SPUING AT THE CAPITAL. 157 



region. Rock Creek is a large, rough, rapid stream, 

 which has its source in the interior of Maryland, and 

 flows into the Potomac between Washington and 

 Georgetown. Its course, for five or six miles out of 

 Washington, is marked by great diversity of scenery. 

 Flowing in a deep valley, which now and then becomes 

 a wild gorge with overhanging rocks and high pre- 

 cipitous headlands, for the most part wooded ; here 

 reposing in long, dark reaches, there sweeping and 

 hurrying around a sudden bend or over a rocky bed ; 

 receiving at short intervals small runs and spring 

 rivulets, which open up vistas and outlooks to the right 

 and left, of the most charming description, — Rock 

 Creek has an abundance of all the elements that make 

 up not only pleasing, but wild and rugged scenery. 

 There is, perhaps, not another city in the Union that 

 has on its very threshold so much natural beauty and 

 grandeur, such as men seek for in remote forests and 

 mountains. A few touches of art would convert this 

 whole region, extending from Georgetown to what is 

 known as Crystal Springs, not more than two miles 

 from the present State Department, into a park une- 

 qualed by anything in the world. There are passages 

 between these two points as wild and savage, and ap- 

 parently as remote from civilization, as anything one 

 meets with in the mountain sources of the Hudson or 

 the Delaware. 



One of the tributaries to Rock Creek within this 

 limit is called Piny Branch. It is a small, noisy brook, 



