Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/324

, the first of the great range of the Alleghanies. It contains about eighty houses, principally built of hewn logs, with the interstices between them filled with flat stones and mortar. They stand on a main street, which runs from north to south. On the easterly side of the street, a little back of the houses, is a fine spring of excellent water, issuing from several fountains, over which are small buildings erected for the purpose of preserving milk, butter, and provisions, during the heats of summer. So copious is the issue of water, that it soon forms a considerable and never failing brook, which, within the distance of half a mile, carries a mill. This stream is the westerly branch of Conedogwinnet Creek, which {13} falls into the Susquehannah opposite to Harrisburgh.

inhabitants of this village are subject to severe rheumatic complaints, in consequence of the sudden changes of the weather in this vicinity to the mountain.

Near this place is shewn a large fissure in the side of the mountain, occasioned by the bursting of a water-spout. The excavation is deep. Trees, and even rocks, were dislodged in its course.

The first mountain, which is three miles over, was not so difficult to pass as we had apprehended. It is steep, but there are some convenient resting places; and the westerly side is rendered easy of descent by very judicious improvements in the condition and turnings of the road. The surface is very rocky; and the trees towards the top are small, and but thinly scattered. The stone which mostly prevails on its surface is granite, more or less perfect. At the foot is a beautiful and fertile valley, about half a mile wide, and fifteen miles long; irrigated by fine springs, whose streams uniting form the pretty brook that meanders through the fields and meadows of this enchanting place.