These long ranges of mountains run from north to south, and while it was easy to follow the valleys between them, it was hard to go across them from east to west or from west to east. Boston and all the chief towns of New England lay eastward, and the rest of the country was west of the mountains. If a Massachusetts family wished to settle in the fertile lands of western New York or Ohio, they had to cross the mountains. In our day the mountain region is full of towns and beautiful summer homes, but then it was a wilderness which in places was almost impassable. If it was difficult to make a single journey between the Connecticut river and the Hudson, it was quite out of the question to carry grain and fruit from the West to Boston, and to bring back in exchange the goods made in her factories. Near Pittsfield, in the heart of the Berkshires, rises the Westfield river, which has cut a deep valley eastward through the mountains. Opposite the place where this stream enters the Connecticut the beautiful city of Springfield has now grown up, partly on the low grounds and partly on a terrace. It is readily seen that the Westfield valley forms a natural roadway from here westward to Pittsfield, and on toward Albany and the Mohawk in New York. We cannot say that the valley was made for the cities, but the cities were made, in part at least, because the valley was there. [Illustration: FIG. 2. UNION RAILWAY STATION, SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS] The first roads that improved on the Indian trails were, of course, made for wagons. The gorge of the Westfield was so rugged that a hundred years ago it seemed almost impossible to make a good wagon road through it. There were some people, however, who thought that it could be done and who determined to do it. Their courage won, and before long there was a good highway all along the roaring river. The bowlders were rolled out of the way, the trees were cut, the roadbed was made, and people could go east and west in the stages without risk of losing their lives or even of breaking their bones. This was accomplished soon after 1825, but it did not solve all the problems of the Massachusetts people, for, as we shall soon learn fully, the Erie canal was finished in that year, and a long string of canal boats began to carry produce from the West to New York.