At Flemingsburg I saw an Albino, a female about fourteen years old.  Her parents were clear negros, of the Congo or Guinea race, and in every thing but colour she perfectly resembled them.  Her form, face, and hair, possessed the true negro characteristics—­curved shins, projecting jaw, retreating forehead, and woolly head.  The skin was rather whiter than that of the generality of Europeans, but was deficient in glossiness, and although perfectly smooth, had a dry appearance.  The wool on the head was of a light flaxen colour, and the iris of the eye was of a reddish-blue tinge.  Her eyes were so weak as to bear with difficulty the glare of day.  Most Albinos are dim sighted until twilight, when they appear to have as perfect vision as persons with the strongest sight, and in many cases, even more acute.  This individual had evidently weak sight, as the eyelids were generally half closed, and she always held her head down during day light.

Near the banks of the Ohio, full three hundred miles from the sea, I found conglomerations of marine shells, mixed with siliceous earth; and in nearly all the runs throughout Kentucky, limestone pebbles are found, bearing the perfect impressions of the interior of shells.  The most abundant proofs are every where exhibited, that at one period the vast savannahs and lofty mountains of the New world were submerged; and perhaps the present bed of the ocean was once covered with verdure, and the seat of the sorrows and joys of myriads of human beings, who erected cities, and built pyramids, and monuments, which Time has long since swept away, and wrapt in his eternal mantle of oblivion.  That a constant, but almost imperceptible change is hourly taking place in the earth’s surface, appears to be established; and independent of the extraordinary bouleversements, which have at intervals convulsed our globe, this gradual revolution has produced, and will produce again, a total alteration in the face of nature.

FOOTNOTES: 

[14] Amongst other plans to this effect, there is one proposed, by which midshipmen on half-pay will be obliged to make at least two voyages annually, in merchant ships, as mates, and all others must have done so, in order to entitle them to be reinstated in their former rank.  Another is, that there shall be small vessels, rigged and fitted out in war style, appropriated to the purpose of teaching pupils, practically, the science of navigation, and the discipline necessary to be observed on board vessels of war.  The Americans may not eat their fish with silver forks, nor lave their fingers in the most approved style; yet they are by no means so contemptible a people as some of our small gentry affect to think.  They may too, occasionally, be put down in political argument, by the dogmatical method of the quarter-deck; but I must confess that I never was so fortunate as to come in contact with any who reasoned so badly as the persons Captain Bazil Hall introduces in his book.