METEORIC RIVERS OR WATERFALLS. 387 



irregular hollow cone, with its apex near the mountain top, 

 and its base at its foot, and there spreading out into a wide 

 and deep mass of ruins, of transported earth, gravel stones, 

 rocks and forest trees. 



Mr. Wilcox, among other things, says, " On Wednesday, 

 the weather being clear and beautiful, and the waters hav- 

 ing subsided, six gentlemen, with a guide, went to Mount 

 Washington, and one accompanied Mr. Crawford to the 

 " Notch," from which nothing had yet been heard. We 

 met again at evening, and related to each other what we 

 had seen. The party who went to the mountain were five 

 hours in reaching the site of the camp, instead of three, the 

 usual time. The path, for nearly one third of the distance, 

 was so much excavated, or covered with miry sand, or 

 blocked up with flood wood, that they were obliged to grope 

 their way through thickets almost impenetrable, where one 

 generation of trees after another had risen and fallen, and 

 were now lying across each other in every direction, and in 

 various stages of decay. The camp itself had been wholly 

 swept away; and the bed of the rivulet by which it had 

 stood was now more than ten rods wide, and with banks 

 from ten to fifteen feet high. Four or five other brooks 

 were passed, whose beds were enlarged, some of them to 

 twice the extent of this ; in several the water was now only 

 three or four feet wide, while the bed, of ten, fifteen, or 

 twenty rods in width, was covered for miles with stones 

 from two to five feet in diameter, that had been rolled down 

 the mountains and through the forest, by thousands, bear- 

 ing every thing before them, not a tree, or the root of a tree, 

 remained in their path. Immense piles of hemlocks, and 

 other trees, with their limbs and bark entirely bruised off, 

 were lodged all the way, on both sides, as they had been 

 driven in among the standing and half standing trees on 

 the banks. While the party were climbing the mountain 

 thirty slides were counted, some of which began near the 



