Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/584

 was the destiny of the position that it was made the seat of government before it had become a town, and when it was far beyond the limits of actual settlement.

Nor would it be easy to find a more desirable spot not beside the sea. The foundation is a rock bluff of slight elevation, but sufficient to lift the city above the danger of overflow. On this there rests a bed of gravelly clay, covered with a thin vegetable mould, and rising to the south and west in a succession of gently swelling eminences, presenting innumerable building sites of the most attractive character, and draining in every direction; equally free from steep acclivities and unwholesome flatness, and clothed by nature with a magnificent forest of wide-spreading oaks and lofty pines. Far out into the river there projects a rocky peninsula, against whose adamantine sides the stream has dashed its ineffectual fury for countless ages; and this, in contrast to the bold precipice upon the other bank, which was called the Big Rock, gave to the place its name.

This promontory is now used as the abutment of one of the three bridges that span the river, and its beauty has been destroyed; but