reliant passengers with a carpet-bag, umbrella.
Harper's Magazine, and other evidences of "Civi-
lization and Refinement," plodding along over the
road he had just ridden, vainly endeavoring to
find the settlement of Smith's Pocket.

An observant traveller might have found some
compensation for his disappointment in the weird
aspect of that vicinity. There were huge fissures
on the hillside, and displacements of the red
soil, resembling more the chaos of some primary
elemental upheaval than the work of man; while,
half-way down, a long flume straddled its narrow
body and disproportionate legs over the chasm,
like an enormous fossil of some forgotten ante-
diluvian. At every step smaller ditches crossed
the road, hiding in their sallow depths unlovely
streams that crept away to a clandestine union
with the great yellow torrent below, and here and
there were the ruins of some cabin with the
chimney alone left intact and the hearthstone open
to the skies.

The settlement of Smith's Pocket owed its
origin to the finding of a "pocket" on its site
by a veritable Smith. Five thousand dollars
were taken out of it in one half-hour by Smith.
Three thousand dollars were expended by Smith
and others in erecting a flume and in tunnelling.
And then Smith's Pocket was found to be only
a pocket, and subject like other pockets to deple-

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