WEST VIRGINIA. 67 



The bcilmy breatli of spring invades tlic atmospliere of summer ; pleasurable 

 exhilaratiou tempers the sultriest of July days ; the blue grass maintains its 

 rank luxuriance through the dryest season ; and scenes of rural beauty, out- 

 spread vipon those elevated plains and mountain slopes, fill the eye with their 

 unpretending magnificence. Thousands in each summer season gather here 

 from the poisoned atmosphere of cities.- 



Eighty years ago Jefi'erson wrote of a " burning spring" as follows : 



" In tbe low grounds of the Great KanawLa, seven miles above the mouth of the Elk river, 

 and sixty-seven above that of the Kanawha itself, is a hole in the earth of tbe capacity of 

 thirty or forty gallons, from which issues a bituminous vapov in so strong a current as to give 

 to the sand about its orifice tbe motion which it has in a boiling spring. On presenting a 

 lighted candle or torch within eighteen inches of the hole it tlames up in a column of 

 eighteen inches diameter, and of four or five feet in height, which sometimes bmns out within 

 twenty minutes, and at other times has been known to continue three days, and then has 

 been still left burning. The flame is unsteady, of the density of that of biuning spirits, and 

 smells like burning pit coal." 



This " spring," so called because it contains water after a rain, is yet in ex- 

 istence ; the gas, still issuing to some extent, is carbureted hydrogen. It is on 

 land entered by General AVashington, one acre of which is reserved by his will 

 for the use of the public. The flame resembles that of burning whiskey. It was 

 sometimes turned to useful account in clothes-washing, the water boiling till 

 evaporated, and the gas, which bubbled through small orifices in the sand, con- 

 tinued to burn till extinguished by wind or other agency. 



Twenty years ago, or more, in boring in this vicinity to the depth of nine 

 hundred feet for salt, similar streams of gas were struck, Avhich poured forth a 

 dense volume, and were employed in a salt furnace for heating purposes, being 

 equivalent to eight hundred bushels of coal. These have ceased to flow, but 

 two others are still used, supporting combustion in a salt furnace equal to two 

 hundred bushels of coal. 



Charles S. Richardson, of Briarport Mines, on Coal river, has experimented 

 this season with cotton, tobacco, sorghum, and other seeds from the department, 

 with reasonable success, under unfavorable circumstances. The tobacco, which 

 was planted very late, and was therefore partially destroyed by frost, yielded 

 800 pounds per acre, of superior quality, compensating fully in price for the 

 deficiency in quantity. The sorghum, planted when it should have been in 

 vigorous growth, had ripened no seed when attacked by the notable frosts of 

 early autumn, and yet IGO gallons of sirup per acre of excellent quality were 

 made — a quantity greater than the average throughout the best sorghum dis- 

 tricts. Besides, a miserable wooden mill was employed, with an estimated lo.^s 

 of 80 gallons of sirup per acre. 



He produced in thirteen weeks, from the seed, well-formed specimens of the 

 French long turnip, weighing 3|- pounds, 10^ inches long, and 5^ inches in 

 breadth. 



The cotton, which came up about the middle of June, was, of course, deficient 

 in its proper season for growth, yet yielded a few open bolls. No portion of 

 southern Illinois or Kansas could have done better. 



SOUTHERN COUNTIES. 



The counties south of the Kanawha, Mercer, Raleigh, Boone, Cabell, "Wayne, 

 Logan, Wyoming, and McDowell, are isolated from markets, mountainoue, 

 covered in great part with original forests heavily timbered, well watered by the 

 Guyandotte, Sandy, and other rivers, and exceedingly rich in iron, coal, and 

 other minerals. The minerals will at some future day be valuable, and the soils 

 available for the production of fruit, wool, and butcher's meat. It is intersected 

 by mountains in continuation of the Cumberland range", and nearly all of it 

 included in the great coal measures of the Ohio valley. 



