little up the stream, they got footing again before reaching the dangerous rapids, towards which the stream impelled them. Passing over a few more hills, we came to some small, limestone plains, called the Circular Pond Marshes, from a number of circular basons, that seem to have been formed by the draining off of the waters, with which the whole are sometimes covered, into subterraneous channels. Some of these ponds are full of water, the outlets below being choked with mud, others are empty, and grassy to the perforated bottoms. There are also some cavernous places.—We fixed our quarters for the night under the shelter of a wood, and by the side of a place resembling the bed of a deep river, that commenced and terminated abruptly: the water, which at some seasons flows through it, evidently finds ingress and egress through a bed of loose gravel.
After burning off the grass, and sweeping the place, a fire was kindled against a log, that proved to be rotten inside, and became ignited; the fire spread, and catching the grass, soon extended into the forest, which was full of brushwood, that did not appear to have been burnt for many years. The conflagration was exceedingly grand; it brought down some considerable trees that had been nearly burnt through by former fires: such as were hollow, burnt out at the top like furnaces. This magnificent spectacle cost us, however, some labour, in beating out the fire of the grass, which we burnt off before us, to keep the fire of the forest from igniting it and coming round upon us in the night. We had also some anxiety from the tottering state of a tree that burnt furiously, and was not far enough from our encampment to clear us, if it fell in that direction. From this we were relieved, by its fall, before going to sleep; but our rest was nevertheless disturbed by the crash of others falling during the night.
26th. We explored a few of the caverns, the entrances of some of which resemble doorways, and open into a grassy hollow. At the end of a long subteraneous passage, into which I descended with a torch of burning bark, there was a fine, clear stream of water, three feet wide and equally deep, emerging from one rock and passing away under another. The limestone was of a bluish colour, imbedding
