160 POLLIPELL'S ISLAND. 



its ancient bed,* and passes at once in imagination from the dry 

 contemplation of dates to the scene once presented by the in- 

 land sea from which they drank, diversified by the myriads of 

 islands which now form mountain-tops around. 



Mr. Jefferson, in his " notes upon Virginia," referring to a 

 similar convulsion, and change in the aspect of nature, when 

 the Potomac burst its way through the famous pass at Harper's 

 Ferry, incidentally alludes, in the same connection, if we recollect 

 aright, to an aboriginal tradition which accounts for the disap- 

 pearance of the mammoth upon our atlantic border by making 

 him retire with such trepidation from that wild commotion of 

 matter, that he bounded over the Ohio in his fright! The 

 Iroquois legend of New York strikes us as much finer. The 

 Ot-nc-yar-heh, or stonish giants,t whose power was so terrible in 

 the land at that day, at this point it seems first encountered the 

 wrath of Chemanitou, who ultimately destroyed them for their 

 crimes. Those strange flinty men, it is said, built their lodges 

 like beavers, partly under the water. The bed of this great 

 lake was covered with their habitations, and when a power 

 stronger than theirs pierced the firm hills, and by draining the 

 lake, would expose their dwellings to his thunderbolts, the 

 stonish giants drove vast herds of the mammoth into the greedy 

 sluice, in their first frantic effort to close up the chasm ! striding 



* The famous skeleton of the Mammoth, in Peale's Museum, Philadelphia, 

 was exhumed from the " drowned lands," in this valley, near the base of the 

 Shawungunk mountains. 



•j- See " Wild Scenes of the Forest and Prairie." 



