Eruption of' Long Lake and Mud Lake, in Vermont. 151 



as to the proprietor himself. The comparative elevation of the 

 water in the two lakes, and the nature of the ground between 

 them, had long been known at the hamlet, and had frequently 

 provoked discussions of the question, Whether it was not practi- 

 cable to let out a part of the water of Long Lake ijito Mud Lakcy 

 and thus Jurnish an additional supply to the mills on Barton 

 River ? These discussions always ended in an affirmative deci- 

 sion ; and the disposition to test its correctness regularly gaining 

 strength, as the practicability and importance of the measure 

 were more and more developed, it was at length resolved, in 

 mit-qf-door convocation, that the thing should be done ; and the 

 6th of June 1810, the day of the general election of New Hamp- 

 shire, which, out of respect to their parent state, they had usual- 

 ly observed as a holiday, was selected for the purpose. 



On the morning of that day, about 100 individuals from 

 Glover, Barton, and several of the adjacent towns, assembled 

 at Keene-Corner, with their shovels and spades, their hoes and 

 axes, their crowbars and pick-axes, and their canteens, and voted 

 that they would march to Long Lake, and there have '' a regu- 

 lar Election Scraped * They arrived at the scene of action 

 about ten o'clock ; and, having selected the spot which seemed 

 most feasible, began to cut down the trees, and to dig a channel 

 for the water across the belt of sandy earth which constituted the 

 northern boundary of the lake. At three o'clock, a trench five 

 feet wide, five or six rods in length, and seven or eight feet deep, 

 was completed. It began within a yard of the water, and reach- 

 ed to the brow of the declivity, towards Mud Lake ; yet gra- 

 dually descended in its line of direction ; so that, when the small 

 remaining mass of sand in the trench should be removed, they 

 might see the" waters of the lake flow out without interruption, 

 to increase the mill-stream of the village. 



At length, the command being given that all hands should 

 leave the trench, the mass of sand left in it, with a portion of 

 that under the hard-pan, were removed ; and as large a piece of 

 the hard-pan as their pick-axes would reach, was broken off. 

 The water issued at first through the chasm thus made, With a 

 moderate degree of force ; but, to the great surprize of the work- 



• Scrape^ in this sense, is a colloq[uial Americanism, and denotes a frolic. 



