owing
remnants of their late profusion of bloom. We Missourians have a great
love of fine scenery and generally take long journeys into other states
in order to gratify the taste, while quite unconscious of the wonderful
beauty and grandeur of the Ozarks.

Where the canon begins to broaden into a small sheltered valley as it
approaches Eleven Points River, we turned and retraced our way to the
forks, and a short distance beyond to a house where we might again
inquire. A woman came to the open door as we stopped and in answer to a
question said: "You ought to have asked me when you passed here a while
ago."

Apologies for the seeming neglect were offered and accepted, then she
explained that both roads went to Van Buren but not to Greer Spring,
where in due time we at length arrived.

The house being in one corner of a "forty" and the spring in that
diagonally opposite, there was a walk of nearly that distance before
coming to an old road inclining steeply down into what looked to be a
narrow canon. About midway of this sloping road, the space confined
between perpendicular walls, rising to heights above on one side and
descending to the stream on the other, widens suddenly and a picturesque
old mill comes into view, it having been wholly screened from the
approach by the rich growth of shrubs and trees. Chief in abundance
among this luxury of leaf was the hydrangea,--a favorite shrub largely
imported into this country from Japan before it was discovered as a
native. The mill site seems to have been selected for its beauty
although we were told that at this point the stream is seventy-two feet
wide, and two and one half feet deep, but could be raised thirty feet
with perfect safety by a dam, for which the rock is already on the
ground and much of it broken ready for use. The flow is said to be two
hundred and eighty yards per minute, with no appreciable variation, and
never freezes. The high walls of the Greer Spring gorge will, of course,
far more than double the value it would otherwise possess, when it
becomes desirable to control and turn to practical account the power now
going so cheerily to waste, but the artistic loss will be
proportionately severe.

The old mill was the scene of great activity in former times, but was
closed on account of an unfortunate accident and for years has had no
other duty than simply to serve as a portion of the landscape.

Just beyond, the canon makes a curving bend, the road dwi