north, but too far to have any influence on the immediate view. On the
peak of the ridge where I was standing, some seven hundred feet above the
river, the wind was high and bleak; the barren and arid country seemed as
if it had been swept by fires, and in every direction the same dull ash-
colored hue, derived from the formation, met the eye. On the summits were
some stunted pines, many of them dead, all wearing the same ashen hue of
desolation. We left the place with pleasure; and, after we had descended
several hundred feet, halted in one of the ravines, which, at the distance
of every mile or two, cut the flanks of the ridge with little rushing
streams, wearing something of a mountain character. We had already begun
to exchange the comparatively barren lands for those of a more fertile
character. Though the sandstone formed the broken banks of the creek, yet
they were covered with a thin grass; and the fifty or sixty feet which
formed the bottom land of the little stream were clothed with very
luxuriant grass, among which I remarked willow and cherry, (_cerasus
virginiana_,) and a quantity of gooseberry and currant bushes occupied
the greater part.

The creek was three or four feet broad, and about six inches deep, with a
swift current of clear water, and tolerably cool. We had struck it too low
down to find the cold water, which we should have enjoyed nearer to its
sources. At two, P.M., the barometer was at 25.050, and the attached
thermometer 104 deg.. A day of hot sunshine, with clouds, and moderate breeze
from the south. Continuing down the stream, in about four miles we reached
its mouth, at one of the main branches of Horse creek. Looking back upon
the ridge, whose direction appeared to be a little to the north of east,
we saw it seamed at frequent intervals with the dark lines of wooded
streams, affluents of the river that flowed so far as we could see along
its base. We crossed, in the space of twelve miles from our noon halt,
three or four forks of Horse creek, and encamped at sunset on the most