There is no perpendicular fall of water, but merely a gradual descent, from Columbus to the Ohio; nay, there is no fall from the very source of the Scioto to its mouth. Every one acquainted with hydrostatics, knows that water will run briskly where the descent is only a few inches in a mile. The writer believes that the Scioto, from its source to the Ohio river, does not descend more than one hundred feet, and that the present surface of Lake Erie is about on a level with the Ohio in a freshet; that before the channel of Niagara river was deepened, as it evidently has been, by the attrition of that mighty stream; and before the hills adjacent to the Ohio were worn down by the waters of the Scioto, the whole country north of Chillicothe, where these hills commence, to Lake Erie inclusive, was covered with water, except the very highest hills in the counties of Greene, &c. which were then islands. What tends to corroborate this opinion is, that on these high grounds we find limestone and other rocks, and indications of gypsum; but no alluvion, and none of those fragments and ruins which are produced by water acting mechanically upon a country for a long space of time. We might mention other parts of country where prairies and barrens abound, and which have been formed by water. Those along Greene river, in Kentucky, have evidently been covered by the waters of that river. The bed of that stream has been deepened by the constant flowing of the water along its channel; the water is drained off, and the prairies and barrens now occupy the soil which the water had made and formerly covered. The prairies above the falls of Hockhocking, along that river, have evidently been formed in the same way, and owe their origin and appearances to similar causes. There is near Lancaster, on the last-mentioned river in the State of Ohio, and near the great road, a gentle rise of ground in the prairie, which has every appearance of having been an island, and is so called by the people of the vicinity. In fine, wherever prairies and barrens are found, there, for a long space of time, water once stood, but was gradually drained off. Else why alluvial soil to such a depth, in low situations, and growing thinner as we ascend on ground more elevated? Else why do we find rocks in more elevated tracts of country, and not in prairies or barrens? Else why do we find no alluvion, no grass, but a thick growth of ancient forest-trees on the higher lands? Else why do we find beneath the alluvion of the prairies, pebbles and shells similar to those at the bottom of lakes and ponds? Else why do the higher grounds to this moment present the appearances of so many islands? And all these indications where no stream now in existence could by possibility have reached them?