ound; while, mantling their lower slopes and
darkening the valleys, hemlock formerly enticed the lumberman and
tanner. Except in remote or inaccessible localities, the latter tree
is now almost never found. In Shandaken and along the Esopus it is
about the only product the country yielded, or is likely to yield.
Tanneries by the score have arisen and flourished upon the bark, and
some of them still remain. Passing through that region the present
season, I saw that the few patches of hemlock that still lingered high
up on the sides of the mountains were being felled and peeled, the
fresh white boles of the trees, just stripped of their bark, being
visible a long distance.

Among these mountains there are no sharp peaks, or abrupt declivities,
as in a volcanic region, but long, uniform ranges, heavily timbered to
their summits, and delighting the eye with vast, undulating horizon
lines. Looking south from the heights about the head of the Delaware,
one sees twenty miles away a continual succession of blue ranges, one
behind the other. If a few large trees are missing on the sky line,
one can see the break a long distance off.

[Illustration: THE HOME OF A SPIDER]

Approaching this region from the Hudson River side, you cross a rough,
rolling stretch of country, skirting the base of the Catskills, which
from a point near Saugerties sweep inland; after a drive of a few
hours you are within the shadow of a high, bold mountain, which forms
a sort of butt-end to this part of the range, and which is simply
called High Point. To the east and southeast it slopes down rapidly to
the plain, and looks defiance toward the Hudson, twenty miles distant;
in the rear of it, and radiating from it west and northwest, are
numerous smaller ranges, backing up, as it were, this haughty chief.

From this point through to Pennsylvania, a distance of nearly one
hundred miles, stretches the tract of which I speak. It is a belt of
country from twenty to thirty miles wide, bleak and wild, and but
sparsely settled. The traveler on the New York and Erie Railroad gets
a glimpse of it.

Many cold, rapid trout streams, which flow to all points of the
compass, have their source in the small lakes and copious mountain
springs of this region. The names of some of them are Mill Brook, Dry
Brook, Willewemack, Beaver Kill, Elk Bush Kill, Panther Kill,
Neversink, Big Ingin, and Callikoon. Beaver Kill is the main outlet on
the west. It joins the Delawa