lo Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



mystical age. The name of " Grey lock " appears to 

 be derived from the lowering cloud-mist so often cap- 

 ping the whole Brotherhood at early dawn or before 

 a storm. 



Vermonters who, from the hills at a great distance 

 to the north, view this group of mountains, depend 

 upon this capping of clouds as a forecast of the 

 weather. Among the old folk, it is known and desig- 

 nated as " Greylock's Nightcap," a portent of a com- 

 ing storm. 



Mount Greylock, the highest swell of this range, is 

 3600 feet above sea level, and commands a variable 

 and extensive view from its bald summit, on which 

 was early erected that first wooden observatory, during 

 President Griffin's term at Williams College. Here 

 the poet and the philosopher, Hawthorne and Thoreau, 

 have climbed to meditate. 



Many a message has gone forth from these heights 

 to bless the busy world. Scarcely is there a son of old 

 Williams who does not recall the mountain-day excur- 

 sions led by Professor Albert Hopkins, and the glory 

 of old Greylock at dawn and at the sunset hour. 



Thoreau writes of it: " It would be no small advan- 

 tage if every college were thus located at the base of a 

 mountain, as good at least as one well-endowed pro- 

 fessorship. It were as well to be educated in the 

 shadow of a mountain as in more classical shades. 

 Some will remember, no doubt, not only that they 

 went to college, but that they went to the mountain. 

 Every visit to its summit would, as it were, generalize 



