HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. 21 



fall is another basin, and leading from it is a deep flume cut in 

 solid trap rock. In the white, rushing foam of this flume, in the 

 summer of 1873, the writer caught his first genuine "rainbow 

 trout." The surroundings of this waterfall add a gloomy gran- 

 deur to the scene. The deep gorge is enclosed by vertical walls 

 of trap rock, the ascent to the top being up a natural stone stair- 

 way, the steps as sharply defined as if cut with a chisel. Some 

 miles further up, the stream has been overwhelmed by extensive 

 land-slides and for a mile or more is entirely buried. The two 

 brooks referred to are mountain streams of the first order, with 

 wide valleys and free water-courses, averaging from two to three 

 rods in width, and flowing, the first for a distance of six and the 

 second for more than ten miles of winding water. 



The above, with many other features of great interest in this 

 New Hampshire "garden of the gods" are little known, owing 

 to remoteness of situation and difficulty of access, the distance 

 from the nearest railway at Conway Corner being fifteen miles — 

 the entrance between the frowning walls of Moat mountain and 

 the peak of Chocorua. There is but one road by which to enter 

 or return, and if one seeks a shorter way he must climb over 

 the enclosing mountains. But woe to him who loses the trail, 

 for there are thousands of acres of timber blown flat by hurri- 

 canes, the passage of which is next to impossible. 



The foregoing, although removed from the immediate sur- 

 roundings of our story, is given in cumulative support of what 

 has gone before, and as furnishing striking instances of the pow- 

 erful forces still reserved by nature. 



We shall not fail to find along the Merrimack valley at every 

 mile of its course just what we might expect to find, in the light 

 of the previous considerations. To localize the inquiry, we may 

 now see both above and below Amoskeag falls, notably on the 

 west bank, vast mounds of water-worn and water-borne deposits, 

 consisting of sand, gravel and cobble-stones, the latter ranging 

 from a few inches to a foot or more in diameter, and as various 



