OF MARYLAND. 4l 



and intervening- Jeep and narrow valleys. This is the region 

 of the pine, fir and larch families {Firms, Abies et Larix\) the 

 mountain tops being covered with pines, whilst their flanks, 

 and the ravines along the water-courses, produce the fir, larch 

 and the cypress associated with the oak, birch and beech. 

 Among the flowering shrubs is the magnificent rhododendron 

 (jR. niaximuni) contrasting its splendid white roses, with the 

 pink of the fantastical kalmia. The more extended valleys 

 possess a good soil, are abundantly supplied with springs of 

 delicious water, some chalybeate, others sulpiiurous, and offer 

 pleasant retreats during the heats of summer. The establish- 

 ment on the Flintstone, twelve miles east of Cumberland 

 furnishes a delightful resting place. 



Cumberland, which is one hundred and thirty-six miles from 

 the city of Baltimore, is situated at the confluence of Wills's 

 creek and the Potomac. It is destined to become, so soon as 

 the canal shall have reached it, the most important inland 

 town of the Union, east of the Alleghany mountains; for here 

 will be not only the depot of the great coal fields in its vicinity, 

 but that of the immense products from the iron works that will 

 ere long be established amidst them, as well as the transient 

 depot of a great amount of western produce, on its Avay to the 

 sea-board. Whatever success may attend the contemplated 

 project of connecting the tide- waters of the Chesapeake with 

 the Ohio by means of a continuous rail-way, it is certain, that 

 so soon as the two stupendous works previously mentioned, 

 worthy of the entire patronage of an enlightened government, 

 shall have been completed as far as Cumberland, a decisive 

 epoch in the prosperity, of these remote portions at least, of 

 Maryland will have commenced. At present the judicious 

 location by the United States engineers of the National road 

 through the gorge of Wills's mountain, following the bed of 

 Braddock's run, affords a natural and easy egress from the 

 head waters of the eastern streams to those that empty into the 

 great valley of the Mississippi : for from its source to Cum- 

 berland, the Potomac no longer forces its way through the 

 ridges, but runs along their bases ; its direction being south- 

 west and north-east. The few breaks that now occur in the 

 mountain masses afford issues, to inconsiderable streams, or 

 rather are the beds of torrents, by which this upland country is 

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