588 WALKER COUNTY. 



Pond. It embraces four or five acres, 48 feet deep in the 

 middle, of a sea-green colour. Distant from La Fayette four 

 miles. Tradition says two Indians were drowned in this 

 pond. There is no visible outlet, and the water never be- 

 comes stagnant. Long Pond is a beautiful sheet of water, 

 famous for excellent fish. 



Early Settlers. — This county was first settled by per- 

 sons from Tennessee and different parts of Georgia. Mr. 

 Williams and Mr. HarUn were among the first settlers. 



Climate, Diseases, Longevity. — Walker may be put down 

 as a healthy county, although chills and fevers prevail on the 

 waters of Chicamauga. A curious disease, called Milk Sick, 

 prevails in McAlmore's Cove, which embraces 10,000 acres, 

 situated between Pigeon and Lookout mountains. The 

 following account of this disease is taken from Dr. Samuel 

 Henry Dickson's " Practice of Medicine :" — 



"It is known exclusively in the southern and southwes- 

 tern parts of our Union. The fertile coves, or deep valleys, 

 among the mountains of South Carolina, Tennessee, North 

 Carolina, and Georgia, are subject to this singular malady ; 

 neither the nature nor the cause of which are clearly 

 set forth in the few monographs which have appeared 

 in the journals concerning it. Some attribute it to the 

 ordinary malaria, which before and since the time of McCul- 

 loch has been supposed capable of originating every malady in 

 the long catalogue of nosologists. Others again have ascribed 

 it to some unknown and undiscovered vegetable poison, con- 

 fined in its growth to the spots above alluded to. Others still 

 look upon it, reasoning from analogies of symptoms, upon which 

 they found their opinion, as the efiect of mineral exhalations ; 

 perhaps of lead, antimony, or arsenic. Whatever be the cause 

 which gives rise to it, in the lower classes of animals, it would 

 seem that it never affects directly the human subject. Man 

 is not attacked by the disease unless after eating the flesh of 

 herbivorous animals exposed to receive it, or using the milk 

 or butter obtained from them. Other carnivorous animals are 

 liable to be attacked in the same way if they eat of the dis- 

 eased flesh. The cow and horse are most frequently its vic- 

 tims. It derives its name from the fact, that as occurring in 



