12.9 [Twite UC-NRLF \\10lt - < Ex-Libri* FRANKEARLEHAS^RD Book worm v ^^W Tnis Litfle Sign Means Book o' Mine Class No. _ Purchased /// r \ t TRENTON FALLS, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE EHITED BY N. PARKER WILLIS; V \ EMBRACING THE ORIGINAL ESSAY OF JOHN SHERMAN, THE FIRST PEOPEIETOE AND EESIDENT. THE ILLUSTRATIONS ENGRAVKD ON WOOD BY N. OEE & CO. fork: ./. G. GREGORY, PUBLISHER, MDCCCLXII. r. A. AJ.VOKD, STEHKOTYPKU & PRINTER, NEW YORK. \- \c< TV7W- j HE most etyoyablyfi beautiful spot, among the resorts of roman- } tic scenery in our country, is the one which is the subject of the present little book. To the writer, as to most other lovers of Nature who have visited it, the remembrance of its loveliness has become the bright spot to which dream and revery oftenest return. .It seems to be curiously adapted to enjoy ; being, somehow, not 4 TRENTON FALLS only the kind, but the size of a place which the (after all) measurable arms of a mortal heart can enfold in its embrace. Niagara is too much as a roasted ox is a thing to go to look at, though one retires to dine on something smaller. Trenton Falls is the place, above all others, where it is a luxury to stay which one oftenest revisits which one most commends strangers to be sure to see. The writer, whose name is on the title-page, having written much, at different times, about it, has been induced by his friend, Mr. Moore, the proprie- tor, to join with three admirable artists in putting together what pen and pencil have recorded of its beauty. The object of the book is as much to re- mind the public of what is within easy access and worth their while to know of and frequent, as to embody a convenient guide and companion in which the visitor shall find directions for his feet and sym- pathy for his heart. The first thing wanted, of course, is information as to locality, accessibility, situation of the various points of interest, and accommodation to travellers. These items have been recorded in a descriptive essay by a man whose memory should be cherished amid the admiration given to the Falls ; for it is to his discov- ILLUSTRATED. 5 ery and appreciation of the spot, his enterprise in getting possession of it, and his perseverance in draw- ing attention to its beauties and providing accommo- dation for visitors, that the public owe their enjoy- ment of it. We speak of JOHN SHERMAN, grandson of Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Decla- ration of Independence, and father of Mrs. Moore, the wife of the present proprietor of the Falls. As a matter of history, we may remark " en pas- sant," that the village of Trenton was formerly known as OLDENBARNEVELD,* thus named by Col. Boon, one of the first settlers of this part of our State, and the agent of the Holland Company prior to the nineteenth century. The Indian appellation, KAUY- A-HOO-RA, literally " leaping water," is only remem- bered by few, and ere many years this beautiful and descriptive name will be lost. To show the careless change of nomenclature, which has for many years been going on in our country, we may be pardoned for giving that of the metamorphosis of Oldenbarne- reld. The principal business man of the village, * From JOHN OLDENBAKNEVELT, Grand Pensioner of the State of Holland, in the 17th century, who was beheaded for his being too favorable to religious toleration, and a friend to peace ; and in the name is an intimation of their (the Dutch gentlemen who laid it out) respect for liberty of conscience. 6 TRENTOM FALLS some twenty or thirty years since, took the notion that " Oldenbarneveld" was too long an item to head his letters or bills with ; so he got up a petition to change it, had it signed by three or four individuals, sent it on to Washington and the thing was done. Thus a name was adopted already well known as the capital of JN"ew Jersey, and some other twenty or thirty villages and towns in the United States. The consequence of course is, that even at this day, let- ters frequently miscarry, unless directed, " Oneida County, N. Y." But to return. Mr. Sherman, after graduating at Yale College in 1793, settled in Mansfield, Conn., having been or- dained a minister of the Congregational denomina- tion ; he there became pastor of a large congrega- tion, and was universally beloved and respected ; but about the year 1805, having preached doctrines rather too liberal to suit the minds of a small part of his flock, he resigned his charge. About this time, having received an invitation from Col. Mappa and Judge Vanderkemp, who with their families had formed a small society of Unitarians at Oldenbarne- veld, he visited that place for the first time, remain- ing several weeks, and preaching very acceptably to them. It was during his sojourn at Oldenbarneveld, ILLUSTRATED. 7 that Mr. Sherman made his first visit to the ravine of the KAUY-A-HOO-RA. From the village to the Falls was an unbroken wood ; there were two ways of approach, the one where the grist and saw mills are (the village of Trenton Falls now), the other at the summit level of the High Falls. The latter was taken, the least preferable of the two in point of view. The path was what Nature had formed : the foothold, at the period of Mr. Sherman's first visit, being of the most precarious kind, and attended with absolute danger ; but difficulty and danger were unthought of by him, and the greatest treat of his life was before him. Words would only be an apology for the impression of the scene on his mind, he never dreaming there was such an unique display of Nature so absolutely unknown, and yet so near the habitation of man. Again and again he revisited the wild ravine, oft re- marking, " that it must eventually become one of the great features of our continent." Little did he then imagine, that through his instrumentality it would in a few years so become. Mr. Sherman returned to his home at Mansfield, and shortly after received a pressing call from the Society at Oldenbarneveld to become their spiritual 8 TRENTON FALLS guide. He accepted the invitation, and on the 9th of March, 1806, was installed pastor of the first Unitarian Church in the State of New York. It was, perhaps, fortunate that such a man was the apostle of what was then a new and unsatisfactory doctrine to most of the inhabitants of the village and its vicinity, for, from his blameless life and urbane character, he outlived all prejudice. Mr. Sherman was an eloquent and able orator and sound scholar, a profound logician, and known as the author of the " Philosophy of Language Illus- trated," and of several works on Biblical history, &c. &c. At the time he became their pastor, his church was composed of fourteen members ; but in a short time the congregation was so increased that the present spacious church was erected, which has since continued to prosper as under the auspices of the first pastor, at the present time numbering by hundreds what was originally less than a score. Mr. Sherman, to provide more comfortably for a largely increasing family, subsequently established an Academy near Oldenbarneveld, which was soon in a flourishing condition, and over which he pre- sided for many years with high scholarship and ILLUSTRATED. ability; and in 1822 (still clinging to his old remi- niscences), caused a house to be built at the Falls, for the accommodation of visitors, which he called the " RURAL RESORT," the entire receipts of which, for the first season, amounted to $l87 T Vo- In 1823 he removed thither with his family, and in 1825 a large addition was 10 TRENTON FALLS made to the conveniences of the place, Philip Hone, of the city of New York, his personal friend, furnishing a loan for that purpose. The first visitors who slept in that house were our well-known citi- zens Philip Hone and the late Dominick Lynch. The remaining years of Mr. Sherman were passed at the "Rural Resort" where, as the agreeable and intelligent host, the scholar and friendly gentleman, he charmed and pleased the intellectual traveller and worshipper of the sublimest works of the Crea- tor. These, however, had been rendered much more accessible by his efforts. The visitor of the present day can scarcely imagine the almost impracticable difficulty of the earlier attempt ; for from the year 1822 until the present time, every season has been devoted to the task of improving the pathway tons of rock at a time having been blasted by the suc- cessful efforts of the miner so, that the fortunate traveller of our day can survey, in perfect security, the various points of scenery. Mr. Sherman died on the 2d day of August, 1828, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and was buried, at his special request, on the grounds he so much loved, within the sound of the loud anthem of the rag- ing Kauy-a-hoo-ra, and in the view of the Hostelrie ILLUSTRATED. 11 he had founded. The traveller, casting his eye to the northward of the hotel, may observe, on the summit of a conical hill, an inclosed space beautifully shaded. There rests what remains, earthly, of JOHN SHERMAN. 12 TRENTON FALLS E should precede Mr. Sherman's account of the Falls, perhaps (since it was written as far back as 1827), w ^h a brief mention of the present im- provements in access and accommodation. Within the last year, Mr. Moore has made very large additions to the building, and the hotel now has a front of one hundred and thirty-six feet, a piazza twelve feet wide, a dining-room sixty feet by thirty ; large suites of apartments, sleeping-rooms well ventilated, and, in fact, all the luxuries of a first-class hotel at a " Watering Place." A rail- road has been laid from Utica hither, over which the travel is about one hour. Mr. Moore has been at great trouble and expense in building stairways, and making arrangements for greater convenience and security in visiting the wild chasms of the tor- rent ; and there is at present neither danger nor over-fatigue in seeing all that the place has to show of grand and beautiful. For long visits, which Tivnton Falls particularly invite, the hotel will be ILLUSTRATED. 13 found a delightful home ; and for these Mr. Moore makes the usual accommodations. (AS W1UTTKN 15V Mil. SIIKI'.M A N. IX 1827.) HiS superb scenery of Nature, to which thousands now annually re- .-T sort a scenery altogether unique ^V v in its character, as combining at once the beautiful, the romantic, and the magnifi- cent all that variety of rocky chasms, cata- racts, cascades, rapids, &c., elsewhere separately ex- hibited in different regions was, until within five years, not accessible without extreme peril and toil, and therefore not generally known. It is in latitude 43 23'; 14 miles north of the flourishing city of tltica, the great thoroughfare of this region, situated 14 TRENTONFALLS on a gentle ascent from the bank of the Mohawk, amidst a charming and most fertile country. Here every facility can be had for a ride to Trenton Falls, where a house of entertainment is erected, near the bank of the West Canada Creek, for the accommodation of visitors, and where they can tarry any length of time which may suit their con- venience. This creek is the main branch of the Mohawk River, as the Missouri is of the Mississippi, having lost its proper name because not so early explored. It interlocks on the summit elevation with the Black River, the distance being only three -fourths of a mile, where the waters of the one may be easily turned into the other. It has chosen its course along the highlands, making its way on the back- bone of the country, and empties into the Mohawk at Herkimer. The " RURAL RESORT," or house of entertainment at the Falls, which is at the end of the road, and in- closed on three sides by the native forest, opens sud- denly to view upon elevated ground, at the distance of a mile in a direct line of the road. From the door-yard you step at once into the forest, and, walking only twenty rods, strike the bank at the ILLUSTRATED. 15 place of descent. This is about one hundred feet of nearly perpendicular rock, made easy and safe by five pair of stairs with railings. You land upon a broad pavement, level with the water's edge, a fu- rious rapid being in front, that has cut down the rock still deeper, and which, at one place, in times of drought, does not exceed ten feet in width ; but in spring and fall floods, or after heavy rain, becomes a tremendously foaming torrent, rising from fifteen to twenty feet, and sweeping the lowest flight of stairs. Being now on the pavement, the river at your feet, perpendicular walls of solid rock on each side, and the narrow zone of ethereal sky far over- head, your feelings are at once excited. You have passed to a subterranean world. The first impres- sion is astonishment at the change. But recovering instantly, your attention is forthwith attracted to the magnificence, the grandeur, the beauty, and sublimity of the scene. You stand and pause. You behold the operations of incalculable ages. You are thrown back to antediluvian times. The ada- mant rock has yielded to the flowing water, which has formed the wonderful chasm. You tread on petrifactions, or fossil organic remains, imbedded in the four-hundredth stratum, which preserve the 16 TRENTON FALLS form, and occupy the place, of beings once animated like yourselves, each stratum having been the de- posit of a supervening flood, that happened succes- sively, Eternity alone knows when. At this station is a view of the outlet of the chasm, forty-five rods below, and also of what is styled the first fall, thirty-seven rods up the stream. VILLAGE FALL, The parapet of this fall, visible from the foot of the stairs, is, in dry time, a naked perpendicular rock FOOT OF STAIRS, LOOKING UP. ILLUSTRATED. 17 thirty-three feet high, apparently extending quite acro'&s the chasm, the water retiring to the left, and being hid from the eye by intervening prominences. But in freshets, or after heavy rains, it pours over from the one side of the chasm to the other in a proud amber sheet. A pathway to this has been blasted, at a considerable expense, under an over- hanging rock, and around an extensive projection, directly beneath which rages and roars a most vio- lent rapid. Here some, unaccustomed to such'bold scenery, have been intimidated, and a few have turned back. But the passage is level, with a rocky wall to lean against, and rendered perfectly safe at the turn of the projection by chains well riveted in the side. In the midway of this projection, five tons were thrown off by a fortunate blast, affording a perfectly level and broad space, where fifteen or twenty may stand together and take a commanding view of the whole scenery. A little to the left the rapid com- mences its wild career. Directly underneath, it rages, foams, and roars, driving with resistless fury, and forcing a tortuous passage into the expanded stream on the right. In front is a projection from the other side, curved to a concavity of a semicircle 18 TRENTON FALLS by the impetuous waters. The top of this opponent projection has been swept away, and is entirely flat ; exhibiting, from its surface downwards, the separate strata as regular, as distinct, and as horizontal as the mason- work in the locks of the grand canal. Here, in old time, was a lofty fall, now reduced to the rapid just described. Passing hence on a level of twenty feet above the stream, we witness the amazing power of the wa- ters in the spring and autumnal freshets. Massive slabs of rock lie piled in the middle of the river, thrown over the falls above, weighing from ten to twenty tons. These are occasionally swept on through the rapids, and floated over the five-feet falls at the outlet of the chasm. Such is their mo- mentum, that every bound upon the bottom causes a vibration at the Rural Resort, and their stifled thunder, amid the agitated roar of waters, is some- times very distinctly heard. A few rods above this pile of rocks we pass to the left, and suddenly come in full view of the descend- ing cataract, which is known as the SHERMAN FALL. It has formed an immense excavation, having thrown out thousands of tons from the parapet rock visible at the staii-s, and is annually forcing oft' slabs from ILLUSTRATED. 19 the west corner, against which it incessantly pours a section of its powerful sheet. It is difficult to give a description of the scenery here. A mass of naked rock, extending up one hundred and fifty feet to the summit of the bank, juts forward witli threatening aspect. The visitor ascends by natural steps to the throat of its yawn- ing, and, like a son of Hercules, literally shoulders the mountain above. Here he stands free from the spray, in a direct line of the parapet wall, survey- ing at leisure the evergreens which cover in contrast the opponent bank with a rich foliage of the deepest verdure, and immediately at his feet the operation of the cataract rushing down into the spacious ex- cavation it has formed. Back of this thick amber sheet, the reaction of the water has worn away the rock to an exact circular curve, eight or ten feet in diameter, which exhibits a furiously boiling cauldron of the very whitest foam. In the bosom of the ex- cavation a Fairy makes her appearance at a certain hour of sunshine, and dances through the mist, modestly retiring as the visitor changes his position, and blushing all colors when she finds him gazing at her irised beauties. A few rods beyond this spot a thin shelf puts out from the mountain, under 20 TRENTON FALLS which it never rains, nor snows, nor shines. In front the river hastens smoothly and rapidly to the fall below. Leaving this rocky shelf we pass a furious wind- ing rapid, which, encroaching on the path, drives the visitor close under a low projecting cliff that compels him to stoop, and seems to demand homage as a prerequisite of admission to the splendid scenery just beyond. Here all ages and sexes bow, who would pass from the portico into the grand temple of nature's magnificence, to witness the display of her sublimer glories. This service performed, there opens upon us, when the water is low, an expansion of flat rock, where we are suddenly transported with a full view of the HIGH FALLS, forty rods beyond. The eye, elevated at a considerable angle, beholds a perpen- dicular rock one hundred feet high, extending across the opening in a diagonal line from the mountainous Avails on each side rising seventy or eighty feet still higher. Over this the whole river descends, first perpendicularly about forty feet, the main body rushing to the left. On the right it pours down in a beautiful white sheet. For a short distance in the middle the rock is left entirely naked, exhibiting ILLUSTRATED. 21 a perpendicular and bold breastwork, as though reared by art to divide the beautiful white sheet on the one side from the overwhelming fury of the waters on the other. They unite on a flat below ; then, with a tumultuous foam, veer suddenly down an inclination of rocky steps, whence the whole river is precipitated into a wide, deep, and dark basin, forty feet underneath mountainous walls rising on each side of the stream nearly two hundred feet tall hemlocks and bending cedars extending their branches on the verge above small shrubbery va- riegating here and there their stupendous and naked sides. On the right of the basin a charming verdure entirely overspreads a smoothly rounding and ma- jestic prominence, which reaches half way up the towering summit, and over the whole sky mingles with retiring evergreens, until verging in perspective to the distant angle of incidence, they are lost in the ethereal expanse beyond. Such are the HIGH FALLS, which the pen may faintly describe, and of which the pencil may por- tray the outline, but Nature reserves to herself the prerogative of giving to her visitors the rapturous impression. The view of these falls varies exceedingly, accord- oo TRENTON FALLS ing to the plenitude or paucity of the waters. In the autumnal floods, and particularly the spring freshets, arising from the sudden liquefaction of snow in the northern country, the river is swelled a hundred-fold, and comes rushing in a vast body of tumultuous foam from the summit rock into the broad basin at the bottom. It is at this time tre- mendous indeed, and overpowers man's feeble frame with the paralyzing impression of Omnipotence. On these occasions the solid foundations of the earth are ripped up, and enormous slabs of rock are float- ed off, or deposited in piles to the right or left of the all-controlling current. We have in effect the peerless majesty, the awful power, and the deep vol- leying thunder of the grand cataract of Niagara, which causes the heavens to shake and the earth to trem- ble ; which forces the son of pride to feel himself mere insignificance on the verge of annihilation ; and proclaims, in his astounded ears, what is meant by the existence, and what it is to stand before the throne of that Infinite Supreme, who can make such an appalling display upon a comparatively single atom of the universe ! Passing up at the side we mount a grand level on the top, where in dry times the stream retires to ILLUSTRATED. 23 the right, and opens a wide pavement for a large party to walk abreast. Here a flight of stairs leads up to a house of refreshment, styled the RURAL RE- TREAT, twenty feet above the summit of the high falls, and in a direct line with them a house thirty by sixteen, with a well furnished bar, and also a room for gentlemen and ladies, encircled and shaded by hemlocks and cedars, from the front platform and windows of which is a full view of the inverted scenery of the falls, of the flat rock below, and of the visitors who pass upon it to survey the exhibi- tion above. Here the philosopher and divine may make their sage remarks and draw their grave con- clusions ; the weary rest from their labors, the hun- gry and dry recruit their exhausted spirits ; the sociable of all grades and nations converse freely and unknown together; the' facetious display the coruscations of their wit, and the cheerful in dispo- sition enjoy the innocent glee of hilarity. Greece, embellished by immortal bards, cannot boast a spot so highly romantic. The opening of the chasm now becomes consid- erably enlarged, and a new style of scenery com- mences. Forty rods beyond this is what is usually denominated the MILL-DAM FALL, fourteen feet high, 24 TRENTON FALLS stretching its broad sheet of water from the one side to the other of the expanded chasm. This also is visi- ble through the branches of evergreens at the Rural Retreat. Ascending this fall, we are introduced to another still more expanded and extensive platform of level rock, fifteen rods wide at low- water, and ninety m length, lined on each side with cedars, which extend down to the walking level, whose branches all crowd forward under their bending trunks, and whose backs are as naked as the towering rocky walls, con- cealed in contrast a rod or two behind them. This place may justly be denominated the ALIIAM- DRA of nature. At the extremity of it is one of the most interesting scenes imaginable ; a scene that no pen can describe to one who is not on the spot, and where every landscape painter always drops his pen- cil. It is far too much for art to imitate, or for elo- quence to represent. It is the prerogative of Nature alone to do this : she has done it once, and stands without a rival competitor. Here I ought to drop my pen. A naked rock, sixty feet high, reaches grad- ually forward from the mid distance its shelving top, from which descends a perpetual rill that forms a natural shower-bath. ILLUSTRATED. 25 On the very verge of its overhanging summit stands a tall cedar, whose fingered apex towers aloft, pointing up to the skies, and whose thick branches elongating gradually towards the root, reach far down the projecting cliff with an impene- trable shade of deepest verdure. On the left is a most wild cascade, where the water rushes over the variously posited strata in all directions, combining the gentle fall and the outrageous cataract, which we term the CASCADE OF THE ALHAMBRA. Here the expansive opening suddenly contracts, and leaves a narrow aperture, through which the eye beholds mountainous walls retiring in various curvatures and projections. Directly opposite the spectator is a large perpendicular rock on the other side of the stream, at whose base the raging waters become still. Annexed to this is a lofty tower, rising in a vast column at its side, commanding, with imposing majesty, the scenery around. At your feet is a dark basin of water forty feet deep, resting from its labors in the wild cascade above, and relieved by collections of whitest foam, which frequently assemble within an eddy at the upper end, and dance to each other in fantastic forms, and, capped like caliphs, pursuing the course of all hands 26 TRENTON FALLS round in an eternal circle. On the right, the whole river descends gently down a charming plain, until lost amidst evergreens as it passes over the falls below. Ascending this cascade, whose thwarting, raging, foaming, dashing waters would seem to forbid a passage at its side, you are introduced to a grand amphitheatre unseen before, where is a towering rock of threatening majesty with a singular support- ing column, from whose impending cliff have fell enormous slabs of strata, sixteen or eighteen inches thick. Between this deposited pile and the base it would seem temerity to pass, lest you should be in- stantly crushed. This danger may be avoided by keeping near the water's edge. Just beyond the column is exhibited a natural fireplace. Here, also, a rill descends, a few feet below the summit shelf. A cedar extends down within reach its elongated O branches from the root, by which a sailor could as easily ascend the bank as up the shrouds of his ship ; and under this shelving summit a solemnizing echo is generally heard, as of the dreadful roar of overwhelming floods rushing from on high. It is caused by the cascade below. Here the strata are composed of bivalve shells, ILLUSTRATED. 27 Terebratulse and Product!, with merely a cement to unite them together ; among which are Orthocera- tites, vertebrae of Crinoidea, and forms resembling the snake or eel in motion, which, whether testa- ceous or crustaceous, I have never seen exemplified or described in any oryctological publication. Three of these forms I once found together, radiating as- terially from a depressed point of junction ; but in attempting to extract the specimen it was entirely ruined. A few rods up the stream there is, on the oppo- site wall, an extraordinary interruption of the strata, which has very much the appearance, as to size and form, of a superannuated hemlock turned up by the roots, its trunk inclining, with a considerable angle, up through thirty or forty strata, and worn away to its axis. Immediately above and below, and at the sides of this dendriform interposition, the strata are all horizontal, as is the case with the whole wall, and also of the correspondent wall on this side of the creek. I can give no solution of this anomaly, but mention it as what may possibly be useful in the annals of geological science. I cannot consider it to be a petrifaction. From this, passing a high projection, we come to 28 TRENTON FALLS a place where this wonderful chasm is fully demon- strated to be the effect of the operation of the stream. We see the process actually going on. The curvatures here, through which the water rushes for a considerable distance, are as regular as if drawn by the compass, or any method of forming the varieties of a curve. One of these is styled the Rocky Heart, from its perfect resemblance to that form on cards, which is so denominated. In a flat rock at the side, there is nearly in contact a circular hole, named by some the Potash Kettle, and by others Jacob's Well, which is five or six feet deep, and three or four in diameter. It is usually half full of stones of various sizes, worn perfectly smooth, and exhibiting all the varieties of curvilinear form. Several similar perforations exist in different parts of the chasm, from the size of a tumbler up to the potash kettle. The doctrine then is, that at first was deposited in the crack of a stratum a small pebble of granite or other substance, harder than the lime rock, which, being agitated by the water, wore a circular indent- ation. In this, other pebbles subsequently lodged, and, when overflowed, perforated the rock still deeper, and wore the indentation still wider. So ROOKY HEART. ILLUSTRATED. 29 on, larger and larger were from time to time depos- ited, until considerable-sized fragments of rock or stones performed the same process in floods, and at length opened the perforation into the current. Moreover, the walls above the current being every season penetrated an inch or more by moisture, and this moisture frozen in winter, become annually dis- integrated at the sides, which combined operation has produced the depth and width of the chasm as it now exists. The opening in the widest places at the top is about three hundred yards. Now, on supposition that the disintegration has been annually one inch on each side, it will be found, by calculation, that it requires between five and six thousand years of this process to produce the effect ; which corresponds with sufficient exactness to the Mosaic account of the period in which the solid surface of the earth emerged from its pre-existent state. I see nothing here incompatible with the Mosaic history, but much in its confirmation. It is allowed by intelligent di- vines, both in Europe and America, and is, in fact, very plainly intimated by Moses himself, that the " six days" of creation denoted merely a successive operation of divine power upon the chaotic matter 30 TRENTON FALLS of the universe, for the production of its present organization or relatively arranged form. Having enumerated the several items of successive produc- tion, indicated by the figurative representation of " six days," he gives us the summary expression of the case, Gen. ii. 4, saying, " These are the genera- tions (mark the language) of the heavens and the earth, in THE DAY (singular number) in which the Lord God made (i. e. formed or produced) the earth and the heavens." The pre-existent state of the earth he thus represents, Gen. i. 2. " And the earth was without form and void, (i. e. unorganized, not arranged,) and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Now all this is perfectly phil- osophical, and stands uncontradicted by any geo- logical investigation or discovery which has been made. How long were these successive periods, and what was the pre-existing state of things, Moses does not pretend to say. They are questions of curious speculation, on which geologists may innocently hazard a conjecture. Mount Etna may have been a, volcano in the sea, while " darkness was upon the face of the deep," and the stratifications of primary ILLUSTRATED. 31 and secondary rocks, with the most ancient organic fossil forms, may have taken place when " the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." The philosophy of Moses looks with pity upon all such stupid cavils, and spurns the aid of an advocate to plead its cause. Let, then, geologists go on and dive deep into the bowels of our earth, as the immortal Newton soared to the stars of heaven, and, like him, return with the proof, that, as an " undevout astron- omer," so an irreligious geologist "is mad." His must indeed be " a forlorn hope," who can view the wonderful scenery of nature in this wonderful chasm without correspondent emotions of reverential piety. It is a scene where the God of Nature himself preaches the most eloquent and impressive lectures to every visitor ; but more especially to the philoso- pher, whose mind is called to ascend from the won- derful operations of nature, to nature's more won- derful and incomprehensible CAUSE ; for what is NATURE, but the systematic course of divine operation ? At the Rocky Heart it is customary to stop, see- ing the passage beyond is attended with some dan- ger, and the scenery, within the last eighty rods, is, to a considerable degree, characteristic of what fol- lows. 82 TRENTON FALLS On your return to the Rural Resort, you ascend the bank immediately behind the Rural Retreat, where many picturesque glimpses of the river may be had, one particularly at Carmichael's Point, a view of which is annexed. Thence, carefully observ- ing to keep the left-hand foot-path on the summit near the creek, you pass through the cool shade of the forest, until you arrive with a good appetite at the place where you landed from your carriage. The usual dining hour is two o'clock. Being in the wilderness, at the end of the road, and without any regular market, it is impossible for such an es- tablishment to furnish, as in cities or villages, sepa- rate tables and at different times. This ought not to be expected nor required. Visitors, who wish to dine, should notify to the barkeeper the number of their party, in order that correspondent preparations may be made ; and if any party does not return at the appointed time, they cannot expect the same fare as " while the blessing is on." The establish- ment is disposed to do, in all cases, what it can ; and it trusts that the candid and reflecting will be no less ready, on their part, to make all due allow- ance for peculiar circumstances. The best that can be procured in this retired location is always served ILLUSTRATED. 33 up without the ceremony of apology. Our wishes never yet wrought miracles, and, consequently, we are not always equally well prepared. The will must sometimes be taken for the deed. Among the numerous thousands who have visited these Falls, we are happy to say that very few in- stances have occurred of the least deviation from good behavior or politeness. We record this fact with pleasure, as characteristic of the dignified re- finement of the age. TREMTON FALLS LTHOUGH the passage beyond the Rocky Heart is, at present, difficult, and even dangerous, yet both gentlemen and ladies have frequently passed as far as Boon's Bridge* where is a fall of about twenty feet, and where the chasm commences. This is nearly three miles from the Rural Resort. Every one who would explore the whole chasm, should take the full day before him, which will afford him time to rest an hour or two at the village near the bridge, and recruit his strength. Considerable has already been done to render this passage feasible ; and, in all probability, it will soon be both easy and safe. It will of course be perceived, in view of what has been stated concerning the floods and rains, that ILLUSTRATED. 35 the scenery must vary according as the water is high or low. The outlines of the chasm remain indeed the same ; but the character and impression of the view are vastly different. When the water is very low, you have a much easier, far more spa- cious, and more pleasing path. At the ALHAMBRA fifty may walk abreast, and hundreds may pass each other on the beautiful level and dry pavement of its saloon. You see much more of the rock and of the manifest operation of the waters in wearing- it away ; and the large party enjoy with more zest their association, as they can sit together, make philosophical observations, and communicate their mutual impressions, or range about the shelving de- clivities from the path to the water's edge. For a party of pleasure, especially those who have often visited the Falls, some think the time of low water is the most eligible season. It undoubtedly has the advantages specified above. On the other hand, when the water is so high as barely to allow a passage, Indian file, the majesty and imposing grandeur, the magnificence and sub- limity of the scene, are proportionably heightened. It is quite another view. Hence it is desirable to witness this scenery in all its variations. 36 TRENTON FALLS At high water, which, even in midsummer, two days' heavy rain will effect, the spray at the first, and also at the High Falls, is like an April shower, and requires the visitor to haste through its penetrating mist. The rapids, on such occasions, are propor- tionally more interesting. In winter, these Falls are not easily nor safely ap- proached, the pathway being slippery, or blocked by snows ; which would require pointed steel for the ILLUSTRATED. 37 feet in the one case, and much exertion in the other. Some, however, do visit them in the winter ; at which time the view is superlatively splendid. From the overhanging cliffs, enormous icicles, reach- ing down to the pathway, become transparent col- onnades. The descending rills, already described, form an inverted tunnel, whose base is eight or ten feet, the apex touching the summit of the cliff sixty feet high, and the water pouring down through the centre. At the High Falls, the shrubbery in its environs is distended by the frozen spray, and span- gles and glitters in the sunbeam with inexpressible lustre. The reader may easily imagine the rest. Still different, and far more awfully solemn and sublime, is the scene by moonlight. At the proper season, the moon, between the hours of ten and eleven, appears through the boughs and tops of evergreens on the summit of the opponent bank, and throws her interrupted rays upon the foot-path. It is literally the descent of JEneas to Pluto's dreary domain. You cannot imagine that you belong to the upper world. You have departed hence. You are walking, like ghosts, through the chambers of the grave, the mausoleums of the dead, the cata- combs of old Time. You find yourselves in a world 38 TRENTON FALLS of spirits, where every thing around is the deep shadow of an evanescent shade. You pause, your feelings are solemnized ; you withhold your step. At length the moon towers aloft, and displays her full orb of mild and chastened light, which, while it flickers upon the raging rapids, tinging their surface with burnished silver, produces a mighty contrast, as at the awful moment of creation, when the firma- ment and the waters of the deep, the light and the darkness, were separated by omnipotent command. But I may not attempt to portray a scene which cannot be comprehended by those who live only upon the surface of our world. Suffice it to remark, that there is no more danger in passing through the chasm at such a season than any other. Here the writer has retired at midnight for contemplation, to familiarize himself with mortality ; and here his chil- dren have left behind the bustle and cares of day, to pay their more solemn adorations to Nature's almighty and all-glorious GOD. The geological order of these rocks is pronounced by Professor Eaton and Professor Renwick to be transition, the first that contains fossil organic re- mains. Their character, in the lower part of the chasm, is the compact fetid carbonate of lime. The ILLITSTR A TED. 81 color is a very dark blue, and the rock is extremely hard and brittle. It is unsuitable for mortar, unless broken into small pieces previous to calcination. Some strata are more or less interspersed with sili- cious particles, which give, with steel, the igneous spark. At the High Falls, and so on to the Rocky Heart, the upper strata are from a foot to eighteen inches thick ; are composed of crystallized fragments of the vertebrae of Crinoidea, and of the shells of Terebratulae, which make excellent lime for plaster- ing. Now and then a stratum of this character is found a hundred feet below the surface. There is a singular instance of this at the first projection, in a very thick stratum, the upper half of which is the 40 TRENTON FALLS compact blue fetid, without any seam or mark of stratification between. In general, the strata through the chasm are re- markably horizontal, from one to eighteen inches thick. At Boon's Bridge, they dip to the south fifteen or twenty degrees. At the High Falls is a very irregular mass, which has no other character than disorder, in the midst of which lies horizontally a curious specimen of semicircular strata of the usual thickness, the one within the other, and the diameter of the outside about two feet. The strata in this chasm are very distinct, the whole distance up the walls being separated by a fine substance which disintegrates on exposure to the air and moisture. In the rocks newly blasted this distinction is scarcely discernible. From the summit to the bottom of the chasm small cracks or seams extend down perpendicularly, and in a perfectly straight line through the whole mass across the creek. These cracks divide the pavements into rhomboidal slabs, between which pebbles are first inserted, gradually separating one stratum from another, and thus preparing the slabs to be upturned and carried off by freshets. Some of the cracks separate the whole mass of rock, and ILLUSTRATED. 41 the opening widens with the depth. These are filled with the calcspar, from one-tenth of an inch to two inches thick. In the middle of the calcspar there is a dark line, which shows that the crystallization has been equally formed on each side. Calcspar is also found in a horizontal sheet, separating the superin- cumbent from the stratum underneath. Conse- quently, these sheets of calcspar cut each other. But whether the horizontal sheets extend through the whole mass, it is impossible to ascertain. These rocks abound in petrifactions, or what are styled fossil organic remains. They are sometimes cut by the cracks or seams above mentioned. These cracks must, of course, have been subsequent to the petrifaction of the fossil forms ; and, indeed, sub- 42 TRENTON FALLS sequent to the completion of the whole mass of strata. It would be useless to go into a detail of all the different genera and species of the fossils here, see- ing the investigations of Oryctologists have resulted in this, that the same order and character of rock throughout the world contains the very same organic remains. The most interesting petrifaction in this locality is the large Trilobite ; entire specimens of which (for their extraction entire is extremely difficult) have, so far as I know, been nowhere else obtained, either in Europe or America. Its generic name, first given by Dr. Dekay, of New York, is the " Isotelas Gigas" It is minutely described by this distinguished naturalist, from specimens which I exhibited to the Lyceum in that city. To his de- scription, published in the sixth number of the An- nals of the Lyceum, may be added, that seeing the dorsal slips, or of the lobes, terminate at the side like Indian paddles, the animal could swim ; and these slips being not only movable, but crustaceous, it could also crawl on the bottom of the sea. Here are small Trilobites of different genus : Ortho- ceratites, both large and small, of different genera ILLUSTRATED. 43 and species ; Favosites, Nautili, Terebratulae, Pro- ducti, Lingula, Mitiloidea, Cornu Ammonis, Crinoi- dea, Connularia Quadrisulcata, and several others, both univalves and bivalves. Some Orthoceratites of the simplest form (i. e. real straight horns, perfect cones ; the shell, from the middle to the point, hollow or vacant in all its chambers) are pyritous ; some filled (in the hollow part) with calcspar and quartz crystals in contact ; some of the quartz crystals con- taining graphite ; the crystallized spar is white, black, yellow, smoky brown ; and the crystals of these dif- ferent colors are sometimes found in the same speci- men. I have hazarded to several the novel conjecture, that the Favosite (found here in the greatest abun- dance, from one-eighth of an inch to six inches in diameter at the base, and from two to nine super- structures, some containing six or eight hundred 44 TRENTON FALLS thousand columns) is a miniature exemplification of Columnar Basaltes at the Giant's Causeway, and other places ; which, if my conjecture is correct, must have been the production of a gigantic order of marine antediluvian (not to say antimundane) Polypi. Whether the substance which composes these columnar forms is lime, silex, basalt, or other substance, so exactly do they correspond to each other in their prominent but very singular peculiari- ties, that I am unable to doubt it. There is one single point only in which I have not had opportu- nity to make a comparison, viz. : as to the circular perforations in the parities of the cell, by which the mass became one connected system. I am not ad- vised whether any such thing has been observed in Columnar Basaltes, i. e., in the prism, or space of column between the articulations. The hollow spe- ILLUSTRATED. 45 cimens, or the weather-worn summits, are those alone where we are authorized to expect this dem- onstration, and where, in view of the entire corre- spondence in every particular, I have no doubt it can and will be found. It would be a miracle in nature that there should be a perfect correspondence in twenty particulars, and yet a failure in the last. The Basaltic columns must, of course, be mammoth Favosites. The most pleasant time of the day to visit these Falls is after dinner, about four o'clock, when the bank on the left casts its shade over the path, and shields from the sun's scorching rays. But this time can be taken only by those who do not leave the place the same day ; and the remark does not apply when it is cloudy weather. There is quite a variety of flowers and botanical specimens upon the bank ; and the rock in the chasm, all along up the High Falls, abounds with the beautiful blue hare-bell of Scotland. Trout were formerly very abundant in this creek, but have now become exceedingly scarce ; so that there is very little encouragement for the fishing party. Eels, in the forepart of the season, are still abundant. The ocean does not produce better. 46 TRENTON FALLS They often weigh from two to four pounds, and more delicious were never served up at the table of an epicure. Game, also, is scarce. In some seasons, however, partridges, snipes, wild ducks, the large gray and black squirrel, the woodcock, and the rabbit may be taken. No venomous snakes haunt this neighborhood, nor any beasts of prey. The deer sometimes come from the north to visit these Falls, and occasionally the moose ; but neither bears, nor wolves, nor cata- mounts ever make their appearance. Ladies should, by all means, come furnished with calf-skin shoes or bootees. Let them not forget this. They not only owe it to their health, but the best pair of cloth shoes will be ruined by a single tramp over these rocks. ILLUSTRATED. 47 N a story called " EDITH LINS^.Y," written soon after the author left Col- lege, occurs the following description of Trenton Falls : Trenton Falls is rather a misnomer. I scarcely know what you would call it ; but the wonder of nature which bears the name is a tre- mendous torrent, whose bed, for several miles, is sunk fathoms deep into the earth a roaring and dashing stream, so far below the surface of the for- est in which it is lost, that you would think, as you come suddenly upon the edge of its long precipice, that it was a river in some inner world, (coiled within ours, as we in the outer circle of the firma- ment,) and laid open by some Titanic throe that had cracked clear asunder the crust of this " shallow 48 TRENTON FALLS earth." The idea is rather assisted if you happen to see below you, on its abysmal shore, a party of adventurous travellers ; for, at that vast depth, and in contrast with the gigantic trees and rocks, the same number of well-shaped pismires, dressed in the last fashions, and philandering upon your parlor floor, would be about of their apparent size and distinctness. They showed me at Eleusis the well by which Proserpine ascends to the regions of day on her an- nual visit to the plains of Thessaly but with the genius loci at my elbow in the shape of a Greek girl as lovely as Phryne, my memory reverted to the bared axle of the earth in the bed of this American river, and I was persuaded, (looking the while at the feronidre of gold sequins on the Phidian fore- head of my Katinka,) that supposing Hades in the centre of the earth, you are nearer to it, by some fathoms, at Trenton. I confess I have had, since my first descent into those depths, an uncomforta- ble doubt of the solidity of the globe how the deuse it can hold together with such a crack in its bottom ! It was a night to play Endymion, or do any Tom- foolery that could be laid to the charge of the moon, ILLUSTRATED. 49 for a more omnipresent and radiant atmosphere of moonlight never sprinkled the wilderness with sil- ver. It was a night in which to wish it might never be day again a night to be enamored of the stars, and bid God bless them like human creatures on their bright journey a night to love in, to dissolve in to do every thing but what night is made for sleep ! Oh heaven ! when I think how precious is life in such moments ; how the aroma the celestial bloom and flower of the soul the yearning and fast-perishing enthusiasm of youth waste them- selves in the solitude of such nights on the senseless and unanswering air ; when I wander alone, unlov- ing and unloved, beneath influences that could in- spire me with the elevation of a seraph, were I at the ear of a human creature that could summon forth and measure my limitless capacity of devotion when I think this, and feel this, and so waste my existence in vain yearnings I could extinguish the divine spark within me like a lamp on an unvisited shrine, and thank Heaven for an assimilation to the animals I walk among ! And that is the substance of a speech I made to Job as a sequitur of a well- meant remark of his own, that " it was a pity Edith Linsey was not there." He took the clause about 50 TRENTON FALLS the " animals" to himself, and I made an apology for the same a year after. We sometimes give our friends, quite innocently, such terrible knocks in our rhapsodies ! Most people talk of the sublimity of Trenton, but I have haunted it by the week together for its mere loveliness. The river, in the heart of that fearful chasm, is the most varied and beautiful assemblage of the thousand forms and shapes of running water that I know in the world. The soil and the deep- striking roots of the forest terminate far above you, looking like a black rim on the enclosing precipices ; the bed of the river and its sky- sustaining walls are of solid rock, and, with the tremendous descent of the stream forming for miles one continuous suc- cession of falls and rapids the channel is worn into curves and cavities which throw the clear waters into forms of inconceivable brilliancy and variety. It is a sort of half twilight below, with here and there a long beam of sunshine reaching down to kiss the lip of an eddy, or form a rainbow over a fall, and the reverbeiating and changing echoes, "Like a ring of bells whose sound the wind still alters," maintain a constant and most soothing music, vary- ILLUSTRATED. 51 ing at every step with the varying phase of the cur- rent. Cascades of from twenty to thirty feet, over which the river flies with a single and hurrying leap, (not a drop missing from the glassy and bending sheet,) occur frequently as you ascend; and it is from these that the place takes its name. But the Falls, though beautiful, are only peculiar from the dazzling and unequalled rapidity with which the wa- ters come to the leap. If it were not for the leaf which drops wavering down into the abysm from trees apparently painted on the sky, and which is caught away by the flashing current as if the light- ning had suddenly crossed it, you would think the vault of the steadfast heavens a flying element as soon. The spot in that long gulf of beauty that I best remember is a smooth descent of some hundred yards, where the river in full and undivided volume skims over a plane as polished as a table of scaglio- la, looking, in its invisible speed, like one mirror of gleaming but motionless crystal. Just above, there is a sudden turn in the glen, which sends the water like a catapult against the opposite angle of the rock, and, in the action of years, it has worn out a cavern of unknown depth, into which the whole mass of the river plunges with the abandonment of a flying 52 TRENTON 7 FALLS fiend into hell, and reappearing like the angel that has pursued him, glides swiftly, but with divine se- renity, on its way. (I am indebted for that last figure to Job, who travelled with a Milton in his pocket, and had a natural redolence of " Paradise Lost" in his conversation.) Much as I detest water in small quantities, (to drink,) I have a hydromania in the way of lakes, rivers, and waterfalls. It is, by much, the belle in the family of the elements. Earth is never tolera- ble unless disguised in green. Air is so thin as only to be visible when she borrows drapery of water ; and Fire is so staringly bright as to be unpleasant to the eyesight ; but water ! soft, pure, graceful water ! there is no shape into which you can throw her that she does not seem lovelier than .before. She can borrow nothing of her sisters. Earth has no jewels in her lap so brilliant as her own spray- pearls and emeralds ; Fire has no rubies like what she steals from the sunset; Air has no robes like the grace of her fine-woven and ever-changing dra- pery of silver. A health (in wine !) to WATER ! Who is there that did not love some stream in his youth ? Who is there in whose vision of the past there does not sparkle up, from every picture of ILLUSTRATED. 53 childhood, a spring or a rivulet woven through the darkened and torn woof of first affections like a thread of unchanged silver ? How do you interpret the instinctive yearning with which you search foi the river-side or the fountain in every scene of na- ture the clinging unaware to the river's course when a truant in the fields in \ June the dull void you find in every landscape of which it is not the ornament and the cen- tre ? For myself, I hold with the Greek : " Water is the first principle of all things : we were made from it, and we shall be resolved into it." TRENTON FALLS scrip tion F subsequent visits to this loveliest 'of spots, years after, the following extracts from letters addressed to the author's partner in the editor- ship of the Home Journal, give de- IN the long cor- ridor of travel be- tween New York and Niaga- *ljji ra, this place, as you know, is a sort of alcove aside a side-scene out of earshot of the crowd a recess in a window whither you draw a friend by the button for the sake of chit-chat at ease. It is fifteen miles off at right angles from the gen- eral procession, and must be done in vehicle hired at Utica for the purpose ; so that, costing more time and money than a hundred miles in any other direc- tion, it is voted a " don't-pay" by promiscuous trav- ellers, and its frequentation sifted accordingly. In ILLUSTRATED. 55 gossiping with you about Trenton, therefore, I shall do it with cozy pen, the crowd out of the way, and we two snug and confidential. And as poets and " literary men" are never poetical and literary for their own amusement, you will expect no " fine- wri- ting," and none but a spontaneous mention of the moon. For the heavy price of two subscribers and a half (explained by the editor to mean five dollars) I was not driven fast enough hither to clear the dust, met- aphorically nor otherwise. I should recommend to you, or to any who come after, to include in the bargain for a conveyance, the time in which the distance is to be done. It is a ride of no particular interest. With no intimation whatever of the neigh- borhood of the Falls, we were driven up to the edge of a wood, after fifteen miles of dust and rough jolt- ing, and landed at a house built for one man's wants and belongings a house which the original forest still cloaks and umbrellas, leaving only its front por- tico, like a shirt- ruffle, open to the day, and which I pray, with all its homely inconveniences, may never be supplanted by a hotel of the class entitled to keep a gong. Oh, those chalky universes in rural places ! What miles around, of green trees and TRENTON FALLS tender grass, do they - blaze out of all recogni- tion with their unes- capable white-paint aggravations of sunshine, and their stretch of unmiti- gated colonnade ! You may as well lo<5k at a star with a blazing candle in your eye, as enjoy a land- scape in which one of these mountains of illuminated clapboard sits a-glare. It is the only happy allevia- tion of hotels of this degree, that they usually em- ploy a band during the summer ; and, for a slight consideration, you can hire the use of the long trum- pet during the day, and, through it, look at some parts of the surrounding scenery with the house shut out of the prospect. Is it not a partial legis- lation (apropos) that distinguishes between nose and eye protecting the first against any offending nui- sance in public places, and leaving the latter and ILLUSTRATED. 57 more delicate organ to all the dangers of ophthalmia by excessive white house ? At Sharon, for exam- ple, any man may start without precaution to take a walk ; but a man who should turn to come back without a pair of green goggles to shield his eyes from the glare of the hotel as he approaches it from any distance within three miles, must have let in less rubbish than I at those two complaining gate- ways of the brain, and have less dread of being left to the mercy of that merest of all beggars, the ear, that can help itself to nothing. There are satirists on the look-out for a national foible, and philanthro- pists on the look-out for a hobby will not some one of these two classes entitle himself to the gratitude of scholars, by writing or preaching down (or in some way " doing brown") the American propensity for white paint the excessive use of which, partic- ularly in this climate of intense sunshine, is an eye- sore to taste as well as to overworked optics ? Mr. Moore, the landlord at Trenton, is proposing to build a larger house for the accommodation of the public, but this sermon upon our Mont Blanc Hotels, with their Dover Cliff porticoes, is not aimed at him. On subjects of taste he requires no coun- sel. The engravings a man hangs up in liis parlors 58 TRENTON FALLS are a sufficient key to the degree of his refinement ; and those which are visible through the soft demi- jour of the apartments in this shaded retreat, might all belong to a connoisseur in art, and are a fair ex- ponent of the proprietor's perception of the beauti- ful. In more than one way he is the right kind of man for the Keeper of this loveliest of Nature's bailiwicks of scenery. On the night of our arrival I was lying awake, somewhere towards midnight, and watching from my window the sifting of moon- light through the woods with the stirring of the night air, when the low undertone of the Falls was suddenly varied with a strain of exquisite music. It seemed scarcely a tune, but, with the richest fulness of volume, one lingering and dreamy note melted into another, as if it were the voluntary of a player who unconsciously touched the keys as an accompa- niment to his melancholy. What with the place and time, and my ignorance that there was an in- strument of this character in the house, I was a good deal surprised ; but before making up my mind as to what it could be, I was " helped over the stile" into dreamland, and made no inquiry till the next morning at breakfast. The player was our landlord, Mr. Moore, who, thus, when his guests are ILLUSTRATED. 59 p-one to bed, steals an hour of leisure from the o night, and, upon a fine organ which stands in one of the inner parlors of his house, plays with admira- ble taste and execution. In an introduction of Mr. Moore to you as " mine host," however, mention must needs be made of his skill in an art meaner than music, yet far more es- sential the art of pie-making and pudding-ry. No- where (short of Felix's in the Passage Panorama at Paris) will you eat such delicate and curious varie- ties of pastry as at the hostelry of romantic Trenton. Those fingers that wander over the keys of the sol- emn organ with such poetical dreaminess, and turn over a zoophyte or trilobite with appreciative cogni- zance, (for he is a mineralogist, too, and has col- lected a curious cabinet of specimens from the gorges of the Falls,) are daily employed in prepar- ing, for the promiscuous " sweet tooth" of the pub- lic, pies worthy of being confined to Heliogabalus and the ladies. The truth is, that, were human allotments as nicely apportioned, and placed in as respective an each-other-age as the ingredients of Mr. Moore's pies, Mr. Moore would never have learned the trade of a baker. Happy they, notwith- standing, to whom the world says, " Friend, go up 60 TRENTON FALLS higher !" though in this case it would be only in intellectual gradation, as the calling of hotel-keeper is, in our country, half a magistracy, from the importance and responsibility of its duties, and one which (by pub- > ,, lie consent daily strength- ening) demands and befits a gentleman. Mr. Moore (to finish his biog- raphy,) came here twenty years ago, to enjoy the scenery of which he had heard so much ; and, getting a se- vere fall in climbing the rocks, was for some time confined to his bed at the hotel, then kept by Mr. Sherman, of trout-fishing memory. The kind care with which he was treated resulted in an attachment for one of the daughters of the family, his present wife ; he came back, wedded his fair nurse and Trenton for the remainder of his life, and is now the ILLUSTRATED. 61 owner and host of the very loveliest scenery-haunt in all our picturesque country. Of course you are impatient for me and my pen to get to the Falls but that deep-down autopsy of Nature, with its disembowellings of strata laid down before the time of Adam, (according to Professor Agassiz,) is a solemn place and topic, and I must talk of such trifles as modern men and their abiding- places, while my theme dates from this side of the Deluge. I am not so sure that I shall say any thing about the Falls in this letter. Let me see, first, what else I have to tell you of the manner of life at the Hotel. As I said before, the company of strangers at Trenton is made somewhat select, by the expense and difficulty of access. Most, who come, stay two or three days, but there are usually boarders here for a longer time ; and, at present, three or four families of most cultivated and charming people, who form a nucleus of agreeable society to which any attractive transient visitor easily attaches an acquaintance. Nothing could well be more agreea- ble than the footing upon which these chance-met residents and their daily accessions of new comers pass their evenings and take strolls up the ravine 62 TRENTON FALLS together ; and, for those who love country air and romantic rambles without " dressing for dinner," or waltzing by a band, this is 7 . a "place to stay/' These are not the most numerous fre- quenters of Trenton, however. It is a very popular place of ery village within thirty miles ; and from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, there is gay work with the country-girls and their beaux swing- ing under the trees, strolling about in the woods near the house, bowling, singing, and dancing at all of which (owing, perhaps, to a certain gipsy-ish promiscuosity of my nature that I never could aris- tocrify by the keeping of better company) I am ILLUSTRATED. 63 delighted to be at least a looker-on. The average number of these visitors from the neighborhood is forty or fifty a day, so that breakfast and tea are the nearest approach to " dress meals" the dinner, though profuse and dainty in its fare, being eaten in what is commonly thought to be rather " mixed so- ciety." I am inclined to think that, from French intermixture, or some other cause, the inhabitants of this region are a little peculiar in their manners. There is an unconsciousness or carelessness of others' observation and presence, that I have, hitherto, only seen abroad. We have had songs, duetts, and cho- ruses sung here by village girls, within the last few days, in a style that drew all in the house to listen very admiringly ; and even the ladies all agree that there have been extremely pretty girls, day after day, among them. I find they are Fourierites to the extent of common hair-brush and other personal furniture walking into anybody's room in the house for the temporary repairs which belles require on their travels, and availing themselves of whatever was therein, with a simplicity perhaps a little trans- cendental. I had obtained the extra privilege, for myself, of a small dressing-room apart, in which I presumed the various trowsers and other merely 64 TRENTON FALLS masculine belongings would be protective scarecrow sufficient to keep out these daily female invaders ; but, walking in yesterday, I found my combs and brushes in active employ, and two very tidy-looking girls making themselves at home without shutting the door, and no more disturbed by my entree than if I had been a large male fly. As friends were waiting, I apologized for intruding long enough to take a pair of boots from under their protection, but my presence was evidently no interruption. One of the girls (a tall figure, like a woman in two sylla- bles connected by a hyphen at the waist) continued to look at the back of her dress in the glass, a la Venus Callipige, and the other went on threading her most prodigal chevelure with my doubtless very embarrassed though unresisting hair-brush, and so I abandoned the field, as I was of course expected to do. As they did not shut the door after my re- treat, I presume that, by the code of morals and manners hereabouts, a man's preoccupancy of a room simply entitles him to come and go at pleas- ure the unoccupied portions and conveniences of the apartment open, meantime, to feminine avail- ment and partaking. I do not know that they would go the length of " fraternizing" one's tooth- ILLUSTRATED. 65 brush, but, with the exception of locking up that rather confidential article, I give in to the customs of the country, and have ever since left open door to the ladies which " severe trial" please mention, if convenient, in my biography. If you have ever " sung in the choir," my dear General, you know how difficult it is to stop before the organ leaves off, and, with the sound of running water, which is the eternal accompaniment here, I find one keeps doing whatever one is about drink- ing tea or drizzling ink with pertinacious contin- uance. Hence this very long letter. The atmo- sphere seems otherwise favorable to writing, how- ever, for the front of the house is covered with inscriptions of wit and sentiment and with one spe- cimen of each I will make an effort to taper off into an adieu. In a neat hand, one gentleman writes, alongside of the front door " Here we are, as you discover, And now we part forever and ever." Farther off to the left, between two blinds, a man records the arrival of himself "and servant," below which is the following inscription : " G. Squires, wife, and two babies. No servant, owing to the hardness of the times." TRENTON FALLS And under this, again : " G. W. Douglas and servant. No wife and ba- bies, owing to the hardness of the times." With this instructive example of selective econo- my, I call your admiring attention to the forbear- ingly practical character of this letter, written at Trenton and in the full of the moon, and remain, my dear Morris, Yours,