EPISODES 319 



dam, and are again pushed over. Certain numbers are 

 left in each dam, and when the party has arrived at the 

 last, which lies just where my friend Irish's camp was first 

 formed, the drenched leader and his men, about sixty in 

 number, make their way home, find there a healthful 

 repast, and spend the evening and a portion of the night 

 in dancing and frolicking, in their own simple manner, in 

 the most perfect amity, seldom troubling themselves with 

 the idea of the labor prepared for them on the morrow. 



That morrow now come, one sounds a horn from the 

 door of the store-house, at the call of which each returns 

 to his work. The sawyers, the millers, the rafters, and 

 raftsmen are all immediately busy.' The mills are all 

 going, and the logs, which a few months before were the 

 supporters of broad and leafy tops, are now in the act of 

 being split asunder. The boards are then launched into 

 the stream, and rafts are formed of them for market. 



During the months of summer and autumn, the Lehigh, 

 a small river of itself, soon becomes extremely shallow, 

 and to float the rafts would prove impossible, had not art 

 managed to provide a supply of water for this express 

 purpose. At the breast of the lower dam is a curiously 

 constructed lock, which is opened at the approach of the 

 rafts. They pass through this lock with the rapidity of 

 lightning, propelled by the water that had been accumu- 

 lated in the dam, and which is of itself generally sufficient 

 to float them to Mauch Chunk, after which, entering 

 regular canals, they find no other impediments, but are 

 conveyed to their ultimate destination. 



Before population had greatly advanced in this part of 

 Pennsylvania, game of all description found within that 

 range was extremely abundant. The Elk itself did not 

 disdain to browse on the shoulders of the mountains near 

 the Lehigh. Bears and the common Deer must have been 

 plentiful, as, at the moment when I write, many of both 

 are seen and killed by the resident hunters. The Wild 



