ELEVATED SCENERY. 101 



over all the nearer peaks on this side of the first pond which is 

 just over the ridge, I am in as much of a maze, apparently, as I 

 was before, as to theu- exact position and extent. From the top 

 of the successive elevations I could see pond after pond, and 

 ridges and gullies after ridges and gullies, stretching onward and 

 outward in every direction. A fair description of the country 

 around here would be a series of ridges composed of crests of 

 unequal height divided both lengthwise and crosswise by gullies, 

 with basins of water filling the intervening spaces or valleys. The 

 whole region is one grand network of ponds and hills. I had no 

 instruments with me for the purpose, and if I had possessed them, 

 am no map drawer. As has been before stated, a comparison of 

 several readings of the barometer gives the height of the external 

 ridge as 275 feet above the level of the sea to which it slopes easily 

 and naturally. The pond beyond this ridge presents a lowering of 

 fifty feet, while beyond this other ponds are situated correspond- 

 ingly lower, the large pond or lake being lower yet. The hills on 

 the left are most of them on a nearly average height — the two 

 highest being each 600 feet above the sea level, and all the other 

 prominent ones nearly an even 500. 



If I mistake not, evidences of glacial and water action are locally 

 very abundant, while loose bowlders and stones are scattered spar- 

 ingly all along the top crests even, and small pools of water are 

 abundant here and there on the highland levels four to five hun- 

 dred feet above the sea. Here the soil is a black muck or mud, 

 and reminds one greatly of some mucky patch of salt marsh along 

 our eastern United States, exposed a few feet only at highest tide, 

 and transported to some shallow basin between two or tliree sur- 

 rounding peaks of similar height. In one instance, I found a large 

 pond only one hundred feet from the top of the highest peaks 

 which surrounded it. The gulches were frequent and full of 

 streams, in some of which, especially in deep, shady gulhes, were 

 remarkably sweet and cold waters. All these places are overgrown 

 with low, dwarf spruce and fir, or birch and alder. In one place 

 a small stream started from near the top of a high peak. There 



