IX 

 Over the HucKleberry Plains 



Thou shall gaze, at once, 

 Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds. 

 And swarming roads, and there on solitudes 

 That only hear the torrent and the wind. 



Bryant, Monument Mountain. 



ON July 17th, two days before departing from 

 the Hoosac Valley, I was guided to a 

 group of swamps lying along the summit 

 of the Domelet. The brow of this moun- 

 tain is yearly devastated by forest fires, after which it 

 appears quite barren, save for the trees and bushes 

 protected in the swamps. A few tall trees, branchless 

 and blackened, stand as sentinels about the huckle- 

 berry plains. But soon the young and tender growth 

 of oak, chestnut, and birch springs up on these rocky 

 ridges, while the clearings everywhere are carpeted 

 with low blueberry bushes. 



Between the Domelet and the Dome lies a valley 

 known as "Rocky Hollow." The ledges of rock, 

 walling it about, bear deep erosions in evidence of the 

 Ice Age, when a gigantic glacier once crowned and 

 rounded the Dome. The formation of these deep vales 

 lying at its base is due to the moraines which flowed 

 down from the ice-capped heights. 



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