These falls are the largest in this State, and have a very
peculiar character. It seems as if water had had more power at some
former period than now, to hew and tear its passage through such an
immense ledge of rock as here withstood it. In this crag, or parts of
it, now far beyond the reach of the water, it has worn what are called
pot-holes,--being circular hollows in the rock, where for ages stones
have been whirled round and round by the eddies of the water; so that the
interior of the pot is as circular and as smooth as it could have been
made by art. Often the mouth of the pot is the narrowest part, the inner
space being deeply scooped out. Water is contained in most of these
pot-holes, sometimes so deep that a man might drown himself therein, and
lie undetected at the bottom. Some of them are of a convenient size for
cooking, which might be practicable by putting in hot stones.
The tavern at Shelburne Falls was about the worst I ever saw,--there
being hardly anything to eat, at least nothing of the meat kind. There
was a party of students from the Rensselaer school at Troy, who had spent
the night there, a set of rough urchins from sixteen to twenty years old,
accompanied by the wagon-driver, a short, stubbed little fellow, who
walked about with great independence, thrusting his hands into his
breeches-pockets, beneath his frock.
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