Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/46

 supposed over a succession of mountain ridges, which, though scattered, and interrupted by the passage of waters, scarcely fall short of the North Mountain in point of elevation. These ridges, of which in the above distance there are three or four, are all often confounded in the name of Cove Mountain.

I crossed the Juniata by a wooden toll-bridge, which, like all other private accommodations in the United States, does not exempt the pedestrian traveller. The valley of the river is narrow and romantic, embosomed by cliffs, rudely decorated with clumps of sombre evergreens, particularly the tall Weymouth pine and spruce, with the splendid Rhododendron and the Magnolia acuminata. As we approach towards Bedford the valleys widen, are more fertile, and present calcareous strata still inclined at a lofty angle, and generally destitute of organic remains. Every elevation, {14} and most of them short and steep, presents a predominance of argillaceous earth, either red or greenish and slatey, as it may happen to contain an admixture of iron or chlorite; there are, however, no iron furnaces nor ore in this quarter nearer than the vicinity of Huntingdon. Seams of coal have been discovered on the banks of the Juniata, but unworthy of notice or difficult to drain. Fifteen miles from Bedford, coal begins to appear. Indeed, about a mile from the town I observed in the siliceous sandstone made use of for repairing the road, and which was obtained in the vicinity, casts of orthoceratites? or something resembling them, collected into fascicles or clusters, and aggregated over the surface of the rocks in which they are found; the transverse septa or channels are all proximate, and their circumference is about two inches. Excepting a second impression, something similar, but much smaller (and which rather