We have really no internal navigation, as there is no navigable stream in the parish; but, as before remarked, it is almost completely embraced within navigable streams, viz., Mississippi, Red, Black, and Tensas Rivers.

There have been some suggestions made to open communication between Trinity and Natchez, by steamboats, during high-water, by opening Brushy Bayou, Caney and Crocodile Bayous, into Turtle and Concordia Lakes; but the thing would hardly pay; and as the benefits would only accrue to the merchants of Natchez, it is hardly necessary to say, this communication is never likely to be made. The easiest, cheapest, and best plan, would be to make a rail-road, connecting the two points, so that the communication could be continued during the whole year; but this is all a chimera.

QUERY VI.

LIFE.-There are no remarkable instances of fecundity in my knowledge. Twin births are rare here, and very generally one or both children die shortly after birth. Many women have moved in here with large families of children, mostly adults. Mrs. Elizabeth Oglethorpe, from Wilkes County, Georgia, moved here from Alabama in 1839, who is the mother of fifteen children, all of whom are now grown; she is 69 years of age.

Our negro women generally breed regularly, and have large, fine children, but very few of them have more than six children.*

In answer to the query in regard to the diseases of this section, I would respectfully refer you to my article on the subject, in the forthcoming volume of Dr. E. D. Fenner's "Southern Medical Reports," for 1850, in which all the desired information can be found. I would also state, that a similar article will be hereafter found in his third volume of Reports, if he should publish such a work.

In that article of mine will be also found meteorological tables, &c. I have been at great trouble, and some labor, to collate a mortuary table, embracing a space of about twenty miles square, circumjacent to Trinity, during the last ten years, together with an average census during the same space of time.

I have down now an average population of 1793 (there are some few places not yet embraced)—and the whole number of deaths, as fully as I can ascertain, since 1840, is 513.

Average population for ten years is 1793.

Whole number of deaths in ten years, 513.

You may now calculate the per centage of deaths yourself.

The births I made no effort to ascertain. The great bulk of deaths is children. Of adult deaths the bulk of the males is caused from the immediate or remote effects of drinking mean spirituous liquors; of women, more are killed by diseases connected with, or springing from sexual organization, parturition and its sequelæ, &c.

In no other country, it seems to me, is that aphorism of Hoffman so fully verified as in this, viz:

"Propter solum uterum, mulier est it quod est."

Major St. John R. Liddell, of Catahoula, on Black River, 14 miles below Trinity, settled there in 1840, with forty odd negroes, and in 1850 they had increased by births to upwards of eighty, that is, they had doubled in ten years. When proper care is taken of children here, they are as easily raised as any where, but generally they are over-indulged, unrestrained, and allowed to gormandize, and thereby produce or aggravate disease,

Intestinal worms, lumbrici, kill hundreds of children, annually, in this parish; while dentition, and its concomitants, slay other hundreds.

QUERY VIII.

EDUCATION AND RELIGION.-College or library we have none in the parish, and probably never will have. My own library consists of some 500 volumes, the largest, I presume, in the parish, but much of it is exclusively medical. Religion here is only talked of as one of the by-gones. For more than twelve (to the close of 1850) months, I presume, not more than one sermon was preached in the whole parish. There are very few people who make any pretensions to religion. Those of my acquaintance who are members of any church, are Methodist Episcopal.

There are a few who profess to be Baptists, but they have no preacher, nor any church building. There are also a few who are Christian Baptists, or commonly called Campbellists, but they have no organization or clergy.

There is but one church edifice in the parish, and that is about 13 miles from my house; and although built by the joint contributions of the neighbors, is tacitly considered a Methodist Episcopal Church, and has never been preached in by any other denomination."

As to schools, we have only three in the parish that I know anything of, and two of these are on Black River-one at the above named Concord Church, and the other six miles below, near the mouth of Ross's Bayou.t

The school usually consists of from fifteen to twenty-five students, of both sexes.

The other school is kept near or in Concord Church.

This school numbers usually from fifteen to forty students. They are only taught the rudimentary branches of English education.

Mr. B. taught English grammar on the inductive plan of Pestalozzi, but had only a few students, most of whom were adults.

Since writing this I have seen the imperfect census table, published by F. G. Smith, which puts down the population of Concordia, whites, 824; blacks, 6,934; total, 7,758. Dwelling houses, 217; farms, 167; schools, 5.

Deaths from June, 1849, to June, 1850, 171. Square miles, 792. Amount of real and personal estate, $5,713,275.

It seems to me there must be either a misprint or a great error in this last item, for the negroes alme, being estimated at $400 round, make $2,773,600.

Value of labor is hard to estimate, i. e, free labor, as so little of it is done. White men hate to work where negroes are plenty.

Day laborers may be had for from $15 to $30 per month. Negroes hired by the year, for from $70 to $120, owing to sex and quality. Overseers' wages are regulated by the number of negroes, and their own skill; but from $10 to $30 per hand is the range.

We really have no town in the parish. At Vidalia is the court house, and offices of the parish functionaries, with lawyers' and doctors shops, and a boarding house, but not one single store of any kind, or even warehouse. I know of but ONE STORE in the purish, and that is kept down on Black River, below Horse-shoe Lake, by Captain S C. Scott, and sells, perhaps, not more than $10,000 worth in a year. I am told there is also a small store at Rifle Point.

There is a lady keeping a public school, or common school, on the Mississippi River, below Vidalia, who has but one student, but by law she is entitled to a full salary, and absolutely gets $500 per annum of the school fund, while those other teachers on Black River have the greatest difficulty to get $300 and $350, while they teach twenty and twenty-five students.

ART. VII.-PLANK ROADS.

No. III.*

THE authorities which I have consulted, give the resistance to wheels in motion from friction, on a wooden plane, at from 1 in 94 to 1 in 98, but special reference must be had to the hardness of the material. In New-York, where soft hemlock is used for plank-roads, this resistance is estimated at 1 in 60 of the weight; with our hard pine 1 in 80 may safely be assumed; but as such calculations should be based on the resistance of the roads which have been considerably worn, and therefore not perfectly smooth, I will assume 1 in 60 as my basis for calculation.

The most reliable authorities give the available effect of a horse as equivalent to a tractive force of 125 pounds, moving two and a half miles an hour, for ten hours in twenty-four. Yet it must be remembered that the dynamic effort of a horse, or total power which he is capable of exerting on a dead pull, is much greater. Dr. Gregory assumes it to be equal to 420 pounds. It is by a frequent tax of this absolute energy that our wagoners are enabled to overcome the immense resistance which they encounter, from hub-deep mud, and the uneven surface of our up-country roads. Assuming the resistance to be one in sixty of the weight, a horse would be capable of drawing, upon a level plank-road, for days and months in succession, without suffering from over-exertion, 7,500 pounds, including the weight of the wagon, and move two and a half miles an hour, for ten hours in twenty-four.

On an ascent of one in fifty, the power of the horse to move at the same speed would be equal to the draft of 4,000 lbs., which would give for four horses 16,000 lbs., equal to forty bales of cotton of 400 lbs. each; but this is the gross load; if we deduct four bales for the weight of the wagon, we shall have thirty-six bales as the net load. It will be perceived, that in this calculation, no allowance is made for the diminished resistance on the easy and level grades of the road. The calculation is based on the assumption, that the road, throughout the whole extent, is a rise of one in fifty, and that the velocity, as well as load carried, is governed by the resistance upon such an ascent.

Now, in practice, this would not be the case. It has been satisfactorily ascertained that a horse, moving two miles an hour for eight hours, can exert a force of 166 pounds; therefore, on a plane of one in fifty, at this rate of speed, he would draw for eight hours 5,408 pounds, gross, in the place of 4,000, as before stated, which would be for the four mules, fifty-three bales. By reducing the speed, therefore, to this rate, there can be no doubt that the ascent could be overcome with this load; particularly, as this rate of inclination would only be encountered occasionally; probably not for a tenth of the day's work. Upon the remainder of the road, the speed could be increased to three, four, and five miles an hour, with ease to the horse, without using a power of traction on the level parts of the road exceeding forty-one pounds to the horse. This would admit of a speed of six miles an hour, according to Wood and Leslie. The ordinary speed upon the roads in New-York, with heavy loaded wagons, is three miles an hour, or thirty miles a day.

In that state, where the grades are from 1 in 16 to 1 in 20, a ton is a common load for a horse, at an average of the above-mentioned speed. On a grade of 1 in 50, a horse will draw two tons; this is ascertained from actual practice, which, aside from all scientific rules, proves the above calculation within bounds. The inquiry of the planter will not be, how much his team of mules will be enabled to haul to market, but how he is to arrange his wagon so as to carry a full load. With a little additional strength to the axles of an ordinary road wagon, it will sustain from 15 to 20,000 lbs. without injury, while running

In publishing No. II. of Mr. Gregg, on Plank-Roads, and considering the views we have so frequently expressed upon the advantages, etc., of Rail-Roads, it could scarcely have been necessary for us to say, that we disagree with him essentially in opinion on many important points. We may show these hereafter.-[ED.

on the even, smooth surface of the plank-road. It is not the weight usually put on them that racks them to pieces, but the strain to which they are subjected from running on steep, sideling declivities, and from being dragged over roots, stumps and ruts.

If any doubts are entertained as to the practicability of carrying such enormous loads on a plank-road, I will refer to any of the best standard works for authority as to resistance from friction, for wheels in motion, on different kinds of roads; where, it will be seen, that Macadamized roads produce but one-third of the resistance which is found to exist on a sand or gravel road; and that a plank-road produces one-half less than a Macadamized road, so that it is obvious that a mule can haul six times as much over a plank-road, as he would be able to carry over a common sand or gravel road. Then, again, I would call attention to the fact, that from 20 to 24 bales of cotton is a common load for four mules, through the streets of Columbia, where the grades certainly exceed one in fifty, and the surface no better than an ordinary road.

"We think, therefore, that we are perfectly safe in assuming 4,000 pounds to the horse, as the net load which can be conveyed on a plank-road with grades of one in fifty, at the rate of thirty miles a day-this would be forty bales for a team of four mules. But to make allowance for the weight of the wagon, and provisions necessary to feed the team, we will deduct eight bales= 3,200 pounds-leaving a net load of thirty-two bales of cotton, of 400 pounds each. Allowing $3 per day, which is considered a very full estimate for the services of a four-horse team, then 32 bales, 12,800 pounds, would be conveyed thirty miles for $3, plus the tolls. Estimating the tolls at four cents a mile, would give $1 20 for the thirty miles; or a total expense of $4 20 for 12,800 pounds conveyed a distance of thirty miles-equal to 9 1-10 cents a hundred pounds for a distance of 100 miles, a fraction less than 37 cents a bale. I regard cheapness, in our country, as the most essential element in estimating the value of an improved means of intercommunication. Rail-roads, unless they are located on thoroughfares, and managed with the greatest possible economy, will not be able to carry freights at the above rates; for roads of fifty miles and under, the compensation would not be sufficient to pay for the labor of loading and unloading, and the clerk's hire for receiving and delivering.

Persons living at distant points from the plank-road would, with four teams, bring to the road a load, which would be transferred to one wagon on the plank-road. No material alterations would be necessary in the wagons for the plank-road, except the erection of a frame sufficiently long to hold from 30 to 36 bales of cotton, and the requisite provender for the team of mules.

Those who live in the vicinity of a plank-road or its branches, will be able to carry a crop to market in less time, and with less labor, and certainly with less wear and tear of wagons and harness, than is now expended in carrying the same over forty miles of hilly and muddy roads to a rail-road depot. To such persons the saving will be equal to the entire cost of the rail-road freight, with its attendant drayage, and other expenses.

AGRICULTURAL AND PLANTATION DEPARTMENT.

1.-DISEASES AND PECULIARITIES OF THE NEGRO RACE.

No. I.

THIS interesting subject has never before, we believe, been treated in an independent and philosophical manner, by any of our physiological and medical writers, although it has a direct and practical bearing upon over three millions of people, and $2,000,000,000 of property! Dr. Cartwright, of New-Orleans, deserves distinguished praise for the able investigations he has conducted in this recondite department, and we believe they will be received among the

planters throughout the South as of inappreciable value. They are embodied in a paper, read by him before the late Medical Convention of Louisiana, which we shall present to our readers in two or three parts, according to subjects. It is impossible to occupy the same space with material a tithe part so valuable :

Although the African race constitutes nearly a moiety of our southern population, it has not been made the subject of much scientific investigation, and is almost entirely unnoticed in medical books and schools. It is only very lately that it has, in large masses, dwelt in juxtaposition with science and mental progress. On the Niger and in the wilds of Africa, it has existed for thousands of years, excluded from the observation of the scientific world. It is only since the revival of learning, that the people of that race have been introduced on this continent. They are located in those parts of it, not prolific in books and medical authors. No medical school was ever established near them until a few years ago; hence, their diseases and physical peculiarities are almost unknown to the learned. The little knowledge that Southern physicians have acquired concerning them, has not been derived from books or medical lectures, but from facts learned from their own observation in the field of experience, or picked up here and there from others.

Before going into the peculiarities of their diseases, it is necessary to glance at the anatomical and physiological differences between the negro and the white man; otherwise their diseases cannot be understood. It is commonly taken for granted, that the color of the skin constitutes the main and essential difference between the black and the white race; but there are other differences more deep, durable and indelible, in their anatomy and physiology, than that of mere color. In the albino the skin is white, yet the organization is that of the negro. Besides, it is not only in the skin that a difference of color exists between the negro and the white man, but in the membranes, the muscles, the tendons, and in all the fluids and secretions. Even the negro's brain and nerves, the chyle and all the humors, are tinctured with a shade of the pervading darkness. His bile is of a deeper color, and his blood is blacker than the white man's. There is the same difference in the flesh of the white and black man, in regard to color, that exists between the flesh of the rabbit and the hare. His bones are whiter and harder than those of the white race, owing to their containing more phosphate of lime and less gelatine. His head is hung on the atlas differently from the white man; the face is thrown more upwards, and the neck is shorter and less oblique; the spine more inwards, and the pelvis more obliquely outwards; the thigh-bones larger, and flattened from before backwards; the bones more bent; the legs curved outwards, or bowed; the feet, flat; the gastrocnemii muscles so long, as to make the ankle appear as if planted in the middle of the foot; the gait, hopper-hipped, or what the French call l'allure dehanchee, not unlike that of a person carrying a burden. The projecting mouth, the retreating forehead, the broad, flat nose, thick lips and woolly hair, are peculiarities that strike every beholder. According to Sommerring and other anatomists, who have dissected the negro, his brain is a ninth or tenth less than in other races of men, his facial angle smaller, and all the nerves going from the brain, as also the ganglionic system of nerves, are larger in proportion than in the white man. The nerves distributed to the muscles are an exception, being smaller than in the white race. Sommerring remarks, that the negro's brain has in a great measure run into nerves. One of the most striking differences is found in the much greater size of the foramen magnum in the negro than the white man. The foramen, or orifice between the brain and the spinal marrow, is not only larger, but the medulla oblongata, and particularly the nerves supplying the abdominal and pelvic viscera. Although the nose is flat, the turbinated bones are more developed, and the pituitary membrane, lining the internal cavities of the nose, more extensive than in the white man, and causing the sense of smell to be more acute. The negro's hearing is better, his sight is stronger, and he seldom needs spectacles.

The field of vision is not so large in the negro's eye as in the white man's. He bears the rays of the sun better, because he is provided with an anatomical peculiarity in the inner canthus, contracting the field of vision, and excluding

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VOL. I.