36 . GEOLOGY OF THE SECOND DISTRICT. 



The vegetable tribes also give character to scenery ; and, as many of those tribes are pro- 

 duced in greater perfection and thrift on particular soils, their influence on scenery may be set 

 down as belonging in part to geological causes. Thus the alluvial soils send up a vigorous 

 growth of the plane tree, with wide spreading branches, and covered with a dense heavy 

 foliage ; but the dry and arid plains abound in yellow pine and oaks of a dwarfish stature. 

 The butternut prefers the rich loose limestone soil, and the chesnut the thin meagre soil de- 

 rived from the talcose slates. Many other facts of a similar bearing have been observed by 

 naturalists, but these are sufficient to show the general influence of the rock formations and 

 of geological phenomena on scenery. The district underlaid by hypersthene rock, forms no 

 exception to the principle here stated. 



From what has already been said, it will be inferred that the scenery is that which belongs 

 to a primitive formation ; and for an idea of the scenery of the Adirondacks, the reader is re- 

 ferred to the cuts illustrative of this subject, on pages 27 and 35. Seen at a distance, the Adi- 

 rondack mountains which are composed of this rock, appear in groups of conical peaks, and 

 sharp serrated ridges, often broken and interrupted by deep gorges or passes without any de- 

 terminate direction, but always sharp in profile when unobscured by clouds or atmospheric 

 haze. Placed in the midst of these groups, on some commanding eminence, the spectator 

 finds himself surrounded by precipitous broken mountains, whose sides are deeply scarred by 

 clefts and fissures, the work of frost acting on the dykes traversing this rock ; or, laid bare 

 by slides ; or else, covered by thickly matted dwarfish firs and spruce. If placed below, his 

 path is hemmed by clifis inaccessible to man, or by steep brushy banks made impenetrable 

 by stiff dead branches of spruce and knotty fallen trees ; or, if the land is low and swampy, 

 impassable from innumerable dead and dying cedars, some fallen, many standing, but all with 

 interwoven limbs hedging up the way, except by the most circuitous route. 



The time and place most favorable for viewing the scenery of this region is at sunset, from 

 some lake ; for it is then that the waters are still, and the refraction from the surface gives as 

 perfect a landscape below as above ; and it is then that the cliffs and steep sides of the moun- 

 tains, clothed in the deep green of the north, and the lake shore lined with the spiry pointed 

 cedar, the light waving tamarack, and the p)Tamidal fir, standing here and there like monu- 

 ments of the dead, create a landscape umivalled for its magic and enchantment. It is true, 

 that these features belong in part to latitude and height ; yet the steep cliffs, and abrupt moun- 

 tain sides, and grey conical summits in the distance, are the features due to geological causes ; 

 which, being combined with those of latitude and height, create a scene which arrests the 

 attention of the hunter or backwoodsman, as well as the man of cultivated taste and refine- 

 ment. 



It is not, however, by description that the scenery of this region can be made to pass before 

 the eye of the imagination : it must be witnessed ; the solitary summits in the distance, the 

 cedars and firs which clothe the rock and the shore, must be seen ; the solitude must be felt ; 

 or, if it is broken by the scream of the panther, the shrill cry of the northern diver, or the 

 shout of the hunter, the echo from the thousand hills must be heard before all the truth in the 

 scene can be realized. These are elements in the landscape, all of which are felt when there, 



