Left Albany under a lowering sky, with every indication of rain at 6:40 AM, via the Fast Mail. Changing cars at Utica, after a wait of forty minutes, which seemed like forty hours, we pulled out of the Looney City at 9:20, and arrived at Fulton Chain at 11:30.

Colder than h--- here. Our blue flannel shirts were most handy, and sweaters were donned for the trip over to Old Forge. We took the train for that jumping-off place when they got blame good and ready to start, and went bumpety-bump, clinkety-clank, over two miles of the worst road-bed God ever created, or allowed to be constructed. Fare, 25 cts. "N.M.T.", i.e. No Mileage Taken. The scenes of desolation and havoc wrought by the extensive lumbering operations between McKeever and Fulton Chain are indescribable. The country is practically stripped bare of all trees, save a few dead trunks and the smaller second growth and brush.