The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1866-10-17

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We then visited little stream known
as Trout Brook, a tributary of the Boquet,
and, by somewhat rough and stony way,
began 10 ascend the high separating Boz
quet from tho Au Sable. This ridge in
cludcs Poke a moonshinc Mountain, a
rude pile of rocks, burnt over, and with
perpendicular precipccs of some three or
four hundred feet, facing the road which
runs along the bottom of the declivity. This
cleft thus becomes another Pass and,
with the huge rocks fallen at its base. offers
= wild and rather dreary scene. To the
north, near the foot of the mountain, are
two ponds, Bulternut and Auger, which
wind Enthusiastically in and'out among the
hills. As we descended the ri lge, we
looked toward Canada, far away over roll
ing plains and liiocks, and soon after
reached the sandy stretch OF the basin of
Au Sable, in the midst of which is Keene-
vile, twenty-five miles from Elizabeth
town.
BY the waysle wo passed a s,lt4ry
grave, the mound AMI headstone in a
| patch of corn and potatoes. Was the
( unknown occupant some dear one whom
the dwelers in the humble cabin near
/ 10y were unwilling to send far away from
/ daily remembrance. or were they too
! poor 10 seek the shelter of the common
/ graveyard, or, again, had the buriers of
that dead ono followed TO the land of
! PROMISE or departed to some other far
country, leaving this grave to the care or
rather careltssne,s Of stranger hanls, AMI
did the snowy heaistone recall no MEM
ory of past love to the laborer who
poughed his furrow near that mound, or
to the children who played around it
All thus, not only in the mystical
cavernl of beauty, poetry, and romance
are hidden the graves OF buried hopes,
but even amid the corn and potatoes of
daily life rise the ghostly head and foot
stones of aspirations dead and put away
out Of sight, dead in the body, in daily
act, but living yet in spirit, and inauen-
cling the commonplace facts 10 which they
have yielded the field, perneating the
everyday routine with the ennobling pow
er Of lofty desires: and keeping the way
slough OF materialism or the quicksands
! Of utter WEAKNESS. The man who in his
/ youth dreamed Of eleyating his kind by
noble employment of the gifts of genus,
may ind that genius apparently useless,
a hiniranco even to prosperity, bat he
can nevertheless SOW along his way seeds
Of beauty not lost upon the thinking beings
about him, and bearing trait perhaps III
some future generation. The woman
whose re7eiie' have pictured her Joan
Of Arc, leading her countries armies to
victory, and finally yielding her life in
the good cause, may sew Cor sanitary
commissions, and, nursing in some hospi-
tai, dropping medicines, making soups
and teas, die Of some deadly fever,
willing sacrifice &c her country.
Later IN the day we say the corn and
poisto9, growing up TO the very verge
ofan exquisite waterfall, reckless strength
and glorious poetry slle by side with
patient utility and humbl. prose. 1hi,
Union seemed not strange and unnatural,
- did that Of the solitary grave with ac-
tive labor Of supply yins the living with
daily food, the grave the more lonely that
the living with their material wants en-
circed ii 60 closely
Keesville is a manufacturing town,
situated upon the An Sable, which here
breaks through layer of Potsdam
sandstone, and presents series of most
interesting and wonderful falls and
chasm-. About n mile below the village
j. the fall OF eighty tcet. The river has
here large body Of water. and falls in
fan shape over a rapid descent of steps.
Ii takes sharp turn, 50 that without
crossing the stream, fine view can be
obtained OF the dancing glittering sheet
Of foam. About half q mile below is
birmingham, another manufacturing
town, which has done its best, but with
ont entire success TO destroy the beauty
Of the sc :Und fall, Immediately below the
bridge, said bridge being erected 1pon
natural piers at The sides and in tho GEN.
ire Of the stream.
Here begins a chasm which continues
for the distance Of about mile and a
bali. Wonderfully grand are these
Walled Recks of the Au Sable through
which rushcs the river pent up between
literally perpendicular walls, a hundred
or more feet in hight, and from eleven to
sixty or eighty feet apart, generally from
twelve TO fourteen. The water some
times rushes smoothly and deeply below,
and sometimes falls over distractions,
roaring. and tumbiing, and foaming
The turns On the river aye very sudden,
and there are great cracks and gullies ex-
tending from top to base, pillars of rock
standing alone or leaning against their
companions. Occasionally, looking down
one Of these cleils, one secs nothing but
the rock walls with foaming, rapid
rushing below. At one of these most
remarkable points, rude stairway ha.
been constructed, by which the traveller
can descend to the bottom, and, standing
10y the waters edge, look up to the top
OF tins singular chasm. The walls finally
lower, and the river flows out into "A
broad basin, whence it ere long finds its
way into Lake Champlain. The banks
are wooden with pine hemlocks, spruce,
arbor Vita, beech. birch, and Eastwood,
ani the ground is covered with ferns,