776 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Peaks near the White Mountains, and up some of the 

 mountains around Dixville Notch, forty miles away. Dix- 

 ville Peak is the highest of the latter group, 31 18 feet, 

 but the highest point of the road through the notch, which 

 has some of the wildest rock scenery in New England, 

 is 1990 feet. 



P'rom the eastern bounds of the White Mountains de- 

 tached peaks, interspersed with many beautiful forest-sur- 

 rounded lakes, continue to the northeastward through 

 the state of Maine, to and across the Canadian border. 

 The highest of these peaks, 160 miles from Mount Wash- 

 ington, Mt. Katahdin, 5273 feet, the most interesting 

 and one of the most inaccessible mountains in New Eng- 

 land. "Standing alone without society", taller by nearly 

 a thousand feet than any other peak in the state and ex- 

 ceeded in New England by only half a dozen summits 

 in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, it is 

 no wonder that it appealed to the solitude absorbing Thor- 

 eau and to all lovers of the wilderness before and since. 

 Thoreau's ascent was made in 1846. Among other early 

 climbers who have left interesting accounts are Professor 

 J. W. Bailey of West Point in 1836, Dr. Charles T. 

 Jackson in 1837, Rev. Edward Everett Hale in 1845, 

 Theodore Winthrop in the fifties and Professor Charles 

 H. Hitchcock in 1861. In the early years of the Ap- 

 palachian Mountain Club, Professor Charles E. Hamlin 

 and the Club's secretary, Rosewell B. Lawrence, did much 

 to make the mountain better known and more accessible. 

 In 1900 a small but notable party from the New England 

 Botanical Club made an exhaustive study of its flora, 

 publishing the results in their journal, Rhodora. One of 

 the most interesting ascents was made on snow-shoes in 

 February 1910 by Ralph Lawson and Percival Sayward, 

 and the latter's account, in Appalachia, deserves high 

 rank in mountaineering literature. 



Although KataliHin is preeminent in its domain there 

 are lots of other mountains in Maine, fifty-eight occupied 

 in summer by fire lookout stations, for Maine's lumber 

 industry is large and valuable, and needs protection. This 

 means that there are at least fifty-eight mountains with 

 good trails and extensive lookouts. A list of them will be 

 found in the reports of the Forest Commissioner of the 

 state. Unfortunately there is no adequate map of Maine, 

 and the reports give no information about trails or alti- 

 tudes. I doubt if anyone knows which is the second 

 highest mountain in the state. There are several claim- 

 ants. Speckled in the Border Mountains, Traveler Moun- 

 tain twenty miles north of Katahdin, Parlin Pond Bald, 

 north of the Dead River region. Saddleback near Phillips, 

 east of Rangeley. These are all a little over four thousand 

 feet probably. There is another Saddleback called also 

 Bald Pate and Bear River Whitecap east of Grafton 

 Notch, that may reach the four thousand mark. The first 

 Saddleback with Blue, Abraham and Bigelow, are known 

 as the Kennebec Peaks. Parlin Pond Bald, Baker, 3589 

 feet, and the mountains around Moosehead Lake are on 

 the Kennebec watershed. Turner Mountain, east of Ka- 

 tahdin, is 3700 feet, and the Sourdnahunk Mountains to 

 the west reach 3500 feet. Of the Boundary Mountains, 



between Maine and the Province of Quebec, the highest 

 seems to be Mt. Gosford, 3658 feet. Snow Mountain, a 

 little south of the actual boundary, has a claim for 3800 

 feet. Deer Mountain, northwest of Gupsuptic Lake, is 

 probably 3500 feet. 



Taken all together it will be seen that in the four 

 hundred or more miles between northwestern Connecti- 

 cut and northern Maine there are many mountains, their 

 dark forested slopes uplifted against the sky to cheer and 

 inspire us. While the prevailing color is green for most 

 of the year, except when distance robes them in an azure 

 hue or sunset turns them momentarily to purple and 

 gold, they have their white season, when they become 

 a challenge to the mountaineer. Only when man becomes 

 reckless do they wear sackcloth and ashes and become 

 unlovely. Let us then preserve them in their virgin 

 beauty. 



CARDINAL'S CANE FROM FAMOUS TREE 



nPHE Old Mulberry Tree at St. Mary's, Maryland, is 

 "* bringing out new facts since it was nominated for 

 a place in the Hall of Fame and its picture published in 

 an earlier issue of AMERICAN FORESTRY. The fol- 

 lowing was taken from the Baltimore News : 



"Cardinal Gibbons had a cane made from the wood 

 of the old mulberry, presented him in the early nineties 

 by General Bradley Tyler Johnson. General Johnson 

 was the author of the "Foundation of Maryland," and 

 some of his most interesting addresses were made before 

 the Catholic Club, opposite the archiepiscopal residence 

 on North Charles Street, now the official home of John 

 Gardner Murray, of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese 

 of Maryland. The president of the club, James R. 

 Wheeler, of the First Maryland Cavalry, Confederate 

 States of America, one of the closest personal friends of 

 the Cardinal, and a number of its members had been 

 soldiers in the Maryland Line under Johnson. The 

 General, who came from Frederick County, was a keen 

 student of early history in Maryland and a zealous de- 

 fender of the Calverts. About the time the monument 

 to Governor Leonard Calvert was erected at St. Mary's 

 City, General Johnson secured some of the wood of 

 the famous tree, and, after making an address on the 

 old mulberry at the Catholic Club, was escorted by a 

 party of his comrades to the archiepiscopal residence, 

 where at a private reception by the Cardinal a cane 

 made of the tree that is so intimately associated with 

 Catholic Maryland was presented His Eminence for 

 use in his strolls about the city." 



T^HE wonder of the forests, their immensity and va- 

 -* riety, their worth are to be considered as an ineffable 

 appeal to conserve and restore and save. Help to per- 

 petuate talk forestry to your friends and let AMERI- 

 CAN FORESTRY MAGAZINE show them the way 

 to a better understanding and appreciation of God's 

 great outdoors. 



