About ten o'clock
The river gurgles and murmurs and surges along over a bottom of boulders or lies restfully placid over a bottom of sand . In these pool-like reaches many large rocks , shaken from the mountain tops in ages past , lift their gray heads high above the water and give to the scene a touch of rugged grandeur . The water is so clear that the natives climb into the overhanging elms or sycamores , or lie peering down from a jutting rock and do their fishing with a Winchester . About ten o'clock the travelers crossed the Poor Fork and fifteen minutes later rode into Harlan Town ; and to the office of the company ; a three-story red brick building fronting the court house square . With the exception of a few counties in western Kentucky , no official survey was ever made of the state . In the unsurveyed portion grants for land issued by the Commonwealth varied in size from a few acres to as many as two hundred thousand ; and called for natural objects as beginning and boundary corners . The result of such a lax system was that often the same boundary was covered by several grants ; and the senior grant held the land .