Part 13
For the greater part of the valley, Wash-Tub Brook flows through open pasture lands. The bed is broad and shallow, strewn with numerous small lime-rock boulders drifted down from the hills with the floods of spring. The larger boulders wear scars and dimpled erosions of the glacial period. I took time to explore the ledges above, where the depressions reveal the terraces of an ancient lake. The prevailing evergreen trees here appear to be hemlock and cedar—the American _Arbor Vitæ_—whose roots cling to the cliffs, their green spires lending a touch of coloring to the bare-faced walls.
I saw from the banks here the distant pot-hole formations in the brook, from which the stream had taken its name. As I approached these marble basins, I found three in succession—one above the other—following the course of the stream—a narrow passage eroded through crystalline marble and limestone. The first or lowermost one was like a small lakelet overflowing its brim. The second one was a typical pot-hole, revolving its stones in its whirling waters. The bowl was about six feet deep, of a circular—or rather elliptical form, about twenty-six feet in circumference. The stream entered through the middle of the northern rim, and had eroded a spout-like gutter, causing the water to flow in a rapid, seething manner as if poured into the basin below. Here the greenish water boiled and whirled, finally with an added force leaping forth through a deep spout over the lower rim of the pot, carrying with it small stones and marble dust—the lower rim thus being worn away. As the bowl becomes deeper, layers of rock will be cracked and broken, until finally the pot-hole formation will be destroyed. The upper or third basin is located in the harder portion of the lime and marble bed-rock, portions of the marble being highly polished. The marble brook-bed glittered in the noonday sunshine. Pot-holes are formed originally by a boulder, which—carried in the currents of a stream—lodges in a depression of the bed-rock. It bores gradually into its resting place, until, in the course of ages, it has worn the walls of its basin into a deep hollow, at the same time wearing itself away, at last being carried off as a pebble. It may be that these holes are sometimes formed in a slightly different way. Dimples and fissures often occur in rocks, and if the water and pebbles circle about these cracks they probably eat down through the soft layers of rock, and thus loosen a revolving stone from the bed-rock itself. It would then fit the pot-hole closely for ages, revolving as the currents become forceful in freshets. The pot-holes along the granite ridges in Bronx Park, New York City, as well as on the Canaan Hills—nearly one thousand feet above the Merrimac and Connecticut river-beds,—reveal the erstwhile revolving stones now motionless in their basins.
After remaining in the region of the Wash-Tubs an hour or more, I followed down the lateral moraine or wooded ridge along the stream, which became rocky in the heart of the hemlocks. Upon a broad table-like rock, I found a large mat of Walking Ferns. It appeared about four feet square, and contained the most luxuriant plants I have ever seen or expect to see. I placed several in my vasculum, and descended to the stream, hastening on toward the village. Here I met an old gray-haired man—the inn-keeper for the mill laborers. He recognized my botanizing outfit, and remarked that Mr. Eggleston had passed through the town in 1899. He directed me to the Gregor Rocks, above the village, and thus I found the path winding around the northern brow of these lime-rock cliffs.
Crossing the Pownal Centre road, I entered the pasture east of the village church, and wound up the cliffs above the limekiln quarry. Here, striking in among the cedar trees and ragged bluffs, I pulled myself up under the trees and rocks. Resting for a moment, I beheld a fern which proved to be the Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake (_Pellæa atropurpurea_). Much elated by my discovery, I fell to wondering what the little Wall-Rue Spleenwort (_Asplenium Ruta-muraria_) could look like. I had studied the plates of these rare ferns, but had not known them face to face. I soon came to an enormous lime-rock boulder on the summit of Gregor Rocks, and here I found the rare ferns for which I searched. From the crevices both the tender green tufts of the Wall-Rue Spleenwort and the wiry purple stems of the Cliff-Brake grew luxuriantly, draping the fissured sides of the boulder. Climbing to the top of the boulder, I saw beyond my reach a tuft of Walking Fern. This proved to me that this plant throve on the dryest of lime-rocks in the full glare of the sun, as well as in damp sheltered places. None of these species look like the ferns that are ordinarily known, and unless one turns the leaves over and observes the _sori_ or fruit dots, he would never guess to what family they belonged, so different are they in appearance from their brothers of the boglands and hillside pastures.
The rocks about were covered with tufts of the delicate Wall-Rue, and great tangles of the Cliff-Brake, growing from twelve to fifteen inches tall. The last year’s growth was still brown and rusty amid the fresh green fronds of this season. Hardy indeed were these ferns, growing in such a dry, exposed place.
Later in the month I made another trip to secure some ferns for photographing. It was Sunday, and the church bells were ringing at North Corners as I drove into the valley, and hitched my horse opposite the village inn. As I went my way toward the haunts of the ferns, I soon discovered that I was not making my ascent to the cliffs alone. A gray-haired woman, with basket on her arm, overtook me. She seemed to be gathering the bluebells along the ledges. We began to converse, and when we came to some ripe strawberries, we ate in a social way the fruits we found by the path. She told me she was gathering bluebells to decorate the chancel of the church, as it was Children’s Day.
On the brow of Gregor Rocks I asked my companion if the legend were true, of which Hawthorne writes, in 1838, during his stay in the valley at North Adams: “A mad girl leaped from the top of a tremendous precipice in Pownal, hundreds of feet high, and, if the tale be true, being buoyed up by her clothes, came safely to the bottom.”[47] She told me the name of the girl who had made the leap. She was a half-witted creature who, descending the cliffs at twilight with a package of wool rolls, thought to save time by throwing her burden ahead of her and leaping from the rocks. Her homespun garments caught and held her in the cedars below, until the villagers heard her screams and rescued her. The rocks are called “Weeping Rocks”—for what reason it is not quite clear, unless through some exaggeration of this story.
I collected some perfect ferns, and told my companion their names. She glowed with interest, and told me she had never been to these cliffs since she was a child, until now. She said if she had her life to live again, she would have devoted more time to exploring these rugged hills and vales. Soon our baskets were filled, and with a warm handclasp we parted.
I proceeded up Wash-Tub Brook, and secured some fresh plants of the Walking Fern in Hemlock Glen; then I returned to my horse. I was laden with rare treasures from the roadsides before I reached Mount Œta, late in the afternoon.
Many of the present names of ferns, lichens, and mosses originated with the ancients. Dioscorides knew and designated two kinds of fern. They were thought to put forth no seed in those days, since they produced no flowers—except as Dodoens in 1578 wrote: “We shall take for seede the blacke spots growing on the backside of the leaves, the which some do gather thinking to worke wonders, but to say the truth, it is nothing else but trumperie and superstition.”[48]
The Osmunda, Polypody, Oak-Fern, Hart’s-Tongue, Spleenwort, Asplenium, Venus-Hair and Maiden-Hair, as well as the delicate _Ruta-Muraria_—the Wall-Rue found on Gregor Rocks—were described clearly by the earliest herbalists. These records are full of errors and confusion, since the natural affinity of these species was not then known.
The Lichens were known also as “Stone-Liverworts (_Hepatica_), found with wrinkled, crimpled leaves on the ground or moist sweating rocks, where the sun shines seldom,” according to Dodoens. Among the list of mosses described, I discover that our Round-Leaved Sundew, the little carnivorous plant, was anciently classed as a species of moss, in close relation with the Ground and Club mosses known as _Lycopodium_. But the Sundew, unlike the mosses, produces a stalk with white flowers. The plant was considered strange, because the stronger shone the sun upon the round, reddish leaves, the more moist with drops of dew became the plant; for this reason it was called in Latin, _Ros Solis_, which became in English _Sundew_, in 1578.
The Wall-Rue Fern was thought to resemble the Garden Rue, but is much smaller. Rue-of-the-Wall was common in Germany and England in 1578, and was found upon old moist cathedral walls where the sun did not shine. It was originally called, in apothecary shops, _Capillus-Veneris_, _Adiantum_; and in France _Saluia vita_ and _Ruta-Muraria_. There were two varieties of this fern, designated in Europe as _Venus-Haire_ or _Lumbardie Maiden-Haire_, in 1578. The larger species grew commonly about well-springs, in walls in Italy. It was known as _Capillus-Veneris_,—named by the ancients _Adiantum_. This fern has hairy foot-stalks, small, blackish leaves, snipped around. This species is, no doubt, our Venus-Hair Fern, known to-day as _Adiantum Capillus-Veneris_.
The Walking Fern was known to Linnæus by the name of _Asplenium_, species of this genus being used against diseases of the spleen and liver. It was unknown to Dodoens in 1578. The Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake was originally known as a species of _Pteris_, a name suggested because these ferns resemble the wings of birds.
Our native species of Bluebells of New England are emigrants from Europe, and are closely allied with the Bellflowers of Europe. These flowers were likened to cathedral-bells, with a small white clapper hung in the middle. These were, according to Lyte, found in Coventry and Canterbury, England, 1578, opening after “Sunne-rising,” and closing toward “Sunne-set.” Theophrastus knew these flowers centuries before Christ, while Pliny designated them in Latin _Iosione_.
Our Bluebell (_Campanula_) derived its generic name from _campana_, the Italian for a bell. The species found on Gregor Rocks are known as _Campanula rotundifolia_, signifying round-leaved bells. The original Bluebells of Europe were known in 1578 as _Campanula cœrulea_, from whence the common name originated. That of the “Bluebells of New England” originated with Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in his poem on these flowers.[49]
Between the 15th and 19th of July I made journeys over the nearer hills. I visited Oak Hill above White Oaks Valley, where I found the bluebells abundant along the roadside walls, even growing in the dooryard fences of the dwellers thereabout. I had never visited this hill before, and was charmed with its “glen-like seclusion.” It was known as “Nigger Hill” before White Oaks Chapel was built in the vale below, because of the colored population of this place. It is situated in the shadow of the Dome and Mount Hazen, surrounded on the northern and eastern sides by wild, primeval forests. The broad, sloping meadows were among the first to be cleared in this region, and wear the scars that follow in the trail of the woodman. In the time of the Rebellion, many slaves sought the seclusion of this valley, and built their shanties snugly by the brooks. Until quite recently, the roads of the Hollow and the streets of Williamstown were frequented by one of these ancient slaves, known as “Old Abe-the-Bunter,” who used to sell huckleberries and arbutus, and who sawed wood for the students at Williams. His real name was Abraham Parsons. The title “Bunter” was affixed on account of a horny growth projecting from his forehead, which he used sometimes after the manner of a goat. At one time, many years ago, a number of students and White-Oakers made a wager with Uncle Abe, which he won by butting through the heavy oak head of a molasses hogshead. It is also reported that after this, some students, putting a grindstone into a sack, told Uncle Abe it was a _tough cheese_. The old negro gave it a terrific bunt and cracked the stone, but nearly killed himself by the operation. He is said later to have killed a horse with which he had become enraged, by one blow of this horny growth. Carroll Perry has published a college book in which Uncle Abe figures in one chapter. It is entitled _Bill Pratt, the Saw-Horse Philosopher_.
Civilization and the selling of the streams for the North Adams water-supply has caused the removal of all the shanties along the Hollow Road. Only the old George Adams cottage remains as an example of the original type.
The region of White Oaks formerly included all the rocky hills and swamps now known as Colesville and Riverside, and has received its name from the abundance of white oak timber in this locality, utilized by the colored people in making baskets which they peddle in town. Many years ago, three very large white-oak trees stood east of the house known as Old Stone Tavern, near Broad Brook bridge. This building still stands—in a deplorable condition—as a tenement house. It is over a century old, built in the Revolutionary days by Silas Stone, who kept tavern when stages ran between Pittsfield, Bennington, and Troy.
On July 18th I made a tour of the limestone ridge above the Gulf Road, known as the Glebe. It is the most desolate and unproductive soil in the whole town. In the early townships of the New Hampshire Grants, Governor Benning Wentworth required “One Share for a Glebe for the Church of England as by Law Established,” and another for schools. These lands, therefore, are to-day called “minister lots” and “school lots.” The occupants, instead of paying taxes, pay lease money for the use of the land, which is appropriated according to the vote of the town’s people for the support of ministers and schools.
Beginning northwest of the Swamp of Oracles, over the Amidon fields, one finds the limestone bed-rock cropping out everywhere. Little rounded hills appear to jut out of the deeper swamps leading toward Iris Swamp on Ball Farm, as one rides along the Pownal Centre Road. Great lime-rock boulders and piles of loosened rock lie strewn over the fields. One enormous boulder may be observed by the road north of Amidon’s house, and another near the Peleg Card house. I collected innumerable Walking Ferns scattered over these miniature hills and boulders. I proceeded northward to the Campbell horseshoeing shop, in the woods beyond, and turned to the left toward the ridges of the Glebe. Searching the rocks along the edges of the road, I found—perched high on a point of rocks—a beautiful colony of the rare Ebony Spleenwort (_Asplenium platyneuron_), not common hereabout. Over the mossy rocks below I again found numerous mats of Walking Fern. In finding these two ferns so closely associated, I searched for the rarer hybrid of these ferns, known as Scott’s Spleenwort (_Asplenium ebenoides_), but did not find it. It has been seen but once or twice in Vermont, to my knowledge, being more frequent in southern New England, Alabama, and Virginia, where it ascends fourteen hundred feet above the sea level.
The rich soil amid the hollows above was covered with the strange Grape-Fern, locally called Umbrella-Fern (_Botrychium Virginianum_). Maiden-Hair and numerous other common ferns and brakes filled the swamps below. Coming from the woods, I entered a hayfield where the mowers were at work. Beyond this, I entered a cow-pasture skirting the Glebe ridge. Here were deep hollows guttered out, leading northward to Pownal Centre. Pennyroyal grew over the parched, dry plains, and in the hot sun shed forth its aromatic perfume. Boulders and natural obelisks were lodged on the hills above. In character the latter are similar to rocking stones, that are so finely poised on the mutton-backed bed-rock, that with pressure they sway slightly. The obelisks are either pillar-like boulders moored in the mud and soil, or formed along cliffs by the heat, frost, and wind erosions, causing them to appear like columns or broken monuments, in the distance.
On the rocks of the Glebe hills, I again collected the Walking-Fern, and I am sure that if I were to penetrate the cliffs of the gulf along the western slopes of this ridge, I should find the Rue-of-the-Wall and Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake.
Far away in the hollow, slept the little village of Pownal Centre. The church steeple towered among the trees, and the village green sloped between the church and the old Revolutionary road.
XVI
Alpine Blossoms of the Dome
Mountains seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and cathedrals; full of treasures of illuminated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons for the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper.—JOHN RUSKIN.
Of the swamps and domes of the Hoosac region, Henry Ward Beecher once said: “The most level portion of this region, if removed to Illinois, would be an eminent hill. The region is a valley only because the mountains on the east and west are so much higher than the hills in the intermediate space. The endless variety of such a country never ceases to astonish and please. At every ten steps the aspect changes; every variation of atmosphere, and therefore every hour of the day, produces new effects. It is everlasting company to you. It is, indeed, just like some choice companion of rich heart and genial imagination, never twice alike, in mood, in conversation, in radiant sobriety, or half-bright sadness, bold, tender, deep, various.”
On July 19th I drove beyond the Bogs of Etchowog, over a portion of the Hill Road toward Bennington. As I passed the Elijah Mason Farm, I turned my horse’s head through the cow-pastures to the east. In a swamp to the left of the grassy wood-road, I collected scattered Pogonias and Limodorums, although the season was late for them. Still farther eastward are impenetrable swamps, through which Ball Brook flows northward to the Walloomsac near Bennington. The road led around to another swamp farther eastward, toward which I drove. It was one of those wild regions, tangled with tamarack, balsam-firs, high-huckleberry trees, amid the peat and sphagnum. The green spires of tamarack and fir swayed in billowy waves as the wind breathed through these vales; and the sunshine drew forth the fragrance of pitch and balsamic resins from the blistered bark of these young trees.
I fastened my horse to a pine tree, and penetrated the depths of this swamp as far as I dared, along a moss-grown brook bed leading from a spring toward the interior. The heart of this region was impenetrable. The pioneers, settling along the valley of Ball Brook, chose in Revolutionary days this heavily timbered region, in preference to the lower swamps of the deeper vales of the Hoosac. It has proven to be the coldest, most desolate, and barren soil for corn and grains,—the most productive crops here being stumps and boulders! Shad-bushes and the high-huckleberry bushes were laden with berries. I stood upon a log and ate of them for some time, meanwhile listening to the choruses of locusts and numerous thrushes, screaming jays, young crows, and whistling hawks. Many distant sounds came whispering to me from out this wild solitude of Nature. The mystery of wild wood isolation, in the presence of the scars of ages, took possession of me, and filled me with a nameless fear. I gave vent to a wild howl in order to relieve the tensity and portentousness of the situation. It was a damp, mossy place, such as bears, lynxes, and wild cats choose in which to nap during the day, being located in their run from the Petersburgh Hills to the Dome of the Green Mountains eastward, above. As Thoreau described one of the Maine woods swamps: “It was ready to echo the growl of a bear, the howl of a wolf, or the scream of a panther; but when you get fairly into the middle of one of these grim forests, you are surprised to find that the larger inhabitants are not at home commonly, but have left only a puny red squirrel to bark at you. Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.”[50]
I ventured on farther east, until I came to the true spring of the swamp. Every swampy region reveals innumerable springs, and this swamp was no exception. Many were oozing through the carpets of moss. Around such fountains I searched for the familiar leaves of Moccasin-Flowers without success.
I returned to the open pastures, all fear of the wilderness having subsided. I looked about, and saw from the lay of the land that this had been the bed of a glacial lake. It is in such regions as these that fossil remains of the whale and mastodon have been found. A fossil whale was found in Charlotte, Vermont, sixty feet above the level of the lake and one hundred and fifty feet above sea level. In Swanton, in a ledge of rock blasted through for railroad purposes, a large deposit of fossil marine shells was found. Also fossil bones of the elephant were found in Brattleboro.