160 Eruption of Long Lake and Mud Lake, in Vermont. 



cates that the high ground actually met, in some former period ; 

 that the valley was originally a lake ; and that its water was 

 discharged by a waterfall. There is so much resemblance be- 

 tween the bed of Long Lake and some of these places which I 

 have examined, that I cannot doubt the correctness of this opi- 

 nion. Had the waters of that lake been discharged two centu- 

 ries earlier, its bed, and the gulley which it formed, would have 

 been filled with a thrifty forest ; and the evidence that it had 

 ever been a lake would have been no more satisfactory than we 

 now possess, that the places to which I have alluded were once 

 filled with water. We now know the fact, however, that lakes 

 may be suddenly and finally emptied, and their beds changed to 

 .» fertile valleys, so as to lose, in no great length of time, all traces 

 of the immediate action of water. 



Several individuals, well acquainted with the country, in- 

 formed me that the ground at one extremity of Lake Willough- 

 by, which lies a few miles east of Barton, is formed like that at 

 the northern extremity of Long Lake; and that its waters could 

 be discharged with even less labour, than were those of the lat- 

 ter. Lake Willoughby is about seven miles long, about three 

 miles wide in the broadest part, and very deep ; and its waters, 

 if thus discharged, must flow south-eastward, through the val- 

 ley of the Presumpsick, into the Connecticut. Could the dis- 

 charge be achieved without too much hazard, it would be an in- 

 calculable advantage to a large extent of country ; as a long 

 range of towns in the neighbourhood of this lake, are separated 

 from the Connecticut by a chain of pathless mountains, through 

 which no road can be formed, except over the emptied bed of 

 Lake Willoughby, and are thus compelled to find their market 

 down the valley of the Presumpsick ; a fact which has almost 

 entirely prevented their settlement. 



After we had examined the bed of Long Lake, and the ra- 

 vages which its waters had occasioned, as long and as minutely 

 as our time would permit, we returned down the gulley, and ar- 

 rived at our inn at 3 o'clock, where we sat down to a meal ren- 

 dered welcome by laborious exercise and the fasting of ten 

 hours. Immediately after, bidding four of my companions 

 adieu, I rode down the river in company with the fifth, to the 

 village of Barton. Our course was on the eastern bank of the 



