232 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



their continuity is here and there broken by great open- 

 ings or gaps. Between their highest ranges there are 

 long, broad, and fertile high-lying valleys. These 

 mountains as a whole, but especially the Alleghany, 

 (more distinct throughout its course), form the water- 

 shed of the country to the east and the west, the 

 streams flowing off to the one side or the other. These 

 mountains, in regard to their ranges and branches, are 

 very differently traced in the several maps, and it can 

 hardly be otherwise since no examination of them has 

 been made for the purpose. Governor Pownall's and 

 Captain Hutchins's maps + in this respect seem to be 

 the most reliable. 



Although there are said to be many farms about 

 Bedford, some of them already good, we did not pass 

 a house until we had gone four miles on our road, and 

 it was three miles farther to another house. The 

 owner of this one had recently, for 200 Pd. Pensylv. 

 Current, bought no less than 300 acres of land, was 

 satisfied with his purchase, and called it good land. 

 From here on we had 12 miles through a thin forest 

 of little, spindling oaks, which had to find a meagre 

 living on a dry and narrow ridge, and there was among 

 them almost no undergrowth or bush. This long 

 drawn-out hill, ' the dry ridge ' is a jutty, what they 

 call here a ' spur ' of the Alleghany, and a good many 

 like it leave the main ridge. It is covered with broken 

 slabs of a reddish, micaceous sand-stone, from half an 

 inch to an inch thick ; it is noticeable that most of the 

 fragments along this road and everywhere hereabouts 

 have more or less a four-cornered shape. We found a 

 dearth of plants here and little variety among them. 

 In the afternoon at four o'clock we arrived at a large 



