IN AND OUT OF ITHACA. 



OUR STONE FOUNDATIONS. 



THE books tell us that Ithaca was founded in 1789. 

 The rocks tell quite another story. Not in years, 

 but in aeons do they record the flight of time since our 

 foundations were laid. Curious and interesting is the 

 tale, not yet quite reclaimed from the realm of primeval 

 myth, but still plain enough, so that we may keep the 

 thread of the strange story. Like editors of some old 

 manuscript or translators of some ancient classic, we 

 will allow ourselves to supply a word here and there, 

 which perhaps the scientists are not quite ready to put 

 in, but which is needed to complete the sense, and then 

 the history will run as follows :- — 



Long ago these heaps of Chemung shale were laid 

 down under the water, and now and then a little spirifer 

 or trilobite was immortalized in the process. Then, 

 in the course of time, when the water went down or the 

 land came up — no matter now which — a great plateau 

 was formed through the centre of the State. Through 

 it ran tortuous and winding streams, as streams are 

 wont to be, taking off the drainage of the country north- 

 ward, and having each its own little valley running in 

 a general way north and south. Then over this fair 



