In their progress, they passed the head of many small ravines, which
divided the hilly shores of the lake into deep furrows; these furrows had
once been channels, by which the waters of some upper lake (the site of
which is now dry land) had at a former period poured down into the valley,
filling the basin of what now is called the Rice Lake. These waters with
resistless course had ploughed their way between the hills, bearing in
their course those blocks of granite and limestone which are so widely
scattered both on the hill-tops and the plains, or form a rocky pavement at
the bottom of the narrow denies. What a sight of sublime desolation must
that outpouring of the waters have presented, when those steep banks were
riven by the sweeping torrents that were loosened from their former bounds.
The pleased eye rests upon these tranquil shores, now covered with oaks and
pines, or waving with a flood of golden grain, or varied by neat dwellings
and fruitful gardens; and the gazer on that peaceful scene scarcely
pictures to himself what it must have been when no living eye was there to
mark the rushing floods, when they scooped to themselves the deep bed in
which they now repose.
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