p.

pike and as we came along by it, I rode
out to it, in company with several others, it
stands a half mile back from the road, a very
large, plain brick building, but put up with good
proportions, and good taste, - The grounds were laid
out very pretty, but the bathing house and the
artificial lake fed by a spring nearby, were
arranged in such a beautiful & systematic manner
as to elicit our admiration, but most of all, and
by far the most beautiful as well as [novel?] sight I
ever saw, was a little circular pond, perhaps twenty
feet in diameter, surrounded by a wall, rough
jagged, & picturesque, varying in heighth from
eighteen inches to ten feet built of stone
containing fossilated remains and specimens
of petrifactions, - the stones have been selected,
in the main, for their odd shapes, many of them
resembling, a head of some animal, and in one
case, a large stone on the highest part of the wall
bore a striking resemblance to a man, and all
these stone containing the fossil remains of some
animals, birds, insects, or fish, - while the rest
were still more interesting as being the most beau-
tiful specimens of petrifactions I ever saw, and
the greater part of these specimens were built into
cave in the center, and among the rest I saw
petrified fish, birds, serpents, - one of the latter that
was eight feet long, and almost perfect, - and what
was still more wonderful there was a negros head