The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1874-09-16
A HAPPY YALLEY.

A correspondent with Custer's expedition
to the Black Hills thus describes valley
discovered among the mountains explored:
CAMP No. 80, BLACK HILLS, FLORAL VAL
LEY, July 28.-An Eden in the clouds--how
shall describe it ! confess that have too
much pleasure in this lovely scene to make
the attempt. As well try to paint the flavor
of peach or the odor of a rose as to turn this
beautiful valley nestled sweetly in the hills,
1000 feet above the sea, with all it's wealth of
bloom and fragrance, into plain, prosaic
printers ink. Perhaps one poet in the world
might translate into verse the mystery of this
charm perhaps the soul of Mendelssohn, in
a new song without words, might phrase in
sympathetic melody the sweet emotions which
the little Eden awakens, but only the greatest
of painters with brush inspired could convey
to the imagination picture of the vale itself
Yet what task for painter! 1t is not to
paint the grand, the magnificent, the sublime;
for the valley in which write is none of these
The hills are lofty indeed, strong and bold in
their bearing, and guard the valley beneath
them with jealous pride, which seemed to
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lovely flowers beneath our feet and mangled
their roots with our wagon wheels But
magnificent, grand, or sublime they are
not. Nor is there anything here that is.
There are no gushing geysers, as in the Vel
lowstone Park, sending their spray high in
the air no great rush and roar of waterfalls
as at Niagara or St. Anthony; no colossal
trees as in the grand primeval forests of
California; nothing at all sensational. Each
element in the picture--the lofty hills, the
host of tall pines, the clear pure stream of
swift but almost silent water, and above all,
the inexpressible wealth and eloquence of
flowers to which all else seems to contribute
each of these is but word in the utterance
of the whole picture.
1t would not be very difficult to analyze the
facts and elements in this scenic charm which
EFFORTS admiration and praise from even the
most cynical of critics. Col. Ludlow could
measure the hills and the valley and reduce
them to figures and angles in his note book.
Prof. Winchcll with his hammer could
catechise the rocks and transcribe their evil
dence. DIR. Williams could catalogue the
exuberent flora If you gave him the privilege
of naming few of the flowers which have
bloomed mayhap for centuries in this quietude
unquestioncd by the botanist. The soil, the
atmosphere, the running stream, the bubbling,
moss-lined springs, could all be enumerated
But what engineer, botanist, mathematician,
or chemist could add up the elements and
arrive at the beautiful unity into which nature
has merged them all :? AS well try by count
ing the strands in Gobelin tapestry to picture
to the mind the interviewer design as well
attempt by anatomy, physiology. and chemis-
try to reframe and reanimate the form which
these have resolved. So right here in this
heavenly valley science is baffied by name
less beauty, which it can analyze and destroy,
but cannot reproduce.
| Pardon the apostrophes but away up here
in the clouds thoughts like air becomes rari-
! fled, and blood like water is easier brought to
the boiling point. But I have over-stepped
our record let us go back to the Heeng va
Kara, and with true frontier instinct follow
the trail.