falls of the
rivers, are found vast quantities of stone, fit for all kinds of uses.
However, as yet, there is seldom any use made of them, because commonly
wood is to be had at much less trouble; and as for coals, it is not
likely they should ever be used there in anything but forges and great
towns, if ever they happen to have any, for, in their country
plantations, the wood grows at every man's door so fast, that after it
has been cut down, it will in seven years time grow up again from seed,
to substantial fire-wood; and in eighteen or twenty years it will come
to be very good board timber.

Sec. 9. For mineral earths, it is believed they have great plenty and
variety, that country being in a good latitude, and having great
appearances of them. It has been proved, too, that they have both iron
and lead, as appears by what was said before concerning the iron works
set up at Falling creek in James river, where the iron proved reasonably
good; but before they got into the body of the mine, the people were cut
off in that fatal massacre, and the project has never been set on foot
since, till of late; but it has not had its full trial.

The golden mine, of which there was once so much noise, may, perhaps, be
found hereafter to be some good metal, when it comes to be fully
examined. But be that as it will, the stones that are found near it, in
great plenty, are valuable, their lustre approaching nearer to that of
the diamond than those of Bristol or Kerry. There is no other fault in
them but their softness, which the weather hardens, when they have been
sometime exposed to it, they being found under the surface of the earth.
This place has now plantations on it.

This I take to be the place in Purchase's fourth book of his pilgrim,
called Uttamussack, where was formerly the principal temple of the
country, and the metropolitan seat of the priests in Powhatan's time.
There stood the three great houses, near sixty feet in length, which he
reports to have been filled with the images of their gods; there were
likewise preserved the bodies of their kings. These houses they counted
so holy, that none but their priests and kings durst go into them, the
common people not presuming, without their particular direction, to
approach the place.

There also was their great Pawcorance, or altar stone, which, the
Indians tell us, was a solid crystal, of between three and four feet
cube, upon which, in their greatest solemnities, they