xxxi] WASHINGTON TO SAN FRANCISCO 139 



cultivated fields are more numerous, but often still full of 

 tree-stumps. Men are seen ploughing with very small light 

 ploughs, which can turn easily among the stumps ; ugly snake 

 fences are present everywhere ; queer little wooden huts are 

 dotted about ; and ragged, dirty children abound — a regular 

 bit of backwoods life. 



Passing through a long tunnel, we come out upon the 

 Greenbriar river, a quiet stream whose greenish waters are 

 full of logs cut in the surrounding mountains and being 

 floated down to the Ohio. At Hinton the New River joins 

 our stream, the valley gradually narrows till we are walled in 

 by grand crags and precipices, there are enormous fallen 

 boulders, and the river foams over ledges and down whirling 

 rapids. We passed a fine lofty point called Hawk's Nest, and 

 soon after reached the Kanahwha river, which is navigable down 

 to the Ohio. Here we saw one of the old-fashioned stern - 

 paddle steamboats ; the climate became warmer, a peach tree 

 was in full blossom, and I even saw that rarity in America, a 

 greenhouse attached to a small country house. All down the 

 valley in alluvial flats the Western plane tree (Platanus 

 occidentalis) had a remarkable appearance, its upper half being 

 pure white, exactly as if whitewashed. This is the colour 

 of the young bark before it flakes off, as it does on the trunk 

 and larger limbs. The peculiar appearance is not noticed by 

 Loudon, so perhaps it is not produced in our less sunny 

 climate. 



I reached Coalburg at 3 p.m., where Mr. Edwards met me 

 and took me to his pleasant house with a broad verandah in 

 a pretty orchard at the foot of the mountain, which rises in a 

 steep forest-clad slope close behind. The grass of the orchard 

 was full of the beautiful white flowers of the blood-root 

 (Sanguinaria canadensis), together with yellow and blue 

 violets, and there were fine views of the river and high slop- 

 ing hills, which, together with the tramways and coal trucks 

 on the railway, and here and there the chimneys of a colliery 

 engine, reminded me of some of the South Wales valleys. I 

 spent four days here roaming about the country, seeing my 

 host's fine collection of North American butterflies and his 



