Soon afterward this town was abandoned, and the savages wiped out what remained of it with fire. Presently a new settlement began, but shortly afterward suffered the fate of the first.

A short distance south of the town is Clark's Island, which has a curious legend of Captain Kidd. We are told that the pirate sailed up to this secluded spot, and he and his men brought on shore a heavy iron chest full of gold and jewelry and other precious loot. They dug a deep hole and lowered the chest into it. Then, in what was considered the proper old-fashioned pirate way, one of the crew was selected by lot, killed, and his body placed on top of the loose earth that had been thrown into the hole. His ghost was supposed to haunt the vicinity, and to forever guard the riches from audacious treasure-seekers.

From time to time, in the darkness of night when the gales howled, persons are said to have seen sailing up the stream a phantom ship, manned by a spectral crew, and commanded by a black-bearded ghost with the familiar features of Captain Kidd. Opposite the island the anchor was let go, and Kidd in a boat rowed by four sailors went ashore. After satisfying himself that the plunder was safe he returned to the ship and sailed down the river.

Some people doubt the whole story and ask how Captain Kidd ever navigated his ship up there past the rocky falls.

K

BERKSHIRE County sweeps straight across the

western end of Massachusetts. It is a district of

mountains and tumbled lesser heights, and, though one or two of its valleys are broad enough to give a sense of repose, even there the blue waves of the encircling hills

are constantly in sight. From the uplands the streams come coursing down the wooded glens, with here and there a foaming waterfall, and they go on through the valleys, still swiftly as a rule, but sometimes broadening into a pond or lake, and occasionally are set to work to turn the wheels of a mill.

It is one of the most attractive of New England resort regions, and portions of the county are famous as the summer

playground of millionnaires

from the great cities. In other parts farms predominate, some of them thrifty, and some of them

quite other

wise.

Balanced

Balanced Rock, which weighs one hundred and fifty tons, yet can be easily swayed by a man's weight

Rock is the county's greatest natural curiosity. This is reached by a pleasant drive northeasterly from Pittsfield. Its height is eighteen feet, its weight about one hundred and fifty tons, and it rests on one square foot of surface. Yet it is so evenly balanced as to be readily swayed by a man's weight.

In the northern part of the county is Greylock, 3500 feet high, the loftiest mountain in the state.

Some claim that it was named after an Indian chief of the vicinity. Others attribute the name to the mountain's appearance when the hoar-frost of autumn creeps downward from the summit, touching each dark evergreen with silver gray.

Near the base of Greylock is the busy manufacturing city of North Adams, on the outskirts of which is the western portal of the Hoosac Tunnel. The Hoosac mountain range separates the Connecticut Valley from the valley of the Hudson. It is many miles across, but at one point the Deerfield River flows at the very foot of the central ridge, and then goes on eastward to the Connecticut, thirty miles away. On the opposite side of the ridge the Hoosac River flows westward from the foot of the mountain wall, and the valleys of these two streams furnish an easy route for a railroad. Before the days of railroads the possibility was considered of tunnelling the mountain for a canal to furnish a direct avenue of easy grade between the West and Boston.

In 1842 a railroad was completed over the mountains farther south, but the grades were steep and difficult, and two years later work was begun on the Hoosac Tunnel. A great drilling machine that weighed seventy-five tons was used at first, but it soon broke down and was sold for old iron. Then, for a long time, the drilling was done by hand. Afterward a compressed air drill was invented which made the progress much more rapid. The men worked in re

lays of eight hours each, and there was no pause, day or night. When the work was in full swing the pounding of the drills, the rumbling of the cars carrying away the refuse, and the explosions made a noise in the narrow passage

that was terrific.

The drilling was carried on from both sides of the mountain, and the floor of each tunnel was slanted slightly upward to allow the water which came down constantly through the roof to flow away. A large amount of water still seeps

into the tunnel,

and the discharge at the west end is six hundred gallons a minute.

That the work might proceed more rapidly, a shaft was sunk from a hollow on the height to the level of the tunnel, a distance of over one thousand feet, and thence the excavating was pushed in both directions. So accurate were the engineers that the several passages joined with only a few inches discrepancy.