SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 317 



that ought at once to be discussed ? Why not cover them 

 with grass and sheep, and send to New York the finest 

 mountain mutton in the world, by every nightly train 

 upon the road. 



Leaving the Delaware, at a wide-spread, scattering vil- 

 lage on its banks, once a great lumber-trading town, 

 called Deposit, now just emerging into an agricultural 

 place of trade and forwarding, we climb up the summit 

 grade, nearly 60 feet to the mile, and over about 20 miles 

 to the Susquehanna at Lanesborough ; crossing in the 

 way the Cascade Bridge, a wooden structure, 270 feet 

 long, and 175 feet high ; yet, as firm and unshaking as a 

 rock. 



Two or three miles further on, and we are upon one of 

 the noblest structures of this wonder-working age. The 

 valley of the Starucco, a wild, raging mountain stream, 

 where the deep snows send down their floods, is spanned 

 by a solid, stone bridge, 1,400 feet long, and 100 feet 

 high, built upon seventeen arches, and in such a perfect 

 manner, that generations shall come and go, and yet that 

 monument of man's power to do good, shall tell to after 

 ages the story of this great road. Still further along, 

 upon another bridge, we almost pass over the top of the 

 town. It would be an easy trick for old Santa Glaus to 

 take a flying leap from the cars into the chimney top of 

 some of the Lanesboreans. 



Now we are in the rich and lovely valley of the Susque- 

 hanna, and at seven o'clock, only twelve hours from New- 

 York City, we alight at Binghamton, 227 miles from 

 thence. It is not the little village of twenty-five years 

 ago, far away in the interior of the state, and almost 

 unapproachable, but a flourishing, lovely town ; a suburb 

 almost of the great emporium. What a change has the 

 realisation of that wild dream accomplished for the val- 

 ley. Agricultural products, which formerly were not 

 worth cultivating for want of a market, now find ready 

 sales and daily transit to an all-absorbing market. Only 

 think of shipping frame houses to San Francisco from 



