FROM PHILADELPHIA 169 



possible or certainly too troublesome. If there was 

 ore here, they said, there was wood enough for the 

 working of it ; for all this immeasurable quantity of 

 wood grows and rots at this time quite unused. Cer- 

 tainly, the numerous streams which traverse the region, 

 and in the spring and fall become greatly swelled, will 

 later, (particularly when the woods to the east have 

 been more ravaged), offer a profitable trade in timber 

 and masts for these trees would make ship and other 

 timber. Many spots would then be available for as 

 fine plantations as are to be seen in any other mountain 

 country where men find an easy and rich support. 

 But the people here, already, are all the time dreaming 

 of mines and sudden wealth, and many of our Ger- 

 man countrymen still help to keep strange hopes alive. 

 The farmers about Heller's, mostly Germans, have 

 brought with them their stories of kobolds and mount- 

 ain sprites and treasures lit ; still hear the hill homun- 

 culus working and knocking, see the tell-tale flames, 

 but unluckily can never find the spot. 



Without wasting time on the road, now near being 

 swamped and again almost breaking our necks, we 

 hastened forward as fast as our horses could go, and 

 all the more because we were threatened by storm 

 clouds. We stayed half an hour at Locust-hill and in 

 the evening half an hour at Bullock's-place, our 

 friends sharing with us their store of provisions with- 

 out which we and our horses should have had a hungry 

 day's journey, for besides grass and water there was 

 nothing to eat; we were pretty thoroughly wetted in 

 the swamp, and coming over the last hill were obliged 

 to stop in black darkness on account of a thunder- 

 storm ; reaching Wyoming after eight o'clock, tired, 



