Feter Mountains. — Mountain Lake . . 97 



of two hundred feet, a strong sulphur water was struck, which rose 

 copiously to the surface, and is in taste and sanative quaUties, similar 

 to the waters of the white sulphur spring ; showing an extensive 

 range of the materials used in the elaboration of the water of the nu- 

 merous mineral fountains, found in this region. The water of all 

 these springs is cold ; that of white sulphur, being 63° of Farenheit. 

 With occasional interruptions near the New river, the limestone de- 

 posit continues on to the heads of the Holstein and Clinch rivers, 

 and down these streams into Tennessee. Salt water is found in 

 abundance on the Holstein. 



On the south east side of the Alleghany range, in a transition 

 formation, are seated the celebrated thermal springs. A few miles 

 west, the same range is called the Peter mountain. Where the road 

 crosses this mountain from Montgomery court house to Pack's ferry 

 on the New river, the top of the mountain exhibits many marks of 

 the action of heat on its rocks. The surface stratum is a chocolate 

 colored, quartzose rock, tinged with iron, in irregular broken masses ; 

 beneath this, lies a bed of coarse sandstone, the surface in many pla- 

 ces vitrified, as if subjected to fire. The same internal heat, which 

 vitrified these rocks, and raised these mountain ranges to their pres- 

 ent height, may also still supply caloric for the warm and hot springs 

 of Jackson river. After the extreme southerly branches of the New 

 river leave the Iron mountains and the primitive rocks of North Car- 

 olina, the river pursues a S. Easterly direction, amidst the transition 

 ranges, crossing and breaking through several high ridges in its course, 

 and it is filled with numerous rapids and water falls, until it receives 

 the assistance of the Greenbrier river from the east. Aided by these 

 additional waters, it finally forces a passage across the Sewell and 

 the Gauly ranges, leaving " the perpetual cliffs of New river," as 

 lasting memorials of the strength and power of these accumulated 

 waters, in their primeval days. The Greenbrier valley was evidently 

 once the scite of a lake, and might have discharged a part of its waters 

 through the gap," at present occupied by Second and Dunlap's creek, 

 until a deeper channel was cut in the track nov/ pursued by the New 

 river. 



On the top of the Peter mountain, about sixteen miles south of 

 the Red Sulphur spring, is a lake of fresh water, half a mile wide and 

 three miles long. It is of unknown depth and discharges its super- 

 fluous water down the almost perpendicular side of the mountain, in 

 a never failing stream, of sufficient volume to Avork the machinery of 



Vol. XXIX.—No. 1. 13 



