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1Author:  Hall James 1793-1868Requires cookie*
 Title:  Legends of the West  
 Published:  2006 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: The beautiful forests of Kentucky, when first visited by the adventurous footsteps of the pioneers, presented a scene of native luxuriance, such as has seldom been witnessed by the human eye. So vast a body of fertile soil had never before been known to exist on this continent. The magnificent forest trees attained a gigantic height, and were adorned with a foliage of unrivalled splendour. The deep rich green of the leaves, and the brilliant tints of the flowers, nourished into full maturity of size and beauty by the extraordinary fertility of the soil, not only attracted the admiration of the hunter, but warmed the fancy of the poet, and forcibly arrested the attention of the naturalist. As the pioneers proceeded step by step, new wonders were discovered; and the features of the country, together with its productions, as they became gradually developed, continued to present the same bold peculiarities and broad outlines. The same scale of greatness pervaded all the works of nature. The noble rivers, all tending towards one great estuary, swept through an almost boundless extent of country, and seemed to be as infinite in number as they were grand in size. The wild animals were innumerable. The forests teemed with living creatures, for this was the paradise of the brute creation. Here were literally “the cattle upon a thousand hills.” The buffaloe, the elk, and the deer roamed in vast herds, and all the streams were rich in those animals whose fur is so much esteemed in commerce. Here lurked the solitary panther, the lion of our region, and here prowled the savage wolf. The nutritious fruits of the forest, and the juicy buds of the exuberant thickets, reared the indolent bear to an enormous size. Even the bowels of the earth exhibited stupendous evidences of the master hand of creation. The great limestone beds of the country were perforated with spacious caverns, of vast extent and splendid appearance, many of which yielded valuable minerals; while the gigantic bones found buried in the earth, far exceeding in size those of all known animals on the globe, attested the former existence in this region, of brutes of fearful magnitude.
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