150 Erupticyti of Long Lake a7id Mud Lake, in Vermont. 



smoothness of a stalactite ; while the lower was rough and un- ^ 

 even, embodying pebbles, sand, weeds, and other coarse sub- 

 stances, on which the calcareous deposit, at its first commence- 

 ment, had settled. The fracture, to use the sprightly language 

 of my principal informant, one of the individuals concerned in 

 letting off the water, resemhled frozen gravel 



This hard-pan reached out from the shore into the lake, for a 

 breadth of five or six rods, resting on the bottom ; and was found 

 along the whole northern extremity. Being rather feebly and 

 doubtfully sustained by the mass of sand underneath, on which 

 it lay as on an inclined plane, it supported the superincumbent 

 water, and formed the only solid barrier which prohibited the 

 contents of Long Lake from descending into Mud Lake. 



Mud Lake was originally three-fourths of a mile in length 

 from north to south, and half a mile in breadth. -Its shores, 

 both on the western and eastern sides, soon rose into high 

 grounds ; between which, and over the bed of Mud Lake, the 

 waters of Long Lake, if let out northward, must necessarily 

 pass. The bottom of Mud Lake was a mass of thick deep 

 mud, tough and gritty, of a rusty dark blue, many feet in thick- 

 ness ; and, when dry, becoming of a pale blue, and of a hard so- 

 lid texture. This lake was originally deep, though less so than 

 the other. Barton River, its outlet, descended very rapidly 

 through a rough uneven country, over a bed of sand and peb- 

 bles, for about five miles, and then more gradually, and with a 

 margin of meadow on each hand, for six miles, to the village in 

 Barton. All this distance, with the exception of a few .cleared 

 spots at Keene-Corner, and in Barton, the country was, in 

 1810, a thick forest, on both sides of the stream, to its very 

 banks. At Keene-Corner, four miles from Mud Lake, stood a 

 grist-mill and a saw-mill, both owned by a Mr Wilson ; but the 

 stream was so small that, in the dry season, the supply of water 

 was insufficient for the mills. About seven miles lower down, it 

 unites with a still larger stream from the right, the outlet of 

 Belle Pond, a beautiful lake in Barton. Two miles further 

 down was another grist-mill, owned by a Mr Blodget ; and three 

 miles lower, were the mills of a Mr Enos. 



The insufficient supply of water at Wilson's mills, was a se- 

 rious inconvenience to the inhabitants of Keene-Corner, as well 



