222 CKANBEERT LAKE. — THE OSWEGATCHIE. 



seasons of the year, when logs are to be floated down to the 

 mills In the settlements; and the flow is regulated by blocks 

 placed above each other in a strong, framed sluice-way, and 

 which are put in or hoisted out by machinery, as the water 

 is to be raised or lowered. It makes the lake, in fact, a 

 large reservoir, greatly enlarging it, setting the water back 

 in the streams, into the coves and bays and over the low- 

 lands, and everywhere drowning and killing the trees on 

 the flooded lands and along the shore. The ghostly forms of 

 leafless trees, stretching their helpless arms aloft, stand in 

 groups and phalanxes here and there in the wide waters, 

 and a heavy, ugly fringe of like dead trees lines all the 

 shores; while trunks and limbs and uptoru stumps, tossed 

 and ground and woven together by the waves among the 

 standing trees, make a landing exceedingly diflicult. In 

 front of our own camp, the labor of two men for a day was 

 nccessar}^ to make an opening both safe and ample for our 

 use. The scenery, of course, is seriously impaired. The 

 low descending fringe of green, seen on other lakes coming 

 down to the clear, open water's edge, is here wanting; and 

 the eye grows weary ol" dead tree-tops and drowned forests. 

 But on nearly every side the grand old hills and mountain 

 brows lift themselves up with coronal fronts of forest 

 green; the bright waters and wavelets gurgle and murmur 

 around the rapid craft of the hunter and the flsherman, and 

 the balm and purity of the perfect air of the forest are here 

 as elsewhere a continual delight. 



