Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/296

282 Porto rico, Martinique, Gaudaloupe, Barbadoes and Trinidad, till it reached the coaſt of America, and formed the ſhores which bounded the ocean, and guarded the country behind; that, by ſome convulſion or ſhock of nature, the ſea had broken through theſe mounds, and deluged that vaſt plain, till it reached the foot of the Andes; that being there heaped up by the trade-winds, always blowing from one quarter, it had found its way back, as it continues to do through the gulph between Florida and Cuba, carrying with it the loom and ſand it may have ſcooped from the country it had occupied, part of which it may have depoſited on the ſhores of North-America, and with part formed the banks of Newfoundland. But theſe are only the viſions of fancy.

3. p. 46. There is a plant, or weed, called the James-town weed, of a very ſingular quality. The late Dr. Bond informed me, that he had under his care a patient, a young girl, who had put the feeds of this plant into her eye, which dilated the pupil to ſuch a degree, that ſhe could ſee in the dark, but in the light was almoſt blind. The effect that the leaves had when eaten by a ſhip's crew that arrived at James-town, are well known.

(4.) p. 86. Mons. Buffon has indeed given an afflicting picture of human nature in his deſcription of the man of America. But ſure I am there never was a picture more unlike the