330 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



by the beavers, as many logs are lying on the slope, 

 which, without reflection, may be thought to be the 

 remains of an ancient structure erected by these animals. 

 On examining this fall and its broad slope, now entirely 

 grown up with bushes and brakes, I was surprised to 

 find that the whole slope consisted of calcareous matter 

 of the same character as that I had observed at the Sweet 

 Springs. It was evident, therefore, that the stream, 

 now only a few yards broad, had once covered the whole 

 surface of the valley 5 that the rich bottom had once been 

 a pond dammed up, and that the water had been dis- 

 charged as in ordinary dams, over the whole breadth of 

 550 yards. If this were so, it struck me that the flat 

 land at the bottom of the slope must have been also cov- 

 ered by this calcareous stream. On examining it, I found 

 it to be the case, and following it up for near three quar- 

 ters of a mile over the travertin, I came at last to a cas- 

 cade 42 feet high and about 6 feet broad. The stream 

 was here projected in a very beautiful sheet upon the 

 lower grauwacke slate, which in many places had a sta- 

 lagmitic floor of travertin upon it of a foot thick. Having 

 scrambled down to the slate, I had a front view of the 

 cascade, with the whole ledge of travertin it was pro- 

 jected from, together with the infinite variety of stalac- 

 titic rods and pilasters depending from it. I observed a 

 hemlock tree, ^bies Canadensis, about forty years old, 

 in full life, incrusted, all its roots and about 7 feet of the 

 stem, with calcareous matter. 



Near the foot of this wall of travertin, more than 40 

 feet high, were the entrances to various caverns, similar 

 to some spacious ones I had entered in the calcareous 

 dam I have spoken of, with depending stalactites, in 

 some instances resembling filagree work and petrified 

 mosses, the fretted appearance of which is caused by the 

 spray of the cascade. And here I would remark, that 

 mineral waters of this character deposit their solid eou- 



