100 THE ADIRONDACK. 



interview which had broken up the monotony of 

 his existence. 



Clouds are rolling around him to-day, and I think of 

 what Prof. Benedict, of Burlington, told me. He 

 ascended it once for scientific purposes, and made 

 experiments on the top which have been of great 

 service to the State. He said that the spectacle from 

 it one morning in a northeast storm, was sublime 

 beyond description. He was in the clear sunlight, 

 while an ocean of clouds rolled on below him in vast 

 white undulations, blotting out the whole creation 

 from his view. At length, under the influence of the 

 sun, this limitless deep slowly rent asunder, and the 

 black top of a mountain emerged like an island from 

 the mighty mass, and then another and another, till 

 away, for more than three hundred miles in encu in- 

 ference, these black conical islands were sprinkled over 

 the white bosom of the vapory sea. The lower por- 

 tions of the mountains then appeared, while the mist 

 collected in the deep gulfs, and lay like a vast ser- 

 pent over the bed of a river, that wound through the 

 forest below, or shot up into fantastic shapes, re- 

 sembling towers and domes, and cliffs, and clouds, 

 forming, and shifting, and changing in bewildering 



