Here The View Discloses Vast Stretches Of Upland
Meadows, Orchards Of Cherry And Plum Trees, Old Stone Highways
That Lose Themselves In The Valleys To Appear Again Like Slender
Paths Where They Cross Some Distant Hill.
Old stone farm houses,
clusters of ruined villages, and as many as seven forts may be
seen from this commanding position.
A few miles distant rises
the almost impregnable fortress of Verdun whose round Roman
towers look down on the devastated region and seem to say, "They
shall not pass." Nature has given just as picturesque a setting
to many of her ancient fortified hills of the Western World,
whose crowning battlements speak of a different age and
architecture.
To the lofty parapets scattered throughout the southern part of
Ohio, the ferocious warrior of another age came for refuge or
lighted fires on their signal mounds to warn their people of an
approaching enemy. Here are forest trees growing upon their
sides said to be six hundred years old and rising from the
decomposed remains of others perhaps just as old. How long these
forts were used before the forests again reclothed them we have
no means of knowing. We cannot but wonder over the fate of this
forgotten race. What starving sieges, deeds of noble daring and
brave sorties these ancient walls must have known!
Here we found growing great masses of purple spiked loose-
strife. The deep purple flowers that closely cluster on the long
spikes give a rich glow to the lowlands. This flower we found
growing in abundance in New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and
Massachusetts. It is an importation from England. It is
remarkable as an example of trimorphism, the two sets of stamens
and pistil being of different lengths in the same flower. Every
pistil, in order to affect fertilization, must receive the
pollen from the same length in another flower. Professor Darwin
experimented with these flowers and wrote about them to Dr. Gray
"I am almost stark, staring mad over Lythrum. If I can prove
what I really believe, it is a grand case of trimorphism, with
three different pollens and three stigmas. I have fertilized
above ninety flowers, trying all the eighteen distinct crosses
which are possible within the limits of this one species. For
the love of heaven, have a look at some of your species, and if
you can get me some seed, do."
ROCKYFORD CAVES
Here in one of the most charming spots that Nature gave to this
scenic Ohio region dwelt a being - a wretch - by the name of
McKinney, the tales of whose terrible deeds recall the gruesome
acts of the days of the Inquisition or the horrible tortures of
the fierce Iroquois. In one of the caves embowered in this leafy
wilderness, where the rays of the noonday sun scarce ever fall
and there reigns perpetually a cavernous gloom, dwelt this bold
robber. Only the complaining water of a brook as it slipped over
the polished stones or the song of the birds broke the silence
of this solitude.
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