 A huge tannery ... poisons and blackens the stream with chemicals , bark and ooze . ... The once fine covers and thickets are converted into fields thickly dotted with blackened stumps . And , to crown the desolation , heavy laden trains of ' The Pine Creek and Jersey Shore R.R. ' go thundering [ by ] almost hourly ... Of course , this is progress ; but , whether backward or forward , had better be decided sixty years hence . 
