History of Western Maryland. J. Thomas Scharf
blocks, which join to attest the power of the forces that have snapped them apart and pitched their shattered fragments upon the buttresses below. This is a section full of delightful scenery, and beset with a multitude of surprises for the attentive eye. It abounds in objects of the weird and grotesque, and is quite unlike any other part of the great triassic framework to which it belongs. The great river itself spreads away in a silvery sheet through solitudes broken only at distant intervals by the lonely bird or the more fearless hunter or fisherman.
Montgomery County has an area of five hundred and eight square miles; it is the most southern of the counties included in the present notice, and possesses in an eminent degree those peculiarities of surface, soil, and climate which contribute to the health and prosperity of the inhabitants. It is about twenty-eight miles long from northwest to southeast, by about twenty-three miles wide on its northern boundary, and seventeen miles across its southern extremity. No mountain ranges actually exist within its limits, but, instead, the system of high hills known as Parr's Ridge crosses it diagonally a few miles from its northern border. The hills and plateaus already described occupy the chief parts of its surface, and serve to separate the numerous rivulets, branches, and creeks which so abundantly water almost all sections of its territory. Although large tracts of uncleared lands appear on the uplands and undulations next these water-courses, yet large farms have been cleared in most parts of the county, and others of even greater size form the larger part of the area in the more northern and central divisions. The upper part of the great plateau around Sandy Springs, which was originally but little better than a sandy waste, has been almost turned into a garden by the energy and intelligence of the inhabitants. An almost endless variety of soils appears as the different parts of the country are examined, and in nearly all the natural quality is well adapted to the purposes of agriculture. The northern and western portions are especially the home of the grasses and cereals; the warm hillsides promote the growth of the grape and fruit-trees; the small fruits succeed well on the more loamy and sandy depressions of the midlands and more southern sections, and in the bottoms the native bushes, flowering shrubs and plants form a varied and comprehensive collection.
In the expanded portions of the old beds of the creeks the decaying leaves and other vegetable matter, drifted down from the higher levels, joined to the washings brought down by freshets and overflows, has placed vast beds of humus and rich soil within easy reach of the florist and horticulturist. The more rocky streams are decorated by the kalmia, or common laurel, which grows in thickets between the gray rocks, in the loose, rich soil. In the spring the golden blossoms of the leatherwood, the sassafras, the clear lilac of the Houstonia, and the delicate pink of the Chiytonia add a cheerful brightness to the tender verdure of the open woods, while the advancing summer is made rich by the fragrant flowers of the magnolia and azaleas, the showy sepals of the dogwood, the clustering bloom of the snowy viburnum, the odor of the wild grape, and the splendor pf the native lily. The waters, too, are studded with the huge, fragrant rosettes of the pondlilies, and teem with the numerous varieties of pickerel plants, water plantains, arrow-heads, and a host of others too numerous to mention. Alders group themselves on the damp spots of the basins, the swamp-maples spread their broad limbs over the pools, and the greenbrier binds the crown of the bushes in a maze of perpetual green.
Between the mouth of the Monocacy River and Seneca Creek the brown sandstone hills were formerly covered with a luxuriant growth of the sugar-maple. An abundant supply of sugar was obtained from the trees, and this industry was one of great importance to the inhabitants. But now these forests are replaced by other kinds of trees, forming a later growth of uncommon variety. Chestnut, red, black, and other oaks, ash, hickory, elm, walnut, and, most of all, false locust grow in thick woods, set with a dense undergrowth of bushes, creepers, and grape-vines. At intervals, where the hills are eroded to near the water-level, wide lowlands stretch back into the country, the margins of which are occupied by large specimens of the sycamore, sour -gum, and occasionally the tulip-poplar. The vistas across these broad plains are broken here and there by low spurs of hills, which stand out like islands. These are usually wooded, fade out imperceptibly into the lowlands, and form a rich relief of dark color to the paler and yellower greens of the grasses and cereals of the wide-spreading fields. Usually the remote background, two or more miles away, is formed by higher hills of similar dark green, rendered more soft and blue by the distance, while in the interval are large farms of high culture, with excellent houses, immense barns, and numerous haystacks. Herds of cattle, groups of horses, and flocks of sheep have their appropriate places on the open undulations and in the meadows, giving a pleasant air of animation to the scene, and adding to the enjoyments of rural life. Milk is abundant, and the water is soft, pure, and plentiful. Little rills pursue their way in unbroken steadiness through these meadows, or burst with impetuosity from the rocky hillsides to plunge into the creeks beyond.
Much of the successful farming of this county has been due to the free use of lime. The soils being naturally sour, require the addition of this substance or plaster of Paris. Some of the farmers along the high-roads leading into the Frederick Valley, or near the line of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, transport the limestone to their farms, where they burn it in kilns, and then offer the surplus for sale to their neighbors. The stone is brought either from the western section of the red sandstone or from the valley of the Monocacy, in Frederick, and is partly of the variety known as calico-rock, or Potomac breccia.
The region around Brookville and the valley of Hawling's River have likewise been enriched by the intelligent use of lime. Although naturally thin, and being composed in part of the magnesian minerals derived from serpentine and talcose slates, they have been transformed into some of the richest and most productive lands in the county. The region west of this gradually changes into the ophiolite, or serpentine formation. It consists of a series of rounded hills, running from the ridge on which Damascus, Cracklintown, etc., are situated, and continued in sloping spurs towards the basin of the Patuxent River. This belt of country, which widens as it enters the county, proceeds southwestward, and maintains a breadth of about three miles, until it fades out before reaching the Potomac River. A wide strip of pine woods stretches along the greater part of its length, occupying a chain of low hills, on which the soil is the poorest and thinnest in the county.
The whole country is abundantly supplied with streams of water, which rise in the uplands, and stretch away towards the creeks and rivers by passing through the bottoms and around the hills. Five principal systems of drainage are found within its limits, — the Patuxent on the east, the northwest branch of the Potomac and Rock Creek on the south, Seneca Creek on the west, and the Monocacy on the northwest.
The Patuxent River rises in the corner of Parr's Ridge next to Howard County, in a region of high hills, very picturesque, and full of rugged rocks, disposed in almost endless variety. More than a dozen of its little tributary branches start from springs in the dark rocks, push their way in tortuous threads, as twisted as the arms of an octopus, leap over sharp bowlders, and whirl along as rapids in the wider gaps, until they have settled to a level low enough to unite with the waters in the deeper trough of the river. At first the river proper is a comparatively narrow creek, forcing its way into deep ravines between the hills, rushing violently through cracks in the rocks, and forming cascades by plunging from the bowlders which stand in its path. But after leaving the barriers west of Triadelphia it rapidly widens, and becomes a strong, full stream, running with great rapidity in a more steeply-cut channel. At occasional intervals it spreads (where the softer rocks have given way) into shallow basins, in the midst of a fine overgrowth of white and other oaks, and through almost impenetrable thickets of bushes, shrubs, and vines of various kinds. East of Sandy Spring the river has piled up for hundreds of feet back beyond its present channel vast areas of clay and reddish micaceous soil, which stand like cliffs and barriers on either side. From a remote period it has been the great sewer for the drainage of a large part of this and the adjoining (Howard) county.
During the great ice ages the amount of solid rock, in the form of bowlders, gravel, mineral paste, grit, and mud that it has contributed to the estuaries of the former Atlantic Ocean is only to be estimated by the enormous beds and deep deposits of these substances to be seen in crossing the counties of Prince George and Anne Arundel. Along the border of Montgomery County it can only be estimated as a broad, rapid creek; but at a distance of twenty-five miles south of this limit it becomes a large river, navigable for schooners and vessels