THE AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION. 



233 



The Barrens is sandy, very sandy. The 

 Jack pine, a scrubby, yellow pine, is 

 auite abundant in places. Huckleber- 

 ries, wild indigo, fern and ground pine 

 abound ; cranberries and spatter-dock 

 grow in the numerous ponds or small 

 lakes. The trailing arbutus is much 

 finer here than on the ridge, owing to 

 the sandy soil. No white water lilies 

 grow in this part of the country. They 

 have been grown in tubs. I wish I 

 had some. I would not insure the suc- 

 cess of the cultivation. 



There are larger limonite mines five 

 miles from here and from a larger fault 

 in the same range as the nearer one, 

 forming a cave in the Silurian lime- 

 stone. The cave has not been explored 

 owing to the small entrance. One can 

 go in only a few feet. 



Through the Barrens is what the 

 geologist calls the "Nittany Valley 

 anticlinal axis." This was a mountain 

 and the rocks on the Tussey Mountain 

 and the Bald Eagle Ridge or Muncy 

 Mountain are the same age. The 

 Medina white and Medina red sand- 

 stones of the Muncy Mountain are all 

 thrown down by erosion on the Bald 

 Eagle side of the mountain. The white 

 sandstone or ganister rock is used in 

 making some kind of fire brick for fur- 

 naces. Below this is the fossil iron ore 

 and the Paint Spring; farther on is the 

 Blue Spring in the range of the Lower 

 Helderberg limestone, and across the 

 railroad they have a Spook Spring. 

 When my father, born in 1818, was a 

 boy, my grandfather went to the Blue 

 Spring and caught some trout and then 

 had the children suck the water from 

 the trout's mouth as a preventive of 

 whooping cough. The ones who 

 sucked the water did not have it nearly 

 so hard as the ones who did not suck 

 the water from the trout's mouth ! 



I always make a bow to the James- 

 town weed or jimson weed, Datura stra- 

 monium. When I was suffering from 

 typhoid fever and neuralgia and after 

 I had taken, as I thought, a whole drug 

 store, the doctor proposed to make a 

 poultice of the Jamestown weed. Oh ! 

 thanks. I will never forget that James- 



town weed. The doctor also added 

 that it would make the hair grow — 

 fried in lard it would make the hair 

 grow on a bald head. 



There are wild flowers too numerous 

 to mention — hoarhound made into a 

 tea for colds, catnip for pain, mother- 

 wort for the nerves, spearmint and pep- 

 permint, boneset or thoroughwort for 

 a cold and to break a fever, life ever- 

 lasting for a poultice for a carbuncle or 

 a sore in the heart of the hand, vervain 

 or carpenter square which is good for 

 heart trouble, calamus for indigestion, 

 crow's foot for dysentery, black snake- 

 root — cohosh — soaked in water for 

 dyspepsia, and the leaves of the tall 

 mullein smoked for bronchitis. 



Along the Hudson River and Utica 

 shale there is an oil which floats on the 

 water. The shales disintegrate form- 

 ing a white potter's clay. The water 

 in a spring is milky. Violets, ferns, 

 cat-tails, huckleberries, dewberries and 

 blackberries are abundant. The sweet 

 eglantine grows here too. It is sweet 

 in its wild home, but when transplanted 

 to the lawn it loses its sweetness and 

 becomes a nuisance. It spreads too 

 much for family comfort. 



A tree grew on the Hudson River 

 and Utica shales on which the Indians 

 painted a half-moon and other marks 

 from which this Half-moon Valley re- 

 ceived its name. A man by the name 

 of Storm laid out the town which never 

 grows ; hence Stormstown. Bald Eagle 

 is named for an Indian chief who had 

 his home along the banks of the Bald 

 Eagle Creek near Milesburg. 



The Bear Meadows on top of the 

 Tussey Mountain is sometimes called 

 a peat bog. The ground is springy ; in 

 jumping up and down or stamping, the 

 ground will spring up and down. The 

 pitcher plant and some evergreen trees 

 and tall huckleberry-like trees grow 

 here. The pitcher plant and evergreen 

 trees will not bear transplanting. 



Minnows, suckers, catfish and eels 

 are caught in the Half-moon Run. The 

 streams of the country are stocked with 

 trout. 



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