Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1882-04-13
WASHINGTON WONDERS.
IUIII IthALU Correspondents
ON THE ROAD.

l
From HERALD Correspondent
ON THE ROAD.
1t was on the 21st of March that
took passage on the Baltimore and Ohio
railroad from Chicago to Washington.
1t was as stormy and dreary time as
ever characterized outgoing winter and
incoming spring. In the dead of the
darkest night we coasted along the
southern coast of Lake Michigan and
the northern line of Indiana. Here the
country is new and the settlements re-
cent. The farmers have to encounter
heavy frosts. The houses are generally
built of hewn logs. The towns are the
| outg rowth of the railroad; and are vet
in embryo. The winter wheat looked
well, but the fields have not the ampli.
tude of our prairies. The surface of
the country is fiat, accommodating
swamps and marshes. Heavy rains had
extemporized lakes and streams. The
river Sandusky rolled toward Lake Erie
in its majesty, and great quantities of
mud and clay had a free passage in this
direction. This recent railroad is the
channel cut out by southern capital and
the City of Baltimore to reach the pro-
duce and trade of the west and divide
it with Philadelphia and New York. The
earlier roads had taken possession of the
richer and more populous routes. The
Baltimore & Ohio boldly struck out on
path of its own, and to great extent
it has made the country through which
it runs. 1t is the road, too, that keeps
down fare and freights ON the trunk lines
between Chicago and the Atlantic Cities.
1t takes an oblique direction, dropping
rapidly to the Southwark through the
state of Ohio. 1t passes through Mt.
Vernon, GAINESVILLE and Norwalk, but it
rather appears to avoid populous cities
than to court them. We struck the
Ohio at Belleares, an old SCOT blackened
town. The railroad here took
AN AIRY FLIGHT.
should think its track some Is or 30
feet above the houses, and still higher
above the surface of the stream, which
rolled on with fullness and power that
impressed the bcholder with vivid ideas
of the mighty west, whose domain this
river is measuring. The Ohio had evil
IDENTITY been on the rampage. 1t was
still out of its banks. Your head be-
came dizzy as you looked at the rushing
flood from your car window, at least 40
feet below you, and you thought of Ash
tabula, and hardly dared to breathe till
you alighted on terra iirma in West
Virginia. ! believe this fragment of a
state was split off from old Virginia by
the commissions of the war. 1t is the
bivouac of all the mountains in this part
of the world - some of them of great
altitude-but none of the peaks are so
high that the vegetable world cannot
occupy them. Trees and underground
crown the SUBMITS. Here are forests
untouched by the woodlands ak. There
is soil here, and if the Swiss mountain
GERS should swarm in here they could
terrace these slopes and make them the
most picturesque of any part of the
east. But when we reached the divide
and fell in the head-waters of the Poto-
mac all semblance of what we western
men call soil had disappeared The
country was
ROCK RIBBED AND IRON ROOTED
like the Democratic party. The region
was as stony as Senator Malone is
bony. His wife says you cannot strike
him anywhere except you break your
knuckles on some bone or other No
plow or spade can operate here; the
ringing rocks show their teeth every
where, turned up edgewisc and every
way. You cannot dig grave here.
The few that have been excavated are
rented out by their owners at high fig
ures. The stunted and starved trees
that find crevices for their roots are
stopped and bent and resemble beggars
asking aims. And at Harper's Ferry,
some two or three hours above Wash
ington, the whole breadth of the turbu-
lent, rushing, clay-eating Potomac
leaps out before you from its covert of
mountains. Here is perpendicular
wall of gray granite, | suppose, that
must be more than 1000 feet high, that
was intended by nature to survive the
g wreck of matter and the crush of
worlds
This locality was brought into the
range of history and curiosity by old
John Brown, whose rugged and lofty
soul still makes these frowning battle
ments his headquarters. Wiser than he
knew, by the sacrifice of himself he
broke the chains that fettered the limbs
of millions. But from the standpoint
of real estate Spectator, | wouldn't
exchange quarter section of Kansas
peanuts for the entire section of old yir-
ginia. 1t is about $50 miles BY rail from
Chicago to Washington. Perhaps Har-
per's Ferry is go miles above it, |
reached that place the second morning
and the storm, snow and clouds fol-
lowed us and prosecuted us all the way.
The sun seemed to float in the mists.
On every possible occasion it would give
an assuring CLEAN at us, as if to prove
it had not forsaKen the world, ar that
it would triumph over the envious fogs
that had taken possession of the atmo-
sphere And you are
IN WASHINGTON,
showing, raining, wet and chill; terri
BILE climate. In that park there you see
the father of his country mounted on a
gigantic steed that has reared half way
up on his hind feet, his fore feet elevated
as if to leap over the capitol. Still the
horse disappoints you. There he re-
mains. He bellies his attitude. He does
not jump; and there his rider sits, pelt-
ed by the snow, and dripping with sleet
and rain, with holster and sword dang
ling by his side, and no one thinks
arn.ytrh Of him fn talra b;.., ~ ,,,,s 20 81 N