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VIEWS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 WITH DESCRirTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 M. F. SWEETS ER. 
 
 PORTLAND : 
 C M I S H O L M BROTHERS. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S79, 
 By HUGH J. CHTSHOLM, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Wasliington. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 PART 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 HE object of this volume is to afford to visitors among the 
 White Mountains a souvenir of their grand scenery, as well as 
 to enable those who have not yet seen them to obtain an idea of 
 their exceeding majesty and beauty. In the snug houses on the 
 slopes of Beacon Hill and Murray Hill, when the blasts of win- 
 ter arc sweeping the darkened streets, and the family gathers around the 
 evening fireside, these views may serve to bring back the memories of past 
 days of summer gladness, and renew a thousand fading impressions of beauty 
 and delight. 
 
 In one respect at least, and that an important one, the pictures herein 
 contained are superior to any other collection of illustrations of the White 
 Mountains. They are in no way idealized or exaggerated, as is customary in 
 such works, but present faithful transcripts of the actual scenes as .painted by 
 the sun. They were printed by the heliotype process from photographs taken 
 from the objects themselves, and hence are as nearly accurate as it is possible 
 to have them. The impressions were made with printers' ink, and are as per- 
 manent as the letter-press ; so that the fidelity of a photograph is secured, with- 
 out its perishability. 
 
 It is also hoped that the descriptions appended to the pictures may be of 
 some value, as showing the localities of the various scenes, and their relations 
 to other points among the highlands. If ability and enthusiasm always went 
 together with equal step and parallel course (which they do not), these notes 
 would be not altogether unworthy of the objects that they commemorate, since 
 the writer has been for years an ardent lover of the mountains, and has explored 
 their highest and remotest peaks, and their deepest and most terrible ravines. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The White Mountains — an Introductory Sketch. 
 Mount Kiarsarge, from the North-Conway Intervales. 
 Mount Washington, from the North-Conway Intervales. 
 The Frankenstein Trestle. 
 The Willey-Brook Bridge. 
 Crawford Notch and Saco Valley. 
 Silver Cascade.. 
 
 The Gate of the Notch, and the Crawford House. 
 Jacob's Ladder, Mount-Washington Railway. 
 Lizzie Bourne's Monument. 
 The Glen House. 
 The Glen-Ellis Falls. 
 
 Mount Washington, from the Glen House. 
 Echo Lake, Franconia Notch. 
 
 The Franconia Notch, Echo Lake, and the Profile House. 
 The Profile, or Old Man of the Mountain. 
 The Flume. 
 
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 NTHONY TROLLOPE, the charming English novelist and 
 delineator of life in the old cathedral-towns, once frankly con- 
 fessed that he had a vague idea that the White Mountains were 
 a sort of link between the Rocky Mountains and the Allegha- 
 nies, inhabited by Mormons, Indians, or black bears ; and then 
 goes on to say, "That there was a district in New England 
 containing mountain-scenery snperioj' to much that is yearly crowded by tour- 
 ists in Europe y that this is to be reached with ease by railways and stage- 
 coaches, and that it is dotted with huge hotels almost as thickly as they lie 
 in Switzerland, I had no idea." 
 
 This region, which already enjoys a transatlantic fame, covers an area of 
 over twelve hundred square miles, bounded in a large way by the lake-country 
 of New Hampshire on the south, and the Connecticut Valley on the west and 
 north. The eastern limits are less easily determined, since the mountain sys- 
 tem of Maine is interlocked with the^ northern White Mountains, and stretches 
 away to the north-east for over a hundred miles. The Edinburgh encyclo- 
 pedist, indeed, calls Mount Katahdin the eastern outpost of the range; but the 
 peaks in Maine are in semi-detached groups, separated by wide valleys, and so 
 remote in the wilderness that they are seldom visited by tourists. The White 
 Mountains, as regarded by unscientific persons (and map-makers as well), stop 
 at the border of Maine. 
 
 Although actually nearer the equator than Mont Blanc is, and on the 
 same parallel as Bordeaux, Bologna, Genoa, and Belgrade, the climate of this 
 region is much more severe than that of Switzerland at the same altitudes, 
 and the alpine region is encountered at lower levels. If the summit of Mount 
 Washington were two thousand feet higher, it would be covered with perpetual 
 snow, even in the face of the summer sun of America. As it is, the snow- 
 banks remain about the head of Tuckerman's Ravine throughout June and 
 
The White Motmtains. 
 
 July, hundreds of feet long, and in their lower parts hardened into glacial ice. 
 The sudden changes of temperature thus induced between points but a few 
 miles apart give rise to astonishing varieties in the fauna and flora of the 
 region, which have deeply interested the botanists and entomologists of adja- 
 cent States, and called forth their careful study. The sumptuous volumes 
 recently published by the State of New Hampshire, under the direction of Pro- 
 fessor Hitchcock, contain minute descriptions of* the plants and insects found 
 upon the highlands, with the fullest details of the geology and climatology 
 thereof. The flora is that of the Canadian division, as distinguished from the 
 Alleghanian division, which stops at Lake Winnepesaukee and North Conway ; 
 and its chief members are the pines and cedars, darkening the mountain- 
 • slopes; the maples, birches, and oaks, enriching the autumnal landscape with 
 most glorious color ; and the elms, which so adorn the meadows of Conway 
 and Lancaster. Ferns and flowers of great variety ornament the glens, and 
 infinite quantities of delicious berries are found on the ridges. There are fifty 
 species of alpine plants, which are found nowhere in New England save on 
 these highlands: and a careful writer on the subject has said, **The wind- 
 swept summits of our White Mountains are to the botanist the most interesting 
 locality east of the Mississippi ; for there are found the lingering remnants of 
 a flora once common, probably, to all New England, but which, since the close 
 of the glacial epoch, has, with few exceptions, retreated to Arctic America." 
 
 The geological history of the district is very interesting, and has been 
 recorded by some of the foremost scientific men in America and England. 
 Floods of molten rock have poured over the country, level as a lake, hotter 
 than Phlegethon, and hardening into va^t areas of granite. Centuries, or it 
 may have been hundreds of centuries, later, the ocean swept its blue tides 
 around the bases and far up into the passes of the mountains, leaving there its 
 sedimentary rocks and marine fossils to bear testimony to the great invasion. 
 The White Mountains were a group of islands, on whose rocky shores the 
 ancient sea broke, carving the record of its victory as legibly as Trajan in- 
 scribed his triumphs on the Iron Gates of the Danube. Next came the glacial 
 age, when New Hampshire suftered the climate and possessed the appearance 
 of Greenland, buried under thousands of feet of ice, a huge pall of death, 
 enduring for centuries, and slowly moving toward the south with irresistible 
 force. 
 
 Out of all these convulsions Nature at last wrought her perfect work, and 
 prepared the land for the dwelling of man. He, in turn, began a career of 
 improving and changing the face of the hills, and governing their life. The 
 
The White Mountains. 
 
 wolf and the mountain-lynx, once so common here, are now as extinct as the 
 dodo, or as the luckless Indians whose wigwams arose by the corn-fields on 
 the intervales. The echoes of the rangers' rifles have been taken up by the 
 roar of blasting-powder, opening pathways for commerce and travel through 
 the dark defiles ; and this, in turn, is replaced by the long screech of locomo- 
 tives storming up the slopes. 
 
 Every surveying-party which returns to Washington from the Far West 
 brings tidings of some new region of natural wonders, stupendous mountains, 
 dizzy gorges, thunderous waterfalls, until at last we have surpassed the Alps, 
 and emulate the Caucasus. Some one once called the White Mountains 
 *' the Switzerland of America," and the foolish phrase has since been on 
 every lip. It is not quite clear why we should have a "Switzerland of 
 America" (at least until the Revue dcs Deux Mondes finds a "Yo-Semite 
 of Europe ") ; but, if the phrase must be used, it belongs to the Sierra Nevada, 
 or the Snowy Range of Colorado. 
 
 The chief mountain-resort of America, however, will remain in New 
 Hampshire for many decades, whatever superior attractions the Western 
 lands may develop, because the largest cities of the continent are within a 
 day's ride, and hundreds of populous towns are almost within sight. Several 
 first-class railroads reach the edge of the district, and one of them penetrates 
 it from side to side, affording the best opportunities for reaching the sweet 
 l)astoral villages of the plains or the dark glens beyond. From these grand 
 routes stage-roads and turnpikes stretchr away in other directions, and logging- 
 roads enter the deep woods. These, in turn, interlace with scores of paths cut 
 through the forests and upon the mountains by the hotel-keepers and villagers, 
 for the sole object of making easy the ways to scenes of grandeur and beauty. 
 The Appalachian Mountain Club has had several important paths constructed 
 of late years, devising their routes with great skill, and directing them upon 
 noble view-points. Within the region thus developed there are nine hotels 
 of the first class, accommodating from" three hundred to five hundred guests 
 each ; a score or more of second-class houses ; and hundreds of boarding- 
 houses, varying in pretensions, from the well-supplied pensions of North Con- 
 way and Bethlehem to the old-fashioned farm-houses of the hill-people. The 
 villages just mentioned can accommodate more than twelve hundred guests 
 each at one time ; and the hamlets of Gorham, Campton, Lancaster, Fran- 
 conia, Conway, Jefferson Hill, and Jackson, have quarters for many hundreds 
 more All tastes and purses may now be suited in the wide variety which 
 ran-es from the palatial luxuries of the great hotels at five dollars a day 
 
The White Mountains, 
 
 to the antique simplicity of the sequestered farm-houses at five dollars a week. 
 There is also every variety of scenery here, amid which the summer loiterer 
 may find the charms most congenial to his spirit, or combine their varying 
 beauties in a rich contrast of effects. Does he seek the sweet and reposeful 
 contiguity of emerald meadows, dotted with most exquisitely shaped trees, 
 and overlooked by distant blue peaks? — then let him find out Fryeburg on 
 the east, nestling by the fair and fruitful intervales of the Saco ; or Lancaster 
 on the west, the queen of the upper Connecticut Valley. Must he have blue 
 waters of highland lakes to mirror the mountain-forms while he floats over 
 the liquid crystal in some dainty little boat, deriding Fahrenheit.'^ — let him 
 seek Centre Harbor, on many-islanded Winnepesaukee ; or the lonely inn 
 which looks down upon the reflection of the proud purple peak of Chocorua, 
 in the lake below ; or the beautiful tarns higher up in the hill-country, at 
 the bases of the main ranges. Does he crave the most poetic and fasci- 
 nating view of the great group of peaks, seen C7i famillc, and at such a dis- 
 tance, that all their ruggedness and savagery are replaced by soft veiling tints 
 and rare atmospheric effects.^ — such grace he shall find at North Conway 
 and Bethlehem, Shelburne and Jefferson Hill, and, better than all others, at 
 Sugar Hill. Nor should he forget Bethel, the ancient hamlet by the Andros- 
 coggin ; and Campton, viewing the grand Sandwich peaks up the Mad-River 
 Valley; and Littleton, commanding such glorious vistas from her inwalling 
 hills. But the majority of travellers prefer to come into the immediate pres- 
 ence of the highest mountains, to face their frowning cliffs, be overshadowed 
 by their immense ridges, and hear the music of their white cascades. For 
 these there is Jackson, lifting its little church-spire in a wild and solitary 
 glen ; Waterville, hemmed in by lofty and noble peaks and solemn ridges ; 
 the Glen House, in face of the Presidential Range ; the Profile House, 
 surrounded by the rarest curiosities of nature ; and the Crawford and Fabyan 
 Houses, overlooked by the supreme summits of the highlands. In such a 
 delightful region, who can go amiss ? 
 
MOUNT KIARSARGE. FROM THE NORTH- 
 CONWAY INTERVALES. 
 
 BOUT a mile south of North Conway stands the ancient inn 
 which is kept by John McMillan, overarched by magnificent 
 trees, and drawing its long wings back from the road in rural 
 and baronial seclusion. Below it the most beautiful of the 
 Conway meadows sweep away towards the Saco, dotted with 
 vase-like elm-trees, — the pride of our American flora, — and 
 traversed by winding footpaths which seek the shores of the stream. The 
 l)icture attests how charming is the view from these rambles, where the rich 
 and narrow plains, the inimitably graceful trees, the limpid flowing river, and 
 the high blue mountains beyond, compete for the admiration of the true seer, 
 and form endlessly changing arrangements of form and color. These meadows 
 have often been likened to English parks, so finished is their beauty. 
 
 The great Kiarsarge House and the white buildings of North Conway 
 gleam here and there through the trees ; and over them rises the graceful and 
 symmetrical Mount Kiarsarge, the queen of the Saco Valley, crested with its 
 weather-beaten old hotel. As the rambler moves onward down the grassy 
 l)ath, now the i)allid ledges of the fortress-like Moat Mountain come in view, 
 or the red spires of legend-haunted Chocorua, or the far-away line of the Presi- 
 tlential Range, closing along the northern horizon. There are others who 
 prefer the solemn stillness of the Cathedral Woods, north of the village, where 
 the silence is cadenced by the sighing of the wind through the tops of the 
 tall trees, and the air is filled with the perfume of innumerable pines. To 
 the south are the luxuriant forests which surround Artist's Falls, and surge up 
 along the slopes of the Green Hills; and beyond the river are the falls and 
 lakelets and cliffs which environ Moat Mountain. 
 
 The Indian village of Auket, which stood on a peninsula by the Saco, a 
 mile or two from the present village, has vanished utterly; and now a line of 
 hotels occupies the terrace over the intervales. So manifold are the charms 
 of the place, that thousands of people sojourn here every summer in spite of 
 the heat, the sand, and the railroads, and enjoy the manifold rambles in the 
 vicinity ; for no other White-Mountain village has such a number and variety 
 of environing attractions. Year by year stately country-houses and pretty 
 villas are being erected in the vicinity ; and the time may come when North 
 Conway shall have added to her other attractions the scrupulous neatness and 
 dainty finish of Stockbridge or Lucerne, and regained her ancient pre eminence 
 amon^r the mountain-resorts of America. 
 
MOUNT WASHINGTON, FROM THE NORTH- 
 CONWAY INTERVALES. 
 
 'HE most beautiful and artistic view of the lofty crest of Wash- 
 ington is obtained from the smiling meadows where the Saco 
 River emerges from the mountain-region, rolling its sinuous 
 silver flood between the tall portals of Moat Mountain and the 
 Green Hills. The shaggy lines of the adjacent heights flow 
 downward to the bright valley in long and graceliil curves, and 
 form a noble framework for the majestic peaks in the North, which loom up- 
 ward through the dreamy air like a vast earth-wave, dominated by the Alpine 
 hamlet about the Summit House. The profound ravines are hidden, and the 
 high peaks and sharp aiguilles are apparently merged in the great mass behind 
 tliem ; so that the Presidential Range looks down on the Conway glens with a 
 gentle and benignant mien, as if to tempt the advances of the mountain-lovers, 
 and to woo them from the sweet delights of the elm-sprinkled plains. It is 
 this rai-e pros[)ect, in which the wondrous highlands are combined with a deli- 
 cious foreground, that has made North Conway famous, and has caused an 
 obscure farming-hamlet to develop into the great summer-resort of to-day. 
 
 In ever-varying forms the views are obtained from scores of points in and 
 about the vihage ; but the favorite location for the east^ls of the artists is on the 
 eastern bank of the Saco, not far from the bridge, and countless interpretations 
 of the great silent poem of creation have been recorded there. In the fore- 
 ground the mountain-born river flows smoothly downward, blue, or silver, or 
 gray, in the changing moods of the sun and sky, and lapsing along pebbly 
 beaches and under overhanging trees, with clear and crystalline waters which 
 are almost as transparent as New-England air. Up this shining pathway the 
 eye swiftly travels, and over a fringe of deep-green woods, until it rests upon 
 the long walls of the Great Range, dappled, it may be, with snow, or coiffed 
 with clouds ; inwrapped with gold by the morning sun, deep-blue under the 
 shadows of late afternoon, or gray and black when storms are breaking along 
 the ridge. On a calm and tranquil day of midsummer, when the land is bask- 
 ing in\land sunshine, the scene has a placid, idyllic beauty, such as Gains- 
 bon)ugh would have rejoiced in ; and scores of summer-loiterers visit the 
 river-side to see the tender blue of the mountain-walls rise upward, as if "in 
 distance and in dream." In October, the moon of red leaves, the scene is 
 indescribably lovely, combining its vivid colors and grand outlines under the 
 magic light which falls through the clear autumnal air, — that "exquisite bright 
 light air"" which Charles Dickens regarded as peculiar to New England. 
 
THE FRANKENSTEIN TRESTLE. 
 
 HK line of the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad, north of Bemis 
 Station, crosses the bright brook which descends from the Are- 
 thusa Falls, and then traverses a series of cuts in the rocky 
 flank of Mount Nancy. Suddenly the train emerges from the 
 last of these trenches, and seems to leap boldly out into the 
 air over a deep ravine which yawns below, flying at the face 
 of the Frankenstein Cliff beyond. The amazed traveller, looking dow^nward 
 from the car-window, sees beneath a graceful and slender bridge supported 
 on web-like iron piers which rise from the floor of the gorge, nearly eighty 
 feet below. The train flies for five hundred feet over this mid-air path, and 
 then moves on to the substantial foundations beyond. 
 
 Ex'cn this silent and solitary region has its romantic fables and its 
 enchanted glens. One of the weirdest and most beautiful of the many Indian 
 legends which pertain to the White Hills is that relating to the mystery of 
 the Great Carbuncle, whose existence has been firmly believed in, within less 
 than a century, by the yeomen of Western Maine. Hawthorne has used this 
 theme as the basis of one of his inimitable "Twice-Told Tales," introducing 
 the Lord de Vere, Doctor Cacaphodcl, and Master Ichabod Pigsnort, among 
 the seekers for the marvellous gem. The. most ancient traditions tell that this 
 ol)ject of such great desires was hidden in the glen of Dry (or Mount-Wash- 
 ington) River, which debouches into the Saco nearly opposite Frankenstein 
 Cliff, whence it flashed its baleful light far over the lowlands, startling the 
 rangers in their lonely night-camps, or arousing the pioneer farmers sleeping 
 in their log-huts in the Saco Valley. One of the old chronicles quaintly 
 says, " Hearing that a glorious carbuncle had been found under a large shelv- 
 ing rock, difficult to obtain, placed there by the Indians, who killed one of 
 their number that an evil spirit might haunt the place, wc went up Dry River 
 with guides, and had with us a good man to lay the evil spirit ; but returned 
 sorely bruised, treasureless, and not even saw that wonderful sight." 
 
 Near the head of the same ravine one of the- ancient hunters who dwelt 
 among these hills claimed to have found two immense ledges, so overlaid 
 with pure diamonds that their intense light blinded him. He carried out 
 such bits as could be broken away, and sold them for a great price ; but 
 neither he nor the adventurous seekers who followed his track could ever find 
 the treasure again. Occasionally a hardy fisherman enters the glen in our 
 day, and returns with stores of shining trout, and mayhap a handful of glit- 
 tering quartz-crystals. 
 
THE WILLEY-BROOK BRIDGE. 
 
 IIK Willcy Brook flows out of the wild and narrow ravine 
 between Mount Willard and Mount Willey, and descends rapid- 
 ly, through a tangled wilderness of rocks and trees, to the Saco 
 River. Where the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad claims a 
 passage over the gorge the engineers have constructed a grace- 
 ful bridge, which spans the grim depths eighty-five feet above 
 the brook. In the centre is a ponderous pier of the local granite, laid in 
 cement, and separating the two sections, — one of which is a wooden trestle; 
 while the other is an iron-decked bridge, a riveted lattice girder of a trape- 
 zoidal cross-section, and a clear span of one hundred and forty feet. This beau- 
 tiful work was made in Buffalo, and will doubtless be prolonged over the chasm 
 now covered by the trestle. 
 
 Across this apparently delicate and fragile structure of spun threads of 
 iron, which appears from a distance like a mere cobweb, thousands on thou- 
 sands of heavy trains have rushed, filling the ravine with deep-voiced echoes 
 and roarings, but leaving no wreckage within its rocky depths. What a mar- 
 vellous achievement is this line of railroad, which has cut for itself a shelf 
 leagues long upon the face of the high cliffs, and allows its passengers to look 
 (lown upon the dark glens far below as the bird gazes from mid-flight upon the 
 jilains beneath! There are bridges seemingly as perilous as the Oriental Al- 
 Sirat, above shadowy ravines ; long embankments, over which the cars boom 
 upward through the forest; and broad curves, around which the line swings 
 closely, to follow the trend of the ridges. 
 
 This section of the route has been likened by some travellers to the Italian 
 railroad which crosses the Apennines from Bologna to Florence. But this is 
 surely an excess of eulogy : for the American route has only the striking features 
 of a wild and savage grandeur ; while the other unites to these the superb and 
 really notable finish of the road-bed and bridges, the views afar over Tuscan 
 plains, and the presence of the weird forests of the peninsular ranges. More 
 resemblance may be found between our road and the line which pierces the 
 Jura Mountains between Pontarlier and Lausanne, where the manifold beau- 
 ties of the northern cantons are unchilled by the glaciers towards Savoy. 
 
THE WHITE-MOUNTAIN NOTCH, FROM 
 ELEPHANT'S HEAD. 
 
 NE of the most impressive views in the White Mountains, or, 
 on the authority of Bayard Taylor and Anthony Trollope, in 
 any land of peaks and passes, is that which is enjoyed from 
 the summit of Mount Willard, easily accessible by a carriage- 
 road from the Crawford House, and of inconsiderable height. 
 The profound gulf of the Notch stretches away to the south, 
 flanked by proud and picturesque mountain-forms, carpeted with ancient forests, 
 and terminated by the glorious purple peak of Chocorua. From such simple 
 and yet grandiose elements as these is formed a prospect which overflows 
 with sublimity, and fills the heart of the beholder with amazement and awe. 
 
 Somewhat similar to this famous view, though less vast, and hence better 
 ada|)ted for pictorial representation, is the outlook from Elephantis Head, the 
 great rock on the east of the Gate of the Notch. Here the pass seems to 
 be inwalled by the huge mass of Mount Webster on the left and the cliffy 
 sides of Mount Willard on the right, with Mount Willey beyond, sloping 
 away to the long plateau which infolds Ethan's Pond, and is overlooked by 
 the blue swells of Mount Nancy. Houses or clearings there are none: the 
 road is hidden under the overarching woods ; and even the Saco is invisible, 
 and Its presence is attested only by the murmur of falling waters. The vague 
 grandeur of the scene would have delighted Turner; its savage wildness would 
 have charmed the pencil of Salvator Rosa. 
 
 But in the very centre of the picture the rocks are seen rent apart as 
 if by some terrible convulsion of Nature ; and between them are the firm and 
 curving lines of a railway, whose prolonged grades are indicated by the level 
 galleries on the slopes beyond, even to the foot of the pass. In one of his 
 great paintings of Eden-like Italian scenery Poussin placed a solemn monu- 
 mental tomb,^ on which he inscribed, Et in Arcadia ego. In like discordant 
 manner the genius of our age has introduced into this quondam Arcadia of 
 the wolf, the bear, and the^ mountain-lynx, its firmly-drawn hieroglyphs of 
 iron, marking, however, the advent of a new and thrilling life. The galleys 
 of Tyre and the triremes of Rome have passed away, the Appian and Fla- 
 minian Ways have been reclaimed by the thickets and groves of Nature, and 
 the diligences of Montaigne's day are as obsolete as Trajan's chariots. The 
 Spirit of Steam has made of the oceans mere ferry-tracks, and of the moun- 
 tains beds of grading-material ; and sends its fiery coursers alike through the 
 Sierra Nevada'and the valley of the Euj^hrates, along the plains of Peshawur 
 and the South-Sea strand of New Zealand. 
 
Vhk Silver Cascade 
 
THE SILVER CASCADE. 
 
 T seems that the purple cliffs of Mount Willard, the deep-green 
 slopes of Clinton, and the brilliant plaids of Webster, were not 
 enough to fill Nature's scheme of color ; and so she added the 
 clear and flashing beauties of the Silver Cascade, which lightens 
 up the comparative gloom of the heavy Notch-walls. The brook 
 takes its rise up very near the summit of Mount Webster, on 
 the lonely plateau from which the square-sided rocky peak of Mount Jackson 
 rises like a forgotten altar of the giants. Skilful climbers have clambered up 
 the bed of the stream, breathless and bruised, but with many a noble retro- 
 spect, until they have reached the summit of Webster, and looked down into 
 the vast bowl of the Notch, and across on the keen aiguille of Mount Wdley. 
 
 The Arcthusa Falls, a little way farther down the Notch, and separated 
 from the road by a single (but difficult) mile, leap clearly over the impending 
 edge of a cliff a hundred and seventy-six feet high; but the Silver Cascade 
 avoids ])lunging, save for short distances, and contents itself with gliding and 
 sliding over the polished surfaces of the long inclined ledges, with occasional 
 rests in deep pools of beryl tint, surrounded by curbings of mossy rocks, and 
 canopied by the bending boughs of forest-trees. Thus, within a mile of 
 advance, the stream ' descends more than a thousand feet, decorating Mount 
 Webster with a bar-dexter argent, visible from miles away down the Notch, 
 As it nears the road, the lapsing water makes a direct plunge of twenty feet, 
 over a mimic cliff, with a great noise and commotion; and then hides itself in 
 a deep flume which it has worn in the ledges, and darts under the bridge on the 
 Tenth New-Hampshire Turnpike, a mile from the sybaritic cloisters of the 
 Crawford House. 
 
 In dry weather, this locality should be visited to study what the brook has 
 (lone, —the wide lane cut through the forest, the sculptured rocks, the flume 
 and basins. After heavy rains, the falling waters cover all these things with a 
 mantle of silvery sheen, and form a long column of glancing white light, reach- 
 ing almost to the thickets on the mountain's brow. 
 
'I'liK (Iatk ()!■ inK NoicH, AND rnK Crawford House. 
 
THE RAILWAY CUT AT THE GATE OF THE 
 
 NOTCH. 
 
 OW changed are the conditions since Darby Field spent eigh- 
 teen days of arduous marching to reach the top of Mount 
 Washington from Portsmouth, and Dr. Belknap's party pain- 
 fully traversed the Pinkham Notch on horseback at the rate 
 of a mile and a half an hour! Now the traveller may breakfast 
 at Boston or Portland, and take his supper at the Summit 
 House, having passed the intermediate hours reclining among the cushions of a 
 palace-car. P'or such conveniences as these we may forgive the railroads even 
 so great a sacrilege as the mutilation of the Conway meadows, since through 
 their agency this region of manifold delights has been made known to hundreds 
 of thousands of travellers, and now numbers far more visitors than North 
 Wales or the Trosachs. 
 
 The route from Portland to the borders of New York and Canada runs 
 through the very heart of the mountain-district, and reaches its highest level 
 not far from the Crawford House, where the rails are nearly 1,900 feet above 
 the sea. A short distance to the south is the Gate of the White-Mountain 
 Notch, that remarkable phenomenon, which is so conspicuously seen from the 
 front of the Crawford House, with the long flanks of Mounts Willard and Jack- 
 son sloping their green escarpments down to the precipitous sides of the open- 
 ing. At this point the engineers had great difficulty in locating their route ; 
 and, rather than attempt the sharp curves and cuttings necessary to carry the 
 line by Dismal Pool and through the narrow pass beyond, they directly 
 attacked the adamantine rock of Mount Willard, and cut their way through 
 at enormous expense. Thus a second gate was formed, separated from the 
 old one by a massive pier of rock, and giving free passage to the frequent and 
 ponderous trains of the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad. The passage 
 of the White-Mountam Notch by this great iron highway was a victory of 
 science, and merits the erection of a trophy, like Napoleon's Simplon Arch, in 
 the very heart of the Crystal Hills. 
 
 During the summer, every train on this section of the line is provided with 
 one or more observation-cars with open sides, from which clearer views can 
 be obtained than from ordinary passenger-cars, while the cool and refreshing 
 breezes are not barred out by envious windows. Of late years, also, a new 
 source of pleasure has been found by the dwellers in the Eastern cities in 
 forming "autumn-leaf parties," which follow this route to observe the pano- 
 ramic glories of the hill-country, emblazoned with the richest sunset hues, and 
 enriched by the most gorgeous and fascinating contrasts of colors. 
 
1 
 
JACOB'S LADDER, ON THE MOUNT-WASH- 
 INGTON RAILWAY. 
 
 S the train ascends the long slope of the mountain, its progress 
 is so slow, that the traveller can comprehend and enjoy the 
 varying and ever-widening landscapes below, where glens and 
 plains and far-away peaks burst into view, one after the other, 
 while the great ravine called the Gulf of Mexico falls away 
 into silent and sunless depths close beside. About a mile 
 above the sea-level the track runs out on a high and massive trestle, the steep- 
 est part of the ascent, where, for every yard that the train advances, it must rise 
 also a foot. 0\'er the low crags of Mount Clay the cold east wind breaks, and 
 agitates the dark patches of undergrowth below, ccJiclonncd about the head of 
 the Gulf of Mexico. Slowly the quaint little engine pushes the train upward 
 over a line of timbered piers heavy enough to uphold the monster locomotives 
 which roar through the Raton Pass, while a sixfold system of checks is ready 
 to bring it to a halt at any moment. The dense foliage of the forests below ceases 
 here, and gives place to lichen-covered rocks, between which peep clumps of saxi- 
 frage and reindeer-moss, the vegetation of Labrador and Lapland. Within an 
 hour the train has run from the temperate zone to the frigid zone. During 
 the remainder of the ascent, which is more gradual, the desolation increases, 
 the rocks assume an ancient and storm-worn appearance, and the horizon con- 
 tinually grows wider and more inspiring, until at last the superb and heart- 
 stirring prospect includes points in five States and the northern viceroyalty. 
 
 The jxith over which the tourists of forty years ago slowly toiled, while 
 the horn of T^ibyan sounded in the clouds above, made a sharp ascent near 
 the present railway-trestle ; and the men of that day, still tinctured with the 
 Puritanism of the morning era, ere yet (as Lowell saith) New England had 
 become New Ireland, named this skyward ascent Jacob's Ladder, as if, per- 
 chance, the angels of God might have been seen by the eye of faith ascend- 
 ing and descending thereon. This quaint title has latterly been appropriated 
 to the trestle, over which the toiling trains lift from six to eight thousand 
 easy-going travellers every year. Up the heights, which seem impassable to 
 even an Ariel, lightest of airy spirits, the ponderous locomotive moves onward 
 with its convoy of crowded cars through and above the clouds, until it stands 
 upon the crest which even the icebergs of the glacial age respected and stood 
 aloof from. Only twenty years have passed since it was proposed by the 
 legislators of New Hampshire, when a daft and impractical inventor asked for 
 a charter to build this railroad, to so amplify the terms of the charter, that 
 he might extend his track to the moon. 
 
LIZZIE BOURNE'S MONUMENT. 
 
 HK summer tourist, hoisted to the main-top of New England by 
 a steam-elevator, and descending on the other side over a broad 
 white road, borne breezily down in a comfortable carriage, can 
 scarcely realize, that, to many a doomed soul, this peak has 
 been as terrible as Sinai, and as accursed as Ebal. Some of 
 these have been saved as by miracle ; and others, wandering 
 upward over vague paths, lost, chilled, and panic-stricken, have breathed their 
 lives out into the frost-clouds, and left their bones on the cold black rocks. 
 Had such tragic scenes happened among the Scottish or Rhenish mountains, 
 they would have invested the fatal peak with a new and unfading charm of 
 pathos ; but in our more active life, where the front ranks are always full and 
 advancing, they are well-nigh forgotten within a twelvemonth. 
 
 Yet the story of the death of Miss Lizzie Bourne can never pass out of 
 memory, and is known to all who enter the New-Hampshire highlands. She 
 rambled up the mountain, one bright September afternoon in 1855, with her 
 uncle and cousin, and was tempted to try the ascent to the Summit House. 
 The twilight came down, and with it a cloud of frosty mist, pierced by terrible 
 winds : the path was lost ; the benighted climbers became weary, bruised, and 
 panic-stricken ; and at last Miss Bourne sank down in exhaustion, and died 
 within a few hours. All that night the survivors watched by her body; and at 
 morning they saw (oh the pity of it !) that their fatal bivouac had been made 
 within five hundred feet of the Summit House, where they might have found 
 relief and warmth and life. On the place made thus sadly famous a rude 
 cairn of stones was raised, and still remains, to remind the passengers on the 
 railway what terrors once surrounded this huge dark peak. Throughout the 
 long winters the frost decorates the monument with its rarest beauties of 
 feathery forms, as if in eternal penitence for its fatal attack ; and the black pile 
 is converted into a magnificent mausoleum white as Carrara marble, and 
 carved by the wind into forms as delicate as ever issued from the studios of 
 Florence. 
 
THE GLEN HOUSE. 
 
 HO does not remember Raskin's fervid diatribe against the 
 route-builders in a certain favorite British glen, wherein he 
 says, "You enterprised a railroad through the valley, you 
 blasted its rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into 
 its lovely stream. The valley is gone, and the gods with it " ? 
 There remains but one great hotel in the White Mountains 
 where the grand master of St. George's Company could find congenial repose, 
 out of hearing of the locomotive-whistle ; and that is the Glen House, far up in 
 the Pinkham Notch, at the western base of the Presidential Range. It stands 
 in a region of quiet beauties, white cascades, bright pools in sunlit streams, 
 venerable forests, and wonderful ravines, where the lone peabody-bird's cry 
 pierces the silence with the most weird and mournful of sounds, and the bright 
 mountain-trout dart through the translucent waters of the rills. In front of 
 the white hotel is the majestic line of the Presidential Range ; and behind it 
 rise the heavy ridges of the Carter and Wild-Cat mountains, bristling with 
 almost impassable forests, and rarely visited even by the most enthusiastic 
 ali)estrians. On every side is the highest grandeur of the Crystal Hills, pre- 
 eminent over every other phase of Nature's display, whether in waving leaf, 
 or laughing water, or verdant meadow; yet, while overpowering these by im- 
 posing immensity, sweetly influenced and adorned by their humbler charms. 
 
 No hotel in the mountain-region is so secluded as the Glen, which can be 
 api)roached only by several miles of stage-coach riding. The narrow thread 
 of light running against the right edge of our picture represents the road to 
 North Conway, twenty miles away ; that to the left, close to the hotel, reaches 
 Gorham in eight miles ; and the curving track which strikes toward the lower 
 right corner is the road to the top of Mount Washington, eight miles distant, 
 and nearly a mile overhead. Here, in the heart of the wilderness, rises the 
 temple of Hygeia, 1,632 feet above the sea-level, amid the fragrant zephyrs of 
 the upland woods and the cool shadows of the high gray peaks. At any time 
 during the weeks in which the dog-star rages five hundred guests may be 
 found here; while the splendid stages whirl up to the verandas from hour to 
 hour with new accessions, and the hotel-band salutes the sombre cliffs with the 
 merriest melodies of Strauss and Schumann. Within and about the walls are 
 all the glad activities and the gladder tranquillities of holiday life ; without arc 
 the sublimities of Nature, — mountains grander than Helvellyn, a vale wilder 
 than that of Blair Athole, and virgin forests where myriads of hamadryads 
 still abide. 
 
Thk Gi,kx-Ei.i.ts FAi,r.s. 
 
THE GLEN-ELLIS FALL. 
 
 HE Ellis River is in a peculiar sense mountain-born ; for its 
 sources lie about the upper shoulders of Mount Washington, 
 and are fed from vast snow-banks during ten months of the 
 year. Descending from these silent heights, it follows the 
 valley in which the Conway-Gorham road is laid for about 
 twelve miles, and then debouches into the Saco near the 
 serene meadows of North Conway. About an hour's walk south of the Glen 
 House, near the intersection of the narrow lanes which the stream and the 
 road make through the dark forests of the Pinkham Notch, the Ellis finds 
 that opportunity for fame which some time comes to all streams as to all men. 
 Nobly does it improve the chance, throwing a white column of water for 
 seventy feet down the slant face of a rocky cliff with a roar which resounds 
 til rough all the glen ; and its last effort is a shower of shimmering spray, 
 crowning the beryl-colored pool below with a regalia of rainbow. The richest 
 foliage of the north arches towards it on every side, bedewed by the rising 
 mist, and bathed in the sunlight flowing through the opening which the stream 
 has cut ; and during three-fourths of the year the birds and squirrels have the 
 scene all to themselves, and their voices alone join that of the plunging river 
 in the sweet forest symphony. What though these laughing waters must in 
 their downward course drone by the peaceful and prosy hamlets of Western 
 Maine, and be overarched by many a thunderous railway-bridge, and be beaten 
 into weary foam by the wheels of Pepperell and Laconia mills: here, at least, 
 they are free and gladsome, and send up such acclaim, that Mount Wild-Cat, 
 towering overhead, sends it across to the mighty rock-ribbed ridges on the 
 west, until it dies away in soft murmurs among the ravines beyond. 
 
 Nearly a hundred years ago, one of the first exploring-parties to the 
 White Hills encamped near this point while arranging for the arduous and 
 dreaded feat of ascending Mount Washington. The Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap, 
 the early historian of New Hampshire, was of their number, and wrote of 
 "the noble falls," which even then were as beautiful as to-day. Among his 
 companions were .two members of the now venerable American Academy of 
 Arts and Sciences, — the Rev. Daniel Little of Kennebunk, and Dr. Manasseh 
 Cutler, an ex-chaplain of the Revolutionary army, and the founder of Mari- 
 etta, Ohio ; and Col. Joseph Whipple, the feudal lord of the town of Jefferson, 
 was there; and Dr. Joshua Fisher of Beverly, some time a surgeon in the 
 young American navy, and afterwards founder of a professorship in Harvard 
 College. 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL RANGE, FROM THE 
 
 GLEN HOUSE. 
 
 HE sailor who from his vessel's deck on the ocean sees the 
 land-pile of the White Mountains looming against the north- 
 western sky can scarce realize the extent and altitude of the 
 range, which from certain points on blue water is hidden even 
 by the haunted mound of Agamenticus. Nor is the effect of 
 the peaks worthy of their magnitude when observed from the 
 higliland lakes, Winnepesaukee and Sebago ; for then the crest of Agiochook 
 is seen but for a short space, gliding over the slopes of nearer ridges. The 
 views from North Conway and Lancaster show the range as foreshortened, 
 with grand effect of valley-framing and delicious foregrounds, but losing- 
 somewhat from distance and from the interposition of minor heights. Beth- 
 lehem, Jefferson, and the Fabyan House enjoy the fairest of the outland views, 
 being so far away that the artistic and panoramic ensemble is almost perfect, 
 and fills the mind with dreamy satisfaction. 
 
 l^it the Glen House is the only inhabited point from which the five 
 sovereign peaks appear in all their majesty and immensity, close at hand, 
 sweeping in a vast semicircle half way around the place, and pushing the 
 western horizon up into mid-afternoon of a summer's day. The anatomy of 
 these ancient children of the Earth becomes visible in all its details of rocky 
 shoulders and firm-braced supports, proudly uplifted heads beloved by the 
 sunrise, and manifold robes of forest and moss, adorned with the silvery 
 jewels of the rain-brooks and the sparkling gems of mica and quartz-crystals. 
 It is a scene for the pen of Shelley or Poe, this magnificent curve of rugged 
 and sharply-defined peaks, apparently shutting out the nineteenth century 
 from this quiet glade, and making it forever sacred to Greek thought and 
 dim Pantheistic reveries. 
 
 The mountains dignify their names ; and the founders of the nation are 
 represented side by side, supporting each other, as in the first American era. 
 These stately peaks are often inwrapped in rolling masses of gray cloud, which 
 drift across their dark ledges, and hover about the heads of the ravines, like 
 the wraiths of departed spirits of the heights, or sombre exhalations from 
 the legend-haunted glens ; and, on the marvellously clear days which follow 
 storm, they stand out in impressive clearness against the vivid blue sky, and 
 towards evening grow purple with shadows rising from the mysterious dark 
 dei)ths of the Great Gulf. 
 
ECHO LAKE, FRANCONIA NOTCH. 
 
 MID the noble brotherhood of green peaks called the Fran- 
 conia Mountains, the spirit of awful mystery is petrified in the 
 Profile, grandeur is exemplified in the vast masses of Mount 
 Lafayette and Cannon Mountain, and weirdness, singularity, 
 the grotesque phases of Nature's playful moods, are manifested 
 in the Flume and the Pool. But the culmination of pure and 
 simple beauty, the crown of grace, and the mirror of brightness, appears in 
 Echo Lake, the limpid tarn which lies in the northern end of the Notch, high 
 above the P^ranconian plains. The highway from the Profile House to Littleton 
 skirts one side of it, and the ambitious little railway from Bethlehem station is 
 on the opposite shore ; but both are hidden by the luxuriant forests which 
 sweep down on all sides, save where the boat-houses rise to shelter Franconia's 
 mimic navy. On the east are bold and picturesque cliffs, rising from the 
 shores, and bracing the lower terraces of Mount Lafayette with stupendous 
 buttresses of rugged rock, draped with climbing green vines, and hanging out 
 the banners of the hardy trees, whose roots are fixed in the clefts of the preci- 
 pice. Glorious tints of sunset fall upon these high walls and mounting pillars 
 when the lake below has been shrouded in twilight, and the night is approach- 
 ing fi om the eastern sea. At that hour the environs of Echo Lake are endowed 
 with a i)rofound fascination, and fairly glow with poetic splendor, while scores 
 of glad-hearted visitors float upon the glassy waters in the pretty little boats of 
 the Profile-House squadron. Then, too, the deep-toned shouts and the silvery 
 laughter of the evening voyagers are thrown back by the cliffs as if in badinage; 
 and the cannon on the western shore is fired from time to time to arouse sterner 
 reverberations, rattling back from Artist's Bluff and Bald Mountain, and swell- 
 ing away through the distant ravines in a sinking surge of sound. You may 
 close your eyes, and let this ominous echo bring to mind the iron hail of Peters- 
 burg or Plevna ; but to the quick vision the scene suggests some sweet and 
 sylvan lakelet in an Arcadia of the Knickerbockers. 
 
THE FRANCONIA NOTCH, ECHO LAKE, AND 
 THE PROFILE HOUSE. 
 
 IHEN Fredrika Bremer contrasted the Franconia region with 
 the Swedish districts of DalecarUa and Norsland, she gave 
 great praise to these latter by the simple fact of the comparison. 
 The ruling charms of this delightful wilderness, according to 
 the gifted Scandinavian traveller, are not its rocks and moun- 
 tains, its chasms and ravines, but the affluence of foliage, and 
 the brightness of the mountain-waters. And from our artist's standpoint, on 
 the top of Bald Mountain, less than two miles distant from the Profile House, 
 these two excellent traits of the Franconia region are visible as from no other 
 place. In comparison with the stupendous mass of Mount Lafayette, rising 
 far into the heavens, close at hand, the craggy knoll of Bald Mountain appears 
 almost insignificant ; and yet it rises very picturesquely above the blue lake 
 below, and looks far out over the Green Mountains of Vermont and the deli- 
 cious valleys which extend towards Lancaster. On the south is the fair bosom 
 of l^cho Lake, that brightest gem of the mountains, whose waters are of the 
 most exquisite purity and clearness, and are furrowed throughout the summer 
 by a flotilla of pretty pleasure-boats. Although Starr King ranked this moun- 
 tain-tarn above even the Profile itself, as the chief attraction of Franconia, it is 
 evident that he could not have rowed out upon its waters, since he describes it 
 witli much detail as emptying into the Pemigewasset ; thence to pass into the 
 Merrimac, and move the wheels of Nashua and Lowell. In point of fact, the 
 stream seeks the beach-levels through the Ammonoosuc and Connecticut Rivers. 
 
 Beyond the lake is an expanse of dense green forest, amid which the high 
 white sides of the Profile House rise like a palace of Aladdin, and, to the minds 
 of the initiated, radiating a certain warmth of human life and luxury throughout 
 the cold and silent wilderness. Beyond is the Franconia Notch, stretching 
 away under line after line of gray-topped ridges, and glorified at evening by the 
 level rays of the setting sun, which surge magnificently up the defile, while 
 the shadows of the western peaks rise higher and higher on the opposite walls. 
 
 More than any other pass in the White Mountains this has called forth 
 the loving praises of our authors, and the brilliant chapters of Mr. Prime still 
 form its best description. l':ven Harriet Martineau, who was so chary of 
 eulogy for all things, natural, human, or superhuman, found the word "noble " 
 the only one to apply here, and uttered it with a right good heart. Looking 
 over the bright expanse of Echo Lake, the pictured cliffs, the rich-hued forests, 
 we find a more appropriate adjective, and call the scene, in all its aspects and 
 suggestions, simply beautiful. 
 
'I'nE Pkofilk, or Old Man of the Mountain. 
 
THE PROFILE, FRANCONIA NOTCH. 
 
 IHERE the road passes Profile Lake, near the Profile House, a 
 [,aiicle-board directs the attention upward, and one of the most 
 ' impressive sights of all this region of wonders bursts upon the 
 I vision. There, on the side of the opposing mountain, more than 
 a thousand feet above the road, and vividly outlined against the 
 sky, is the semblance of a colossal human profile, with an 
 expression of intense weariness and melancholy, as if some heaven-defying 
 Prometheus of the West had been chained to the red rocks of Mount Cannon 
 until the hardness of his heart was reflected by the petrifaction of his head. 
 This is the great Profile, which for over seventy years has been gazed upon, 
 with varying emotions, by many myriads of travellers. For the slaves of the 
 guide-book, who feel it their solemn duty to **do" every thing therein spoken 
 of, any hour will suffice ; but the reverent pilgrim of Nature approaches this 
 ])oint of view only at late afternoon, when the great face is vividly outlined 
 against the crimson glories of the western sky, and its pathetic and expectant 
 expression aptly combines with the sadness of declining day. For thousands 
 of years that grim simulacrum has faced the driving sleet of winter and the 
 quivering lightnings of summer with silent patience and monumental faith; 
 and has looked down upon the red Indians, countless as the leaves of the for- 
 est, as they poured down from the remote West upon the rolling plains of the 
 New-l!:ngland wilderness before the dawn of American history. There are, 
 indeed, traditions that the aborigines used to offer a rude form of worship here 
 as to a symbol of Manitou himself, kindling their sacrificial fires on the shores 
 of the crystalline lake below. But these Druid rites could not avail to save 
 the doomed race; for during Queen Anne's War the pale rangers of Massachu- 
 setts destroyed their last hamlet of wigwams on the banks of the Pemige- 
 wassct, and the crash of the Puritan volleys re-echoed from the rocky brow of 
 the mountain-visage. Then came the measured and resistless advance of the 
 Anglo-American race, following the same order of battle which has conquered 
 CaiTraria, New Zealand, and America, — first the hunters and trappers, then 
 the i^ioneers and farmers, then the tourists, and at last the railway-builders. 
 Shattering the primeval silence of the Gale-River Valley, and filling the ravines 
 of Mount Lafayette with smoke and roaring, the iron steeds now pause within 
 a mile of the Great Stone Face, and ere long will descend the Pcmigewassct 
 Valley on their levelled bands of steel. 
 
Thk Klume. 
 
THE FLUME. 
 
 I lie Flume House occupies a very beautiful situation on a 
 terrace at the southern end of the Franconia Notch, and over- 
 looks the extensive vistas of the Pemigewasset Valley, whose 
 scenery is so widely famous for its pastoral beauty and idyllic 
 grace. During the long, bright days of summer, the Campton 
 lowlands are drenched with sunshine, and glorious in color ; and 
 tlie bright stream Hows downward thereby, offering its crystal refreshment to 
 the dreamy-eyed cattle, as it had given it to the mountain-bears above. 
 
 It is less than a mile from the hotel to the great natural curiosity from 
 which it derives its name, and the road stops at the long ledges which rise like 
 a <^Iacis to the castle-gate above. There the wonderful chasm begins, and 
 extends along the flank of the mountain for seven hundred feet, with a width 
 of from ten to twenty feet, and a depth of nearly sixty feet. On either side 
 are perpendicular walls of granite, prolonged by the tall shafts of the forest- 
 trees above, and overarched by a green canopy of foliage; while the floor of 
 the gorge is littered by fragments of rock, amongst which purls and babbles 
 the rill from tlie icy reservoirs above. Rich mosses, freshened by the exhala- 
 tions from below, form a graceful cornice to the walls, and adorn their sides 
 witli bits of vivid tapestry ; and summer-day visitors, sauntering along the 
 phmk-walk which lies by the brookside, enjoy the comforting dampness and 
 coolness of the sunless depths, no matter what the heat in the valley outside. 
 
 Here I have met Fmerson, the sphynx of Concord, rambling solitary 
 among the trees, and doubtless spiritually attended by a kindred group of 
 ancient sages, as old as Ilesiod, or at least as Plato, while he mused upon what 
 he has so mystically called "the good rocks, those patient waiters." Starr 
 King, one of the most enthusiastic of the earlier visitors to the Flume, insisted 
 that every one who wished to see it properly should go alone, ''quietly, and 
 with reverence for the Spirit out of whose perennial bounty all beauty pours." 
 
 If this brook-worn gorge thus suffices to amaze and attract us, what should 
 we say of that vast and terrible Stygian river on the other side of our conti- 
 nent, where for hundreds of miles the Colorado rolls its black waters along the 
 bottom of a cleft in the rocky vestment of the earth, between perpendicular 
 banks a mile high, silent, lifeless, sepulchral, and traversing the lands of an 
 extinct nation } But immensity does not secure a proportionate notice among 
 men, else the Yukon, rolling its huge floods through the Alaska lowlands, 
 should be famous, and the tiny Ilissus, flowing hard by the Athenian Acropolis, 
 should be unknown : wherefore we may prize this little rocky corridor of New 
 iMigland above the empire-dividing chasm of New Spain. 
 
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