Just for fun, Hal Crane of Roseville, California (whose exploits we all enjoyed in Walter Walker’s On the Road in 1949 columns) sent along this riddle he composed in the form of a poem. Can you figure out what book Hal is referring to, and how the river got its name? Send your answers to the Beacon; we’ll publish Hal’s answers next month.

Blackwater

Blackwater; Blackwater!

Oh, river of my youth, how ominus your name!

And I can but wonder from whence it came.

For on your banks up near the Wilmot line,

In the old farmhouse that still proudly bears

Your name, as a boy I grew, and it was

Only clear water that I knew!

The answer lies in a book of history;

Visit there to solve this mystery.

And if to that book you go

Tell us why, that we all may know!