LETTER TO PROFESSOR KINGSLEY. 291 



they are choice books, and have cost him $10,000. I was 

 more than ever delighted with the Judge. We were also 

 at the Patroon's, probably the most like an ancient baro 

 nial establishment of anything in America : it is a princely 

 place. At Troy we saw the new and almost ludicrous 

 horse-boat, which two horses, without ever moving a step 

 from the places they stand in, and to which indeed they are 

 harnessed, propel the boat merely by moving their legs, 

 and thus causing a circular flat platform on which they 

 stand to revolve. I will explain it fully when I see you. 

 "We lodged at Stillwater, in the house in which General 

 Frazer died, in which Lady Harriet Ackland and the 

 Baroness Reidesel met with those interesting but tragical 

 adventures, which we read together, you may remember. 

 I visited the battle-grounds in company with an old man 

 (a Lebanon man, too), who was a guide to our armies in 

 all the fighting. Mr. Wadsworth stopped that night at 

 Sandy Hill, and I proceeded to Lake George. . I will say 

 nothing about this wonderful scene and its interesting forts 

 and battle-grounds till we meet. I rejoined Mr. W. at 

 Fort Anne, half way between the Hudson and Lake Cham- 

 plain ; and, in our ride to Whitehall, we found frequent 

 occasions to wonder at seeing a fine canal to connect the 

 waters of the Hudson and of Lake Champlatn, running 

 along almost side by side with, and frequently within a 

 stone's throw of, a still finer natural canal, a wood-creek, 

 which empties at precisely the same spot with the canal. 

 From Whitehall we proceeded down the lake, in the only 

 remaining steamboat ; the horse and carriage were taken 

 on board and left at Burlington (Vt), to await our return 

 from Canada, when we proposed to cross the mountains to 

 Hanover, and so home down the river. At Plattsburgh 

 we saw the scene of Macdonough's victory, as we had seen 

 the trophies of it the flotilla laid up at Whitehall ; we 

 found out Lyman Foot, who is very happy, and in high 

 repute in the army, at which I was not a little gratified, 





