ALPINE AND ARCTIC PLANTS 429 



limit of trees, we arrived at the base of a stupendous cliff, 

 forming the termination of a promontory or spur of the moun- 

 tain, separating Tuckerman's Ravine from another deep de 

 pression known as the Great Gulf. From the top of this 

 precipice poured a little cascade, that lost itself in spray long 

 before it touched the tops of the trees below. The view at this 

 place was the most impressive that it was my fortune to see in 

 these hills. 



Opposite the mouth of the Great Gulf, and I suppose at a 

 height of about 3,000 feet, is a little pond known as Hermit 

 Lake. It is nearly circular, and appears to be retained by a 

 ridge of stones and gravel, perhaps an old moraine or sea beach. 

 On its margin piped a solitary sandpiper, a few dragon flies 

 flitted over its surface, and tadpoles in the bottom indicated 

 that some species of frog dwells in its waters. .High overhead, 

 and skirting the edges of the precipices, soared an eagle, 

 intent, no doubt, on the hares that frequent the thickets of 

 the ravines. 



Before we reached Hermit Lake we had been obliged to 

 leave our horses, and now we turned aside to the left and entered 

 Tuckerman's ravine, where there is no path, but merely the bed 

 of a brook, whose cold clear water tumbles in a succession of 

 cascades over huge polished masses of white gneiss, while on 

 both sides of it the bottom of the ravine is occupied by dense 

 and almost impenetrable thickets of the mountain alder (Alnus 

 viridis), 



Tuckerman's Ravine has been formed originally either by a 

 subsidence of a portion of the mountain side, or by the action 

 of the sea. It is, like most of the ravines and " gulfs" of these 

 hills, a deep cut or depression bounded by precipitous sides 

 and terminating at the top in a similarly precipitous manner. 

 It must at one period have been in part filled with boulder clay, 

 steep banks of which still remain in places on its sides ; and 

 extensive landslips have occurred, by which portions of the limit 



