The counties of Cattaraugus, Chautauque and Allegany, and part of
Wyoming and Steuben, constitute a kind of Switzerland. The surface of
the country resembles a piece of rumpled calico, full of knobs and
ridges and vallies, in all possible shapes and directions. It is on the
average elevated. Innkeepers and farmers encountered on two trips over
it, say that there is considerably more moisture in the shape of rain
and dews and fogs, than in the Genesee country. It is less valuable
for wheat, but good for corn, grass, and raising stock. Nothing can be
more picturesque. The hills are often cultivated to their very tops. It
is healthy. Such a region is a treasure in a State so level and placid
as much of western New-York; and had it the means of ready access to
markets, and to the Atlantic, it would, in a few years, be spotted
with gentlemen’s seats from the seaboard. There are some remarkable
examples of the east and west, and north and south fissures of rocks
(a trait also noted at Auburn,) in these counties. At one place, the
fissures are so wide, and the blocks of rock between so large, that
the spot is sometimes called CITY OF ROCKS. The rock here
is conglomerate, i. e. the bed of the coal formation; a fact which
denotes the elevation of the country. It is to be hoped, when this
country is further subdivided into counties and towns, that some of the
characteristic and descriptive names of the aborigines will be retained.