Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/47

 resembles some alcyonite), no other reliquiæ appeared in this stone, which is also the first occurrence of the kind on my journey to the westward.

The mountain scenery, at first so grand and impressive, becomes at length monotonous; most of the cimes, terraces, and piles of rocks lose their effect beneath the umbrageous forest which envelopes them, and which indeed casts a gloomy mantling over the whole face of nature.

To judge of the inland commerce carried on betwixt Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, a stranger has but to view this road at the present season. All day I have been brushing past waggons heavily loaded with merchandise, each drawn by five and six horses; the whole road in fact appears like the cavalcade of a continued fair.

9th.] To-day I proceeded about 20 miles from Bedford on the way to Pittsburgh, and in the evening lodged at a tavern situated on the top of the Alleghany ridge. About nine miles from Bedford I first observed {15} the occurrence of fossil shells, consisting of terebratulites, and amongst them the Anomia trigonalis of Martyn, with some other species. They occur in the sandstone employed for mending the road, with which also alternates much liver-brown argillaceous shale. From hence the dip of the strata gradually diminishes, and the hills are no longer so short and steep; slate-clay with appearances of coal are also visible, but as yet there are no zoophytic, or, as some consider them, phytolithic or vegetable impressions. The ascent to the summit of the Alleghany from the east is much more gentle than that of the North Mountain, or the other mountains scattered through this valley. The Alleghany, here from 10 to 20 miles broad, is apparently the boundary of the transition, and the long slopes and salient coves of its western declivity are within the range