Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/129

 water of these natural fountains was thought to require a larger amount of malt in the production of beer than the water of English springs, and in its use, soap did not lather so quickly or so freely. The branches from the springs ran down to the creeks, which were mere arms of the greater streams. So numerous were the creeks, and so enormous the volume of water which they delivered, that the rivers receiving them continued fresh fifty, sixty, and sometimes an hundred miles below the flux and reflux of the tide, and not infrequently within thirty and forty miles of the Bay itself, although so wide as they approached the Chesapeake that the great inundations in the upper streams made no apparent impression in increasing the mass of their waters.

There are few countries in the world possessing in so limited a space such magnificent rivers as the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James. Indeed, in their lower sections they are estuaries rather than rivers. At some points the York and James are only five miles apart, while the distance between the Rappahannock and Potomac in several places does not exceed eight miles. Observing the vast floods of these broad streams, many persons among the early colonists were disposed to think that the day would arrive when Virginia would be the