AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 247 
glad than otherwise to think so. In those long 
days there must often have been a dearth of 
topics for profitable conversation, no matter 
how outrageous the weather, and it was a 
pleasure to believe that this little idiosyncracy 
of mine might answer to fill here and there a 
gap. For what generous person does not re- 
joice to feel that even in his absence he may be 
doing something for the comfort and well-being_ 
of his brothers and sisters? As Seneca said, 
*¢ Man is born for mutual assistance.” 
According to Osgood’s “ New England,” the 
summit of Owl’s Head is 2,743 feet above the 
level of the lake, and the path to it is a mile 
and a half and thirty rods in length. It may 
seem niggardly not to throw off the last petty 
fraction ; and indeed we might well enough let 
it pass if it were at the beginning of the route, 
— if the path, that is, were thirty rods and a 
mile and a half long. But this, it will be ob- 
served, is not the case; and it is a fact per- 
fectly well attested, though perhaps not yet 
scientifically accounted for (many things are 
known to be true which for the present cannot 
be mathematically demonstrated), that near the 
top of a mountain thirty rods are equivalent to 
a good deal more than four hundred and ninety- 
five feet. Let the guide-book’s specification 
stand, therefore, in all its surveyor-like exact- 
