was formerly a great lake or colleaion of water, which poffibly might have here formed a mighty cafcade, or had its vent to the ocean by the Sufquehanna, where the Blue ridge feems to terminate. Befides this, there are other parts of this country which bear evident traces of a Hke convulfion. From the beft accounts I have been able to obtain, the place where the Delaware now flows through the Kittatinny mountain, which is a continuation of what is called the North ridge, or mountain, was not its ori- ginal courfe, but that it pafled through what is now called ''the Wind-gap," a place feveral miles to the weflward, and about an hundred feet higher than the prefent bed of the river. This Wind-gap is about a mile broad, and the ftones in it fuch as feem to have been wafhed for ages by water running over them. Should this have been the cafe, there muft have been a large lake behind that mountain, and by fome uncommon fwell in the waters, or by fome convulfion of nature the river muft have opened its way through a different part of the mountain, and meeting there with lefs obftruftion, carried away with it the oppofing mounds of earth, and de- luged the country below with the immenfe coliedlion of waters to which this new paf- fage gave vent. There are ftill remaining, and daily difcovered, innumerable inftances of fuch a deluge on both fides of the river, after it paffed the hills above the falls of Trenton, and reached the champaign. On the New-Jerfey fide, which is flatter than the Pennfylvania fide, all the country below Crofwick hills feems to have been overflowed to the diftance of from ten to fifteen miles back from the river, and to have acquired a new foil by the earth and clay brought down and mixed with the native fand. The fpot on w^hich Philadelphia ftands evidently appears to be made ground. The different flrata through which they pafs in digging to water, the acorns, leaves, and fometimes branches, which are found above twenty feet below the furface, all feem to demonfl:rate this.
I am informed that at Yorktown in Vir- ginia, in the bank of York river, there are different ftrata of fhells and earth, one above another, which feem to point out that the country there has undergone feve- ral changes;