VERMONT

SCHOOL JOURNAL AND FAMILY VISITOR.

Volume I.

MAY, 1859.

Number II.

PONDS AND SCHOOL HOUSES OF VERMONT. I believe it is generally admitted that the natural scenery of Vermont is not excelled on this continent. I have traveled in both Canadas, through all the Atlantic States to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the great lakes: I have gazed upon the granite peaks that looked up to me as I stood upon Mt. Washington: I have clambered over the broken stone and shale at the foot of that awful rampart of rock at Niagara, and while the cataract was rolling its torrent over my head, plowed my cane in its descending flood: but never have my eyes rested on a scene of such indescribable loveliness, where all the elements of natural beauty were gathered in exuberent richness and variety, as when I looked away from the chin of old Mansfield upon the mountains, hills and valleys; the villages, farms and wood-lands; the winding rivers, ponds glistening in the sunshine, and the blue Champlain with islets nestled upon her bosom and quietly sleeping at the foot of the Adirondacks, all scattered, as gems from some rich fairy's apron, over the State that gave me birth.

If I were to select out any one of the elements that make up this picturesque beauty, as the most charming, I should certainly take that of our mountain ponds. These are bodies of cool clear water, hemmed in by hills, and often on one side, some times on two or even three, by steep yet ever-green mountains. The scenery around them is often enchanting, especially when seen in the quiet stillness of an autumn evening. The placid beauty of

the water mirroring back the dark outline of the mountains as it seems to rest upon the blue sky, the fleecy clouds with golden fringe that float noiselessly up the mountain's side, or gracefully rest like a queenly crown upon its head, the close border of small trees and bushes that skirt the shore, with their gorgeously colored leaves, tinted with all the varied hues of the rainbow, so reffected from the water that there seem to be two files of Houries marshalled, feet to feet,in majestic ranks along the waters edge. and then across the lakelet and a little back the smooth meadow. stretching away and up in rolling swells, with flocks and herds grazing here, and the happy farmer and his boys there tossing up the sheaves of golden grain, which they are loading and carrying away to fill their ample barns; all these, in a single group, compose one of the most charming pictures of rural nature that was ever seen. Many an hour, in my boyhood and in manhood, has such a picture filled my eye and enchained my soul in swelling 18p

tures.

And yet the beauty, that dwells around and in these ponds, is only one of their valuable qualities. They have useful purposes which are not enough considered. From the steepness of our mountains, and the large inclination of our hill sides every where, the melting snows and falling rains rapidly run off in the brooks. and rivers. As the land becomes cleared, the obstructions of decaying leaves and fallen timber are removed, and this drainage is the more rapid. So we have, more and more, swollen freshets, and diminished or dry water-courses, in alternating successions. To remedy this evil, nature has sunk large cisterns or lake beds in the course of all our streams, to receive the surplus water for more gradual expenditure, and more economical uses-just as the thoughtful husband sinks a cistern into which he conducts the floods from his eaves' spout, that he may preserve the water for the convenience and comfort of his wife or kitchen maid.

Illustrations of this wise economy of nature we have in many a busy, thriving village. If it were not for the ponds just above. them were there no cisterns away up the valley just under the

eaves of the mountains-were the water allowed to flow off without any obstruction from the high lands above to the lower valleys of the lake and river on either border, what would be the worth of their water power? Would there be no danger of being cleanly swept out by every freshet? Would not their water wheels be as upon dry land immediately after the flood had rushed by them, if perchance it did not carry them away?

Some thirty miles north of the Capital, in the early history of this State, there was one of these natural cisterns, fed only by springs and the little brooks that stream in on either side. On the east and on the west, rose rough, evergreen mountains directly from the water's edge to the height of twelve or fifteen hundred feet. On the south, in a narrow valley through which, when the basin was filled up, a small stream wound slowly away, watering, about equally in spring and summer, many a little vale and meadow, and which when enlarged by streams from other valleys forking into it, turned many a mill wheel, and floated many a canoe, as it flowed down the valley of the Lamoille.

At the north end of this pond was a dam of sand, some rods in thickness, and incrusted on its inner, or water side, with a covering of clay. From this bank northward the descent was rapid into a valley leading to Lake Memphremagog and the St. Lawrence River.

There this high basin had stood for many ages, receiving the waters from the adjacent mountain sides, and then gradually pouring them out to supply the brook and river below with a constant and equable stream. On the sixth of June, forty-nine years ago, some persons, interested in a mill on a small stream about six miles down the northern valley, collected upon this dam of sand, for the purpose of cutting a channel through it, to lead off the waters northward to supply their mill with a larger stream. A few minutes were sufficient to open a canal for the water to commence running through. At once the quicksand became filled with water, and of a consistency that would flow; the incrusting of clay next the water gave way, and the whole pond moved off in majesty down the valley, showing a front at first of

forty to sixty feet high, a breadth according to the width of the valley through which it rolled, and leaving the bed of the pond empty in about fifteen minutes. The workmen ran for life. Now and then one would feel the ground sinking beneath him, and scream for help; the others would lay hold of him, and by clinging to each other's hands, and to the bushes up the sides of the hill, they succeeeded in saving him and themselves. None were lost. But, as they returned down the valley, all was devastation and ruin. The meadows were covered with logs, gravel and sand. The woods were swept away. The plains of fine loamy soil were washed off. The bed of the stream was filled up here, cut deeper there, and turned out across the fields in another place. Some of the best meadows, just above a narrow or winding point in the valley, were deeply blocked up with fallen timber, rock, gravel and mud. The mill of course was gone, with its fixtures and dam, and a horse hitched to the hook at its corner, on which a mill-boy had just brought a bushel of corn. The boy scratched up the bank for his life and was saved. The dwellings of the few families in the valley were so far up the bank, that none were carried off, and no life was lost.

The old basin is now called "Dry Pond." A fine road has been opened through the bottom, and all the guide posts in the neighborhood point, with significant finger, to the spot so paradoxically named. A small brook running northward is the only water that remains. The roofs of the mountains throw off the water suddenly. At the time of melting snows, or heavy rains, the valley is inundated for a few hours, and then the bed of the stream is nearly dry till another freshet. The beauty of the pond is gone. The home of the trout is gone; and the cistern to receive the surplus waters, to prevent them from doing present mischief, and, at the same time, to preserve them for perpetual uses. The farms were injured, the mill destroyed, and the stream is so inconstant as to be scarcely better, perhaps worse, than before.

Now it can hardly be called a mere fancy, if it be suggested that the private houses scattered over and among the Green