ng in to Long Lake, which
is about a day's drive farther on. We found a comfortable hotel here,
and were glad enough to avail ourselves of the shelter and warmth
which it offered. There was a little settlement and some quite good
farms. The place commands a fine view to the north of Indian Pass,
Mount Marcy, and the adjacent mountains. On the afternoon of our
arrival, and also the next morning, the view was completely shut off
by the fog. But about the middle of the forenoon the wind changed, the
fog lifted, and revealed to us the grandest mountain scenery we had
beheld on our journey. There they sat about fifteen miles distant, a
group of them,--Mount Marcy, Mount McIntyre, and Mount Golden, the
real Adirondack monarchs. It was an impressive sight, rendered double
so be the sudden manner in which it was revealed to us by that
scene-shifter the Wind.
I saw blackbirds at this place, and sparrows, and the solitary
sandpiper and the Canada woodpecker, and a large number of
hummingbirds. Indeed, I saw more of the latter here than I ever before
saw in any one locality. Their squeaking and whirring were almost
incessant.
The Adirondack Iron Works belong to the past. Over thirty years ago a
company in Jersey City purchased some sixty thousand acres of land
lying along the Adirondack River, and abounding in magnetic iron ore.
The land was cleared, roads, dams, and forges constructed, and the
work of manufacturing iron begun.
At this point a dam was built across the Hudson, the waters of which
flowed back into Lake Sandford, about five miles above. The lake
itself being some six miles song, tolerable navigation was thus
established for a distance of eleven miles, to the Upper Works, which
seem to have been the only works in operation. At the Lower Works,
besides the remains of the dam, the only vestige I saw was a long low
mound, overgrown with grass and weeds, that suggested a rude
earthwork. We were told that it was once a pile of wood containing
hundreds of cords, cut in regular lengths and corded up here for use
in the furnaces.
At the Upper Works, some twelve miles distant, quite a village had
been built, which was now entirely abandoned, with the exception of a
single family.
A march to this place was our next undertaking. The road for two or
three miles kept up from the river and led us by three or four rough
stumpy farms. It then approached the lake and kept along its shores.
It was here a dilapidated cordur
|