tall, with fringes of sturdy timbers following its swiftly
running streams. He describes the kinds of soils and tells which is rich
and which is poor. For instance he says where one finds slate he may
rest assured the soil will not produce very good crops. On the other
hand, where one finds limestone the soil will produce fine products,
grains and fruits.

Metal was found in some of the hillsides and mountains. An Englishman
named Powell found silver ore on the mountain which bears his name. He
smeltered the silver and from it made coins. This was breaking the laws,
of course, and soon officers were attempting to arrest him. Powell fled
to his mountain where he had a small fort hidden, and for years eluded
them. After many years men found his little shop where he smeltered the
ore and Kercheval himself saw the crude crucible in which the ore was
refined and the iron utensils also.

Kercheval tells that many of the farmers found it difficult to plough
their lands and to make crops because of the innumerable small and large
stones which they found everywhere. At last they decided to get rid of
them and built many of the stone walls which one sees up and down the
mountain sides, along winding roads and enclosing picturesque homes. He
says the soil is so rich that seeds do not need to be planted very deep,
as they will germinate if there is only enough soil to cover them.

There were great sugar-maple trees too and he tells of those "sugar
hills" in which there are four or five hundred acres of trees. They even
look like sugar loaves from a distance and today on Paddy's Mountain you
may still see some of them. You may already have guessed that the name
Paddy was in honor of the owner Patrick Blake, an Irishman who built in
the gap which is named for him.

Kercheval lists carefully all the various healing springs and gives the
properties of each. He even gives the names of many persons who were
benefitted by drinking from or bathing in them.

Let us pause here and read about these pioneers, how they built their
houses, how they dressed, and something of their superstitions, manners
and customs.

The first settlers built plain sturdy houses made mostly from rough hewn
logs. Some of these were covered with split clapboards, having weight
poles to keep them in place. Many of them had no floors except the earth
itself. If made of wood, they used rough logs, split in two and roughly
smoothed with a broad ax. However, as the