VIRGINIA 41 



ments for smelting. This whole region is overlaid with 

 a firm red clay very similar to that in Jersey. In a well, 

 dug on the hill near the house, this same earth was 

 found to a depth of 50 feet, mixed with more or less 

 sand. At another place near-by a fine, compact free- 

 stone occurs, of a reddish color, and quite similar to 

 that used about Reading and in Jersey for walling iron- 

 furnaces. The red soil, still prevailing here, disap- 

 peared after some miles of the road we followed to- 

 wards the east in order to get into the main road to 

 Fredericksburg, and afterwards there was sandy land, 

 not the flat country proper but hilly as yet and better 

 settled and tilled than the region from which we had 

 last come. The pitch-pine, (Pinus foliis terms), which 

 farther back had been observed only here and there in 

 sandy places, and singly, now appeared in quantity, 

 composing whole forests which gave the country a 

 green look and with the help of a warm day, (69 

 Fahrenh. the 10th of December), made the road a 

 pleasant one ; at least more agreeable than the marshy 

 and leafless woods through which we had passed. 



Crossing Acquia Creek we came by all manner of 

 roads to the Rappahannock, not without having gone 

 wrong at times ; for the universal answer one gets, on 

 asking the way, is : Keep in the main road, or, Straight 

 on; everybody knowing the roads in the parish and 

 thinking that even strangers must find it easy to keep in 

 the straight path which commonly is very crooked. 

 The Rappahannock, which is of less volume than the 

 James or the Potowmack, rises in the South Mountain ; 

 and is not so navigable inland. A mile and a half above 

 Fredericksburg, at Falmouth, it makes a fall over the 

 granite line, and only from that point is navigable to 

 4 



