ountains of
Virginia in different ways, by the European maps; but none of these
ridges was in fact ever known to the inhabitants of Virginia by that
name. These mountains extend from northeast to southwest, as also do the
limestone, coal, and other geological strata. So also range the falls of
the principal rivers, the courses of which are at right angles with the
line of the mountains, the James and the Potomac making their way
through all the ridges of mountains eastward of the Alleghany range.
The Alleghanies are broken by no water-course, being the spine of
the country between the Atlantic and the Mississippi River. The
spectacle presented at Harper's Ferry--so called after the first
settler--impresses the beholder with the opinion that the mountains were
first upraised, the very signification of the word in the Greek, and the
rivers began to flow afterwards; that here they were dammed up by the
Blue Ridge, and thus formed a sea, or lake, filling the whole valley
lying between that ridge and the Alleghanies. The waters continuing to
rise, they at length burst their way through the mountain, the shattered
fragments of this disruption still remaining to attest the fact. As the
observer lifts his eye from this scene of grandeur, he catches through
the fissure of the mountain a glimpse of the placid blue horizon in the
distant perspective, inviting him, as it were, from the riot and tumult
roaring around to pass through the breach and participate in the calm
below.[427:A]

A settlement was effected (1734) on the north branch of the Shenandoah,
about twelve miles south of the present town of Woodstock. Other
adventurers gradually extended the settlements, until they reached the
tributaries of the Monongahela. Two cabins erected (1738) near the
Shawnee Springs, formed the embryo of the town of Winchester, long the
frontier out-post of the colony in that quarter. The glowing reports of
the charms of the tramontane country induced other pioneers to plant
themselves in that wild, picturesque region. For the want of towns and
roads the first settlers were supplied by pedlars who went from house to
house. Shortly after the first settlement of Winchester, John Marlin, a
pedlar, who traded from Williamsburg to this new country, and John
Salling, a weaver, two adventurous spirits, set out from that place to
explore the "upper country," then almost unknown. Proceeding up the
valley of the Shenandoah they crossed the James River, a