process of sifting and, if I may coin the couplet, confirmatory
handling which, at the last, rendered some unrecognizable and their
origin untraceable.

The only publication of a strictly local color unearthed during my
research was Taylor's _Memoir of Loudoun_, a small book, or more
properly a pamphlet, of only 29 pages, dealing principally with the
County's geology, geography, and climate. It was written to accompany
the map of Loudoun County, drawn by Yardley Taylor, surveyor; and was
published by Thomas Reynolds, of Leesburg, in 1853.

I wish to refer specially to the grateful acknowledgment that is due
Arthur Keith's _Geology of the Catoctin Belt_ and Carter's and Lyman's
_Soil Survey of the Leesburg Area_, two Government publications,
published respectively by the United States Geological Survey and
Department of Agriculture, and containing a fund of useful information
relating to the geology, soils, and geography of about two-thirds of
the area of Loudoun. Of course these works have been the sources to
which I have chiefly repaired for information relating to the two
first-named subjects. Without them the cost of this publication would
have been considerably augmented. As it is I have been spared the
expense and labor that would have attended an enforced personal
investigation of the County's soils and geology.

And now a tardy and, perhaps, needless word or two in revealment of
the purpose of this volume.

To rescue a valuable miscellany of facts and occurrences from an
impending oblivion; to gather and fix certain ephemeral incidents
before they had passed out of remembrance; to render some account of