FROM CARLISLE TO THE OHIO 221 



know how to tan and themselves prepare, in little pits, 

 the greatest part of the leather they need. They have 

 even learned from the Indians an easy and rapid 

 method of making leather from the skins of both wild 

 and domestic animals. They call it Hirn-garmachen, 

 i. e. brain-tanning. The skins are scraped ; the brain 

 of the animal, perhaps a bear, is broiled with the fat, and 

 then the soup is thinned with water ; the skins are sev- 

 eral times rubbed smartly with this brew, and after- 

 wards smoked. It is not a very cleanly process, but the 

 leather is supple, good for all manner of use, and 

 durable. Our host had also set up a saw-mill, and 

 makes a profit on the boards, getting the logs for the 

 mere trouble of taking them. For these remote forests 

 are at this time almost nobody's property. With all 

 the rest of the unsurveyed, unsold, or unleased land, 

 they were formerly held by the Penn family ; but now 

 belong to the state of Pensylvania which has not the 

 time to worry over such a trifle as a few thousand 

 tree-trunks. The former proprietors were glad if any- 

 body in the more unsettled parts cut off the wood and 

 made use of it, because it was then the easier to bring 

 in people and sell them the land at a good price. 

 However, these desolate-seeming woods are not alto- 

 gether without inhabitants. They are about in spots, 

 where one hardly expects to find them, at the foot of 

 hills and by brooks. There is even a plantation on the 

 top of a high mountain to the right of us. Not until 

 after the war before the last did people begin to settle 

 here and spread about. 



The basis of these mountains is a quartz-grained 

 rock, from which good mill-stones are taken. Rough 

 grind-stones are also found, but not many. The 



