52 HUNTING SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



active, industrious, and persevering. He marched tc 

 the spot where his ab)de now is, with some workmen, 

 and by dint of hard labor, first cleared the road men- 

 tioned above, and reached the river at the centre of a 

 bend, where he fixed on erecting various mills. The 

 pass here is so narrow, that it looks as if formed by the 

 bursting asunder of the mountain, both sides ascending 

 abruptly, so that the place where the settlement was 

 made, is in many parts difficult of access, and the road, 

 when newly cut, was only sufficient to permit men and 

 horses to come to the spot where Jediah and his men were 

 at work. So great, in fact, were the difficulties of access, 

 that, as he told me, pointing to a spot about 150 feet above 

 us, they, for many months slipped from it their barrelled 

 provisions, assisted by ropes, to their camp below. But 

 no sooner was the first saw-mill erected, than the axe- 

 men began their devastations. Trees, one after another 

 were, and are yet constantly heard falling during the. 

 days y and in calm nights, the greedy mills told the sad 

 tale, that in a century the noble forests around should 

 exist no more. Many mills were erected, many dams 

 raised,, in defiance of the impetuous Lehigh. One full 

 third of the trees have already been culled, turned into 

 boards, and floated as far as Philadelphia. 



In such an undertaking, the cutting of the trees is not 

 all. They have afterwards to be hauled to the edge of 

 the mountains bordering the river, launched into the 

 stream, and led to the mills over many shallows and dif- 

 ficult places. Whilst I was in the Great Pine Swamp, I 

 frequently visited one of the principal places for the 

 launching of logs. To see them tumbling from such a 



