THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
109 
sink in the porous sandstone or murmur and plunge headlong 
to these rapid creeks." 
The forests here are a generation older than those in 
adjoining countries, and the trees much larger. The country 
has evidently been burned over at an earlier date than other 
parts of "the barrens. "But the county is fast being denuded of 
these large trees. Many companies, each employing two and 
three-hundred men, are at work in different parts of the 
county, cutting trees for cross-ties. Many lordly chestnut 
and other oaks, have been felled, and still the work goes on. 
The deep gulches cut by these two streams, Nolin and Bear 
Creeks, considerably modify the climate. In the gulches, at 
least, and between the ridges of sandstone and conglomerate, 
the extremes of heat and cold are greatly reduced; but when 
the country is laid bare of its trees there is likely to be a 
greater climatic change, as well as the disappearance of many 
plants now found there. 
A walk of a mile, after leaving the moonshiner's house, 
brought us to Nolin River. We were ferried across in a 
"dinky boat — a clumsy affair, like a ferry-boat, but with a 
small room at one end with machinery for raising sunken saw- 
logs. After several heavy rains the river was now high and 
very swift, the banks muddy and much of the lowlands under 
water. We toiled through a cornfield that had recently been 
over-flowed and along a hill-side for "three quarters", — these 
people seem too indolent to finish a sentence, — but say "it is 
a quarter to yan house;" or "a half to yan hill," — until we 
reached Dismal Rock, a perpendicular wall of rock, that was 
surveyed by the state geologist in 1875 and found to be three 
hundred feet high. At its base and along the banks were 
many trees not found elsewhere, among them the large-leaved 
magnolia, hemlock, Jersey pine, laurel and holly. 
A full view of the rock could not be obtained from the 
base, so we decided to go to the clififs on the opposite side of 
