LOG DRIVING. 15 



the mark he has given it, just as you have seen farm- 

 ers, in a confused flock of sheep, select their own, 

 saying ever and anon, ^' This is mine, cropped in both 

 ears and slit in the right," &c. When the logs get 

 fastened together on rocks, &c., it is called a ''jam." 

 I saAV one of these the other day upon a huge mass 

 of rocks, over which the water never flows except in 

 the highest freshet ; and I should think there were 

 four or five thousand of them there thrown into all 

 shapes and attitudes — the most chaotic-looking mass 

 you ever beheld. 



This "driving the river," as it is called, is one of 

 the chief employments of your backwoodsman in 

 spring time, and it is curious to see what an object of 

 interest the river becomes. Its rise and fall are the 

 chief topics of conversation. So goes the world. 

 New York has its objects of interest — the country 

 village its — and the settler on the frontier his ; each 

 filled with the same anxieties, hopes, fears, and wishes 

 — overcome by the same discouragements and mis- 

 fortunes, and working out the same fate ; — man still 

 with that mysterious soul and restless heart of his, 

 greater than a king, and immortal as an angel, yet 

 absorbed with straws and maddened or thrown into 

 raptures by a little glittering dust. 



My next will be from the heart of Hamilton county, 

 and I shall have something to say of Long Lake 

 colony. 



