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the microscopic shells of myriads of animalculae of the rarest
beauty of form and color. It is used as a polishing mate-
rial for metals, and if proper attention and skill be directed
to it will prove a most valuable product.

SOIL AND FACES OF THIS COUNTRY.

With regard to no part of the United States is there so
much of error and misconception in relation to the face of the
country and surface as to the Tide-water Section of Mary-
land.

Published official documents have, in a great measure given
rise to false notions on this subject, and as it has heretofore
been out of the general line of travel no opportunity for cor-
recting these in the mind of the public has existed.

The census reports have, in a great measure endorsed and
diffused the false notions on this subject, partly from their
net being carefully examined and very much from their want
of correctness.

The census report of 1860 divides the United States into
seven grand, natural divisions. Trie first of these it denomi-
nates as "Lowlands along the Atlantic coast, comprising a
general breadth of two counties along the Atlantic from
Delaware to Georgia." This is described as a sandy plain
of uniform level a thousand miles along the coast, extending
from fifty to one hundred miles inland, where "the sea and
shore meet for the most part in a mingled series of bays,
estuaries and small islands, rising just abo/e tide."

Now this deicription is no more true of Tide-water Mary-
land than it is of any other section of the United States. I
have shown by the figures how the conclusions as to health
is wrong in regard to this section, and I will prove in the
same manner how erroneous the foregoing statement is in
relation to the face of the country. The Western division of
this section is as I have already stated a peninsula lying be-
tween the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River.

This peninsula is divided into two unequal parts by the
Patuxent river, on the East of which and between it and the
Chesapeake bay, lie the counties of Anne Arundel and Calvert;
on the West, are the counties of Prince George, Charles and
St. Mary's. In each of these sub-divisions there is a divid-
ing ridge, or back bone, (nearlv parallel to their main water
courses running through their whole extent,) which seperates
the head of the streams of the former that flow into the Pa-
tuxent from those that flow into the bay and its tributaries.

This ridge is from 150 feet at its lowest, to about 350 feet
at its highest point; when it is recollected that this penin-
sula does not exceed twenty-five miles in its widest part, and
that this is so divided by streams, and that a fall of only
two or three feet per mile is sufficient to insure a free running