300 Contributions to Physical Geography. 



roaring river Saco, which frequently washes the feet of both 

 barriers ; and sometimes there is not room for a single carriage 

 to pass between the stream and the mountains ; but the road 

 is cut into the mountain itself. Imagine this double barrier, ris- 

 ing on each side, to the height of nearly half a mile in perpendi- 

 cular altitude, often exceeding this height, and capped here and 

 there, by proud castellated turrets, standing high above the 

 continued ridges ; these are not straight, but are formed into 

 numerous zigzag turns, which frequently cut off the view, and 

 seem to imprison you in a vast gloomy gulf. But the most 

 remarkable fact remains to be stated. 



The sides of the mountains are deeply furrowed and scar- 

 red, by the tremendous effects of the memorable deluge of 

 August 28th, 1826. I will recal to your recollection the aw- 

 ful catastrophe, which, on the night succeeding that day, de- 

 stroyed, in a moment, the worthy Willey family, nine in num- 

 ber, and left not one to tell their painful story. For two sea- 

 sons before, the mountains had been very dry, and on the 

 morning of August 28th5 it commenced raining very hard, 

 with strong tempestuous wind ; the storm lasted through that 

 day and the succeeding night, and when it ceased, the road 

 was found obstructed by innumerable avalanches of mountain 

 ruins, which rendered it impossible to pass, except on foot. 

 The first traveller who came to the Willey houfee found it 

 empty of its inhabitants, and in the course of a few days the 

 mangled bodies of seven out of nine were found about fifty or 

 sixty rods from the house, buried beneath the drift-wood and 

 mountain ruins, on the bank of the Saco, or rather in the 

 midst of what was for the time a vast raging torrent, uniting 

 one mountain barrier to the other. The effects of the tor- 

 rents, which on that occasion descended from the mountains, 

 now form a most conspicuous and interesting feature in the 

 scenery. 



The avalanches were very numerous ; they were not, how- 

 ever, ruptures of the main foundation rock of the mountain, 

 but slides, from very steep declivities ; beginning, in many 

 instances, at the very mountain top, and carrying down, in 

 one promiscuous and frightful ruin, forests, and shrubs, and 

 the earth which sustained them ; stones and rocks innumerable. 



