I observed several little subterraneous walks in the fields, running under ground in various directions, the opening of which was big enough for a mole: the earth, which formed as it were a vault above it, and lay elevated like a little bank, was near two inches high, full as broad as a man’s hand, and about two inches thick. In uncultivated fields I frequently saw these subterraneous walks, which discovered themselves by the ground thrown up above them, which when trod upon gave way, and made it inconvenient to walk in the field. [[191]]
These walks are inhabited by a kind of mole,[33] which I intend to describe more accurately in another work. Their food is commonly roots: I have observed the following qualities in one which was caught. It had greater stiffness and strength in its legs, than I ever observed in other animals in proportion to their size. Whenever it intended to dig, it held its legs obliquely, like oars, I laid my handkerchief before it, and it began to stir in it with the snout, and taking away the handkerchief to see what it had done to it, I found that in the space of a minute it had made it full of holes, and it looked as if it had been pierced very much by an awl. I was obliged to put some books on the cover of the box in which I kept this animal, or else it was flung off immediately. It was very irascible, and would bite great holes into any thing that was put in its way; I held a steel pen-case to it, it at first bit at it with great violence, but having felt its hardness, it would not venture again to bite at any thing. These moles do not make such hills as the European ones, but only such walks as I have already described. [[192]]
October the 13th. There is a plant here, from the berries of which they make a kind of wax or tallow, and for that reason the Swedes call it the Tallow shrub. The English call the same tree the Candleberry-tree, or Bayberry-bush; and Dr. Linnæus gives it the name of Myrica cerifera. It grows abundantly on a wet soil, and it seems to thrive particularly well in the neighbourhood of the sea, nor have I ever found it high up in the country far from the sea. The berries grow abundantly on the female shrub, and look as if flower had been strewed upon them. They are gathered late in autumn, being ripe about that time, and are then thrown into a kettle or pot full of boiling water; by this means their fat melts out, floats at the top of the water and may be skimmed off into a vessel; with the skimming they go on till there is no tallow left. The tallow as soon as it is congealed, looks like common tallow or wax, but has a dirty green colour; it is for that reason melted over again, and refined, by which means it acquires a fine and pretty transparent green colour: this tallow is dearer than common tallow, but cheaper than wax. In Philadelphia they pay a shilling Pensylvania currency, for a pound of this tallow; but a pound of common tallow [[193]]only came to half that money, and wax costs as much again. From this tallow they make candles in many parts of this province, but they usually mix some common tallow with it. Candles of this kind, do not easily bend, nor melt in summer as common candles do; they burn better and slower, nor do they cause any smoak, but rather yield an agreeable smell, when they are extinguished. An old Swede of ninety-one years of age told me, that this sort of candles had formerly been much in use with his country men. At present they do not make so many candles of this kind, if they can get the tallow of animals; it being too troublesome to gather the berries. However these candles are made use of by poor people, who live in the neighbourhood of a place where the bushes grow, and have not cattle enough to kill, in order to supply them with a sufficient quantity of tallow. From the wax of the candleberry tree they likewise make a soap here, which has an agreeable scent, and is the best for shaving. This wax is likewise used by doctors, and surgeons, who reckon it exceeding good for plasters upon wounds. A merchant of this town once sent a quantity of these candles to those American provinces which had Roman Catholic inhabitants, thinking he [[194]]would be well paid, since wax candles are made use of in the Roman Catholick churches; but the clergy would not take them. An old Swede mentioned that the root of the candleberry tree was formerly made use of by the Indians, as a remedy against the tooth ach, and that he himself having had the tooth ach very violently, had cut the root in pieces and applied it round his tooth; and that the pain had been lessened by it. Another Swede assured me that he had been cured of the tooth ach, by applying the peel of the root to it. In Carolina, they not only make candles out of the wax of the berries, but likewise sealing-wax.
October the 14th. Penny Royal is a plant which has a peculiar strong scent, and grows abundantly on dry places in the country. Botanists call it Cunila pulegioides. It is reckoned very wholesome to drink as a tea when a person has got cold, as it promotes perspiration. I was likewise told, that on feeling a pain in any limb, this plant, if applied to it, would give immediate relief.
The goods which are shipped to London from New England are the following: all sorts of fish caught near Newfoundland and elsewhere; train-oil of several sorts; whale-bone; tar, pitch, masts; new ships, of which [[195]]a great number is annually built; a few hides, and sometimes some sorts of wood. The English islands in America, as Jamaica and Barbadoes, get from New England, fish, flesh, butter, cheese, tallow, horses, cattle; all sorts of lumber, such as pails, buckets, and hogsheads; and have returns made in rum, sugar, melasses, and other produces of the country, or in cash, the greatest part of all which they send to London (the money especially) in payment of the goods received from thence, and yet all this is inefficient to pay off the debt.
October the 15th. The Alders grew here in considerable abundance on wet and low places, and even sometimes on pretty high ones, but never reached the height of the European alders, and commonly stood like a bush about a fathom or two high. Mr. Bartram, and other gentlemen who had frequently travelled in these provinces, told me that the more you go to the south, the less are the alders, but that they are higher and taller, the more you advance to the north. I found afterwards myself, that the alders in some places of Canada, are little inferior to the Swedish ones. Their bark is employed here in dying red and brown. A Swedish inhabitant of America, told me that he had cut his leg to the very bone, and that some coagulated blood had [[196]]already been settled within. That he had been advised to boil the alder bark, and to wash the wound often with the water: that he followed this advice, and had soon got his leg healed, though it had been very dangerous at first.
The Phytolacca decandra was called Poke by the English. The Swedes had no particular name for it, but made use of the English, with some little variation into Paok. When the juice of its berries is put upon paper or the like, it strikes it with a high purple colour, which is as fine as any in the world, and it is pity that no method is as yet found out, of making this colour last on woollen and linen cloth, for it fades very soon. Mr. Bartram mentioned, that having hit his foot against a stone, he had got a violent pain in it; he then bethought himself to put a leaf of the Phytolacca on his foot, by which he lost the pain in a short time, and got his foot well soon after. The berries are eaten by the birds about this time. The English and several Swedes make use of the leaves in spring, when they are just come out, and are yet tender and soft, and eat them partly as green cale, and partly in the manner we eat spinnage. Sometimes they likewise prepare them in the first of these ways, when the stalks are already grown a little longer, breaking off [[197]]none but the upper sprouts which are yet tender, and not woody; but in this latter case, great care is to be taken, for if you eat the plant when it is already grown up, and its leaves are no longer soft, you may expect death as a consequence which seldom fails to follow, for the plant has then got a power of purging the body to excess. I have known people, who, by eating great full grown leaves of this plant, have got such a strong dysentery, that they were near dying with it: its berries however are eaten in autumn by children, without any ill consequence.
Woollen and linen cloth is dyed yellow with the bark of hiccory. This likewise is done with the bark of the black oak, or Linnæus’s Quercus nigra, and that variety of it which Catesby in his Natural History of Carolina, vol. i. tab. 19. calls Quercus marilandica. The flowers and leaves of the Impatiens Noli tangere or balsamine, likewise dyed all woollen stuffs with a fine yellow colour.
The Collinsonia canadensis was frequently found in little woods and bushes, in a good rich soil. Mr. Bartram who knew the country perfectly well, was sure that Pensylvania, and all the parts of America in the same climate, were the true and original places where this plant grows. For further [[198]]to the south, neither he nor Messrs. Clayton and Mitchel ever found it, though the latter gentlemen have made accurate observations in Virginia and part of Maryland. And from his own experience he knew, that it did not grow in the northerly parts. I have never found it more than fifteen min. north of forty-three deg. The time of the year when it comes up in Pensylvania, is so late, that its seed has but just time sufficient to ripen in, and it therefore seems unlikely, that it can succeed further north, Mr. Bartram was the first who discovered it, and sent it over into Europe. Mr. Jussieu during his stay at London, and Dr. Linnæus afterwards, called it Collinsonia, from the celebrated Mr. Peter Collinson, a merchant in London, and fellow of the English and Swedish Royal Societies. He well deserved the honour of having a plant called after his name, for there are few people that have promoted natural history and all useful sciences with a zeal like his; or that have done as much as he towards collecting, cultivating, and making known all sorts of plants. The Collinsonia has a peculiar scent, which is agreeable, but very strong. It always gave me a pretty violent head-ach whenever I passed by a place where it stood in plenty, and especially when it was in [[199]]flower. Mr. Bartram was acquainted with a better quality of this plant, which was that of being an excellent remedy against all sorts of pain in the limbs, and against a cold, when the parts affected are rubbed with it. And Mr. Conrad Weisser, interpreter of the language of the Indians in Pensylvania, had told him of a more wonderful cure with this plant. He was once among a company of Indians, one of which had been stung by a rattle snake, the savages gave him over, but he boiled the collinsonia, and made the poor wretch drink the water, from which he happily recovered. Somewhat more to the north and in New York they call this plant Horseweed, because the horses eat it in spring, before any other plant comes up.
October the 16th. I asked Mr. Franklin and other gentlemen who were well acquainted with this country, whether they had met with any signs, from whence they could have concluded that any place which was now a part of the continent, had formerly been covered with water? and I got the following account in answer.