( 146 ) 



Description of the Eruption of Long Ijike and Mud LaJce^ in 

 Vermont^ and ^ the desolation effected hy the rush of the wai- 

 ters through Barton River ^ and the lower country^ towards 

 Lake Memphremagog^ in the summer o/^ 1810, in a Letter 

 to Prof. Silliman *. By the Rev. S. Edwards Dwight. 

 With a Plan of the Lakes. (Plate III.) 



My Dear Sir, Boston, April 4. 1826. 



X LEFT Burlington on Monday, August 18. 1823, and proceeded 

 on horseback, in company with Mr , an alumnus of Bur- 

 lington College, to Craftsbury, sixty miles ; where we arrived at 

 2 p. M. on Tuesday. Through the kindness of my fellow tra- 

 veller, an inhabitant of Craftsbury, I was able to engage a se- 

 lect and very agreeable party of five gentlemen to accompany 

 me, on the succeeding day, to the bed of Long Lake, in the 

 town of Glover, — the lake which was emptied of its waters in 

 the summer of 1810. In the course of the afternoon, I had 

 leisure to examine the local situation of Craftsbury. This vil- 

 lage is built on a table-land, rising abruptly in the centre of a 

 deep valley, which surrounds it on all sides, and separates it, at 

 a moderate distance, from hills generally of the same height with 

 itself, but occasionally aspiring to a greater elevation. This ta- 

 ble-land is about three miles in length, and one and a half in 

 breadth. The valley surrounding it was once probably a lake, 

 and the table-land a large island in its centre. At present it is 

 almost an island ; one river winding more than half round it, in 

 its progress through the valley, and a second nearly completing 

 that part of the circuit which the first had left. Its situation is 

 more than commonly beautiful and picturesque ; and, in con- 

 nection with other more solid advantages, bids fair to render it 

 one of the most pleasant and flourishing villages in the state. 

 The population planted here is of a superior character ; and it 

 gratified me to learn that the village reading-room, or athenceum^ 

 was regularly furnished with the most important reviews and 

 magazines of England and the United States, as well as with 



* From SiUiman's American Journal of Science and Arts, June 182C. 



