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Show 104 Early Western Travels [ Vol. * 6 rock of limestone, some hundred feet in length, and about fifty feet high. This rock is completely honeycombed with perforations, and has the appearance of having been pierced by the mytilus or some other marine insect. A few miles above Herculaneum comes in the Platine Creek;* 7 and here commence the " Cornice Rocks," a magnificent escarpment of castellated cliffs some two or three hundred feet in perpendicular altitude from the bed of the stream, and extending along the western bank a distance of eight or ten miles. Through the facade of these bluffs pours in the tribute of the Merrimac, a bright, sparkling, beautiful stream. •• This river is so clear and limpid that it was long supposed to glide over sands of silver; but the idea has been abandoned, and given place to the certainty of an abundant store of lead, and iron, and salt upon its banks, while its source is shaded by extensive forests of the white pine, a material in this section of country almost, if not quite, as valuable.* 9 Ancient works of various forms are also found upon the banks of the Merrimac. There is an w For the location of the Platine ( usually spelled Plattin), see Maximilian's Travels, in our volume xxii, p. 212, note 123. Lead mining has been carried on in this district, intermittently, since 1824.- ED. M See Maximilian's Travels, in our volume xxii, p. 212, note 123.- ED. M The following extract from the Journal of Charlevoix, one of the earliest historians of the West, with reference to the Mines upon the Merrimac, may prove not uninteresting. The work is a rare one. " On the 17th ( Oct., 1721), after sailing five leagues farther, I left, on my right, the river Marameg, where they are at present employed in searching for a silver mine. Perhaps your grace may not be displeased if I inform you what success may be expected from this undertaking. Here follows what I have been able to collect about this affair, from a person who is well acquainted with it, and who has resided for several years on the spot " In the year 1719, the Sieur de Lochon, being sent by the West India Company, in quality of founder, and having dug in a place which had been marked out to him, drew up a pretty large quantity of ore, a pound whereof, which took up four days in smelting, produced, as they say, two drachms of silver; but some have suspected him of putting in this quantity himself. A few months afterward he returned thither, and, without thinking any more of the silver, he extracted from two or three thousand weight of ore fourteen pounds of very bad lead, which stood |