iv PREFACE. 



sense is far less satisfactory than a description of Cross- 

 wicks Creek would have been, even if described as the 

 head-waters of the Delaware. 



But the mouth of the creek, if I read him aright, did 

 attract him, for .it is recorded on his map, very near the 

 mouth of the creek, " Bergs fins Solf wer Metall," or hills 

 where silver is found ; and Campanius adds, " the land 

 is hilly, but not such hills as in Sweden ; they are clay 

 and sand hills. Some of them are naturally disposed to 

 the production of metals ; for instance, there is a hill at 

 Mekansio Sippus, or creek, in which there is good silver 

 ore, and along the creek the strand is covered all over 

 with flint-stones, some of which are of a round shape, 

 and when broken there are found in them grains of 

 pure silver, some larger and some smaller. Mr. Lind- 

 strom says that he himself has broken more than a hun- 

 dred of them, and taken out the silver that was therein." 

 The third century is well advanced since this was written, 

 yet this is not a mining country. If Lindstrom left any 

 silver-bearing pebbles, they are still lying on the strand. 



Later came the English ; and, so far as can be deter- 

 mined, the pleasant valley of this noble creek was a ver- 

 itable terra incognita when Penn's thrifty followers ex- 

 plored, found good, and took possession of it. They 

 certainly knew little and cared less about their red- 

 skinned predecessors, and having no poetry in their 

 souls, gave new and inappropriate names to every im- 

 portant physical feature of the land. It is true that in 

 some cases they Anglicized the Indian name, and the 

 bluffs at Crossweeksung became Crosswicks, as did also 

 the stream that wound thread-like through their mead- 

 ows. 



The Indians were not content with such a paucity of 

 names. One for the pretty hills at Crosswicks must not 



