Connecticut western news., 1888-11-07
DISMAL SWAMP.
A Strangely Constructed Canal
 That Penetrates Its Depths.
A Lake That Was Dug by a
 Flash of Lightning.

moro Sun, the Dismal Swamp Canal il Virginia was one of the most important artificial waterways in the United States. In these days of rapid railr oad transportation, however, and owing to the competition of tho Albemarle and Chesapeake canal, which parallels it, it has dropped somewhat out of sight, though it is still considerably patron ized. 1t is one of tho oldest canals in tho country, ard its management is probably the oldest imcorported com- pany of its kind. George Washington was prominently connected with it. and he found it very available means of obtaining supplies when he was con- tending with Cornwallis at Yorktown. There was no Eastern Virginian of prominence and wealth until the begin ming of the century to the beginning of the late war who was ot in some way or other identified with it.
 MT. Marshall Parks, the Supervising Inspector General of Steamboats whose early days were passed in canal con- struction in Virginia tells an interest ing and remarkable coincidental story of the building of the canal. Nearly two centuries ago the large land owners of Virginia began to penetrate the dark and gloomy wilds of the Dismal Swamp in search of juniper and cypress shin gles. The greatest difficulty with which they had to contend, however, was the sogcy condition of tho soil, in which the wheels of their carts sank to tho hubs. The further they penetrated the swamps this diff :ulty became greater, and at last they rosorted to the expedi- ent of digging a narrow aud ill-shapcn ditch just deep enough to float small fat boat. Down this canal the timber was floated to D,ep Crock, atril utary of the Elizabeth River and thence to the market at Norfolk. Year by year the timber was cut away along the banks of the ditch and each year, as the demand for juniper and cypress shingles became greater, it was extended further into the almost impenetrable wilds of the forest.
 The work was done altogether by slaves, with shovels and pickaxos. The use of steam shovels was then unknown and unthought of. The towering cy- press trees were also felled and split into shingles by slaves, who were given tasks each day by their overseers, and for all shingles they made over the re- quired amount they wore paid extra. One Sunday aftern oon they were visited by their overseor, who was much sur priscd to hear several voices singing away off in tho swamp. Their voices sounded like faint echoes. He asked the slaves who lived constantly in the swamp if they knew the men who were singing, and was told that they were North Carolina slavea An investiga- tion of their unexpected and rather in- truding presence was made, and the fact was discovered that the North Carolina landowners, like those of Vir- ginia, about twenty miles away, had experienced the same difficulties of hauling lumber in the soggy and treacher. ous swamp, and had sent their slaves into the wilds to dig a ditch to aid them in their trans portation of shingles and lumber.
 For years these two forces worked independently of each other and each, strange to say, was digging uuawares towards the other. The two sections of the canal were joined, and the point of connection is marked by an angle.
 Tho government and the state of Virginia finally became interested in the work, and the waters of Lake Drummond were brought into requisi- tion for feeding the canal This lake is situated in the centre of the swamp, and the depression in which the placid water sparkles was made by fire con- turiea perhaps thousands of years, ago. The whole swamp, in fact, represents in modern age the conforming epochs of millions of years back in the geologi- cal history of the globe, aad during an exceedingly dry season-so dry, indeed, that the boggy soil was parched and transformed into an inf1ammablo clay, a flash of lightning became tho origin of big fire. Towering trees wero folled, the scrubby underbrush was laid low, and then the flames ate their way, foot after foot, into the infammable soil, and hollow circle was formed in the ground. Whom the rains came this de. prcssion became basin for the innum- erable streams which trickled through the fore,t and was soon transformed into lake.
 The almost trackless swamp through which tho canal psnetrates is still valu- able on account of it's cyl press and juni- per, the latter article becoming year by year more ane more scarce and exceed ingly valuabl,. At one time a single shar, of stock of tho Dismal Swamp Land Company was worth as much as $32. 900. The tract originally taken up and surveyed mbraces GO, 900 square acres. About half as many additional square acres arc now embraced in tho forest. Boar, wander unm oles ted iu it's trackless depths, and tho deadly rattlcr basks himself in the sun without fear of meu. Birds of brilliant plumago fly from limb to limb of the huge and | hiph cvnress trees and sinp their carols