Excerpt from The Manse at Barren Rocks For long after the separation, it remained a country of narrow valleys and forbidding hills, little sought after and little desired. But when its timber found ready market, when the hidden lakes of oil were discovered and the long rich veins of coal were found, it became the point of interest for a type of keen and calculating mind. The promoter, the money-getters, hordes of self - seekers, invaded its territory, laid low the mighty trees and disem bowled the hills. It became a workshop, grimy, black, outraged. Ou the mountains the whine of the mills; in the valleys the clatter of drills, and everywhere the dust from the coal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.