88 Mr. Pierce on the Catskill Mountains. 
the brawling stream, which here presents considerable cas- 
cades—The mountain seems torn asunder to give passage to 
the river leaving lofty perpendicular walls of rock on its bor- 
ders—A short distance above, the stream falls ina circular 
column near one hundred feet. South of the clove the 
mountain rises to a great height—its steep northern side is 
thickly clothed with trees of varied verdure—Rivulets are 
seen winding rapidly down the glens or sporting in cascades. 
The most considerable branch of the Kauterskill has its 
origin in two mountain lakes situated near the Delaware turn- 
ike, between two and three thousand feet above the Hudson. 
hey cover about two hundred acres of ground, and are 
very shallow—no where of greater depth than ten feet. 
They contain cat-fish, and great numbers of the brown va- 
riety of leeches, some of them six inches in length 
_, The river from its outlet at the lake descends by rapids and 
falls,througha romantic ravine to the great clove. In one place 
it is precipitated perpendicularly about two hundred feet. 
This fall is often visited by the curious, A road has been 
recently worked from its vicinity down a wild glen parallel 
with the Kauterskill, to the clove, to facilitate access to a. 
mountain mass of very friable, fine grained argillaceous red 
sandstone, supposed by the proprietors of the ground, to be 
valuable as a paint, although softer, and of a deeper color 
than the red sandstone observed in almost every ravine of 
the mountain, yet it does not appear to have sufficient oxide 
of iron to give it such a body as to form a useful pigment. 
At the head of the great clove the western branch of the 
Kauterskill falls perpendicularly one hundred and twenty 
feet from projecting cliffs, and descends in rapids and cas- 
cades four hundred feet in about one hundred rods. 
The Platterkill clove, situated about five miles south of 
_ the Kauterskill, is little known, except to the inhabitants of 
its vicinity. I recently passed up this glen by a narrow dug 
way which rose to a midway region of the mountain, north 
of the river Platterkill. 
For two miles you look down the precipitous side into 4 
deep ravine near one thousand feet, where the Platterkill 
pursues a raging course among the rocks, presenting numet~ 
ous rapids and falls. Lesser streams are seen descending 
the precipitous south mountain from an altitude of two thou- 
