exist without a redundant population, and this latter is the source of every evil under the sun. It is, however, the price which rich countries pay for their envied superiority; and the same wealth which reduces the rate of interest, makes a poor's rate necessary, and the poor man a slave.

The following remarks of the Abbé de Mably, (Droit Public de l'Europe, c. xi. § 3) would scarcely have been expected from one of the greatest champions of political reform, and the philosophical freedom or rather libertinism of the day, that France had to boast of during the last century.

"It has been supposed that I proposed to violate the laws of nature, by proposing to establish the use of slaves in Europe: but are not these holy laws violated in states, where some citizens possess every thing, and others nothing. I beg to remark, that the liberty which every European thinks he enjoys, is nothing more than the power of occasionally breaking his chains, in order to get himself a new master. Necessity makes him a slave; and his case is the more lamentable, inasmuch as nobody provides for his subsistence. It is mendicity that degrades men, and that is inevitable in every country that does not set bounds to the cupidity and the fortunes of its citizens. It is an insult upon common sense to pretend, that every man is free in a country, where one citizen employs another citizen to serve him, and condemns him to the vilest, the most laborious, and the most disgusting occupations."

* Except the Statutes against the Papists, it is difficult to imagine any thing more harsh and barbarous, than the English Poor Laws.

ART. IX.-Report on the Geology of North-Carolina, conducted under the direction of the Board of Agriculture. By Denison Olmsted, Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in the University of North-Carolina. Part I. Nov. 1824.-Part II. Nov. 1825. Raleigh. Gales & Son.

THE inhabitants of the Southern states have been, from the first settlement of their country, devoted to the pursuits of agriculture. The earth was the bounteous parent which furnished them with subsistence and enjoyment, with the realities of to-day and the hopes of to-morrow; but it was from her surface and her soil that they derived these blessings. In some districts, a little remote from the ocean, and locally known as the "middle country," covered with almost interminable forests of pine, the early settlers intermingled the habits and avocations of pastoral life; but the increasing population soon encroached upon the space required for the profitable management of wild stock, and the inhabitants became exclusively agricultural. No arts were cultivated but those which were connected with their habitual occupations. No sciences studied but those which were allied to their favourite pursuits. The fertility of a great portion of their soil, and the comparative value of the articles which their climate enabled them to produce, encouraged this exclusive adherence to one object; and the wealth of the waters, and the hidden treasures of the earth were abandoned to waste and to neglect, or reserved for the benefit of future generations.

Years are producing some changes. The still increasing population of the country has brought into cultivation all the more fertile soils, and the declining value of the most important of our staples has diminished the facility with which competence, if not wealth, was formerly acquired. The attention of many has latterly been directed to the discovery of new resources, of new means of subsistence, and, if possible, of profitable employment. Science, also, has been extending her influence over a people long engrossed by the simplest and most fascinating of all occupations. Literary curiosity and enterprise have been awakened, and numbers have become solicitous to explore, or to have explored, the rocky or earthy substratum of our Southern soil, some, to indulge in scientific researches, but many more, to ascertain what resources the mineral kingdom, in our country, could furnish for the uses of domestic life, or the facilities of commercial intercourse.

Views of this nature produced the Reports which we have placed at the head of this article. The Board of Agriculture of the State of North-Carolina, in the application of some small appropriation made by the Legislature of that State, appointed Mr. Olmsted, Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in the University of North-Carolina, to make a geological survey of the State, expressing, at the same time, a wish that he should "direct his attention chiefly to such objects as were of practical utility, that he should search out and describe whatever substances the mineral kingdom affords within our State, which either are or may be rendered subservient to the arts and purposes of life, and that he should not only point out where these substances may be found, but also give such an account of them as may diffuse more generally the knowledge of their uses and their value in relation either to domestic convenience and economy or to commercial enterprise." Under these instructions, with very limited means and time restricted and curtailed by paramount duties, Professor Olmsted collected the information contained in his valuable Reports.

As the researches of this gentleman were of necessity directed to particular objects rather than to general views; as his excursions were made at different times and in different directions, when the vacations in the University permitted him to be absent; and as his observations were reported in detail at the close of each journey, it may not be useless to make some preliminary remarks, which may serve to connect the detached portions of his Reports.

North-Carolina, when geologically considered, is composed of three distinct belts of very unequal breadth, traversing the State from north-east to south-west, in a direction almost exactly parallel to the shores of the ocean.

From the sea-coast to the falls of the rivers, the country is composed of a continued series of tertiary formations, differing from each other in composition, and probably in their relative antiquity, but containing many of the mineral productions which are usually found in soils or rocks of this age, and characterised by most of the fossils which distinguish the more modern strata. This belt is bordered along the ocean and the margins of the rivers by a more recent alluvium, too inconsiderable, however, to claim, at present, much notice, or to detain us in the brief outline we are endeavouring to sketch.

The breadth of this tertiary district is probably about ninety miles, and its western limit, extending from Halifax near the borders of Virginia to the neighbourhood of Cheraw, in SouthCarolina, forms, to the eye or on the surface, a sinuous line,

The

which departs, however, very little from a direct course. primitive rocks, as you ascend the rivers, first appear at their falls, and if a line were drawn from river to river, traversing at its lowest rapid or fall each stream, this line would probably mark the real boundary between the tertiary and granitic regions, and in its direction, be, perhaps, exactly parallel to the Atlantic coast. On the ridges between the rivers, the primitive rocks are covered, for a few miles, with some portions of the tertiary formations, whence arises that sinuous or irregular outline to which we have just alluded.

From the falls of the rivers, the second geological division of North-Carolina, extends to the summit of the Alleghany mountains. This great division, 'exceeding in breadth two hundred miles, and extending across the State from Virginia to SouthCarolina, may be considered as strictly granitic. For boulders or veins, or beds of granite or gneiss, or sienite, every where occur, even where they do not become the sole apparent rocks. But on, and in this primitive foundation, have been deposited beds and veins of other substances, independent or distinct formations, if it were now permitted to use the language of the old Wernerians, scattered over the surface in detached though sometimes in immense masses-and imbedded in, or intermingled with these rocks, are found many of those minerals which are collected to adorn and enrich the cabinets of science, as well as to aid the improvements, and promote the welfare of civilized

man.

The third geological division of this State extends from the summit line of the Alleghany mountains to the summit of the Bald and Iron mountains, which form the western boundary of the State, and comprehends a wide and fertile though broken valley inclosed within these limits.

This district is altogether composed of the transition rocks of Werner. The limestone, the grey wackè, the schist, the red sandstone, all belong to that ancient series. And, although occasionally some fragments, or boulders, or summits of primitive rocks appear amidst the superincumbent strata, yet the predominant mass belongs always to the transition order. Frequently, the line of demarcation is so accurately distinguished, that while the rocks on one slope of the mountains, are all primitive, on the other, we find ourselves surrounded by masses, filled with the impressions and reliquiæ of organised bodies.

The researches of Professor Olmsted were principally directed to the second-the largest, perhaps the most important, and certainly the most interesting of these geological districts. We shall not, however, follow him in his separate excursions, but