The Days of a Man 1866 



my interest. In the woods about our home the 

 beech and maple ruled exclusively, with only oc- 

 casionally a cucumber magnolia, basswood, birch, 

 poplar, or tree of other kind. Barren ridges were 

 occupied by hemlocks, and the swamps by black 

 ash, pine, spruce, tamarack, and balsam fir, with 

 fringes of aspen and birch. In the regions farther 

 east from Perry to Ithaca and beyond 

 oaks, both white and scarlet, dominated with, 

 however, a good deal of hickory, chestnut, and 

 pine. 



Portage In the oak and pine region lay the scenic features 

 of the country, the noble gorge of the Genesee at 

 Portage and the placid Silver Lake at Perry. To 

 both of these I went even more for rare flowers 

 than to enjoy the scenery. Through Portage Gorge 

 the Genesee has cut its way some ten miles from 

 Portage Station to Gardow, the vertical walls of 

 hard, greenish sandstone rising in places to over 

 400 feet, the river meanwhile plunging down three 

 superb cataracts. Silver Lake, a dainty sheet of 

 water about four miles long and one wide, was in 

 my boyhood a favorite resort for picnics and for 

 religious and other assemblies, as well as for boating 

 and fishing. At that time groups of farmers often 

 spent a night there, drawing long nets or seines, 

 and bringing home the next morning wagon-loads of 

 whitefish, black bass, pickerel, perch, and bull- 

 heads. 



Silver Lake fills the smallest and westernmost of a 

 long array of former gorges thirteen in number 

 excavated by water before the glacial period, then 

 widened and all but one, Oneida, greatly deepened 

 by grinding ice, after which they were transformed 

 C 26] 



