a dam seventeen hundred feet in length, a saw-mill, >\arehouses, dwellings for workmen, &c. And in 1854 they completed a blast furnace near the upper village, at the head of Sandford Lake, at an expense of $43,000 (£8, GOO), capable of producing fourteen tons of iron a-day. They also built six heavy boats upon Sandford Lake, for the transportation of freight, and roads at an expense of §10,000 (£2,000). Altogether the proprietors spent nearly half a million of dollars, or £100,000,

Meanwhile the project of a railway from Saratoga to Sackett's Harbour, on Lake \ Ontario, to bisect the great wilderness, was conceived. A company was formed, and forty miles of the road were put under contract, and actually graded. It would pass within a few miles of the Adirondack

THE HUDSON.

Works, aucl it was estimated that, with a connecting branch road, the iron might be conveyed to Albany for two dollars a ton, and compete profitably witli other iron in the market. A plank road was also projected from Adirondack \-illagc to Preston Pouds, and down the Cold Eiver to the Eaquette, at the foot of Long Lake.

But the labour on the road was suspended, the iron interest of the United States became depressed, the Adirondack Works were rendered not only unprofitable, but the source of heavy losses to the owners, .and for five years their fires had been extinguished. In August, 1856, heavy rains in the mountains sent roaring floods down the ravines, and the Hudson, only a brook when we were there, was swelled to a mighty river. An upper dam at Adirondack gave way, and a new channel for the stream was cut, and the great dam at Tahawus, with the saw-mill, Avas demolished by the rushing waters. All was left a desolation. Over scores of acres at the head and- foot of Handford Lake (overflowed when the dam was constructed) we saw white skeletons of trees which had been killed by the flood, standing thickly, and heightening the dreary aspect of the scene.