Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 7).djvu/20

 or half-hidden brooks and rivulets which flow northward to the St. Lawrence or the Great Lakes, or southward to the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. On the high ground between the heads of these watercourses our path lies.

For the greater portion of our journey we shall find neither road nor pathway; here we shall climb and follow long, ragged mountain crests, well nigh inaccessible, in some spots never trod by human foot save the wandering hunter's; there we shall drop down to a lower level and find that on our watershed run roads, canals, and railways. At many points in our journey we shall find a perfect network of modern routes of travel, converging perhaps on a teeming city which owes its growth and prosperity to its geographical situation at a strategic point on the watershed we are following. And where we find the largest population and the greatest activity today, just there, we may rest assured, human activity was equally noticeable in the old days.

As we pass along we must bear in mind the story of days gone by, as well as the