RIVER LIFE. 243 



There are four noted falls on this river. The first is called Great 

 Falls, at Hiram, where the water plunges down a ledge of rug- 

 ged rocks seventy-two feet. At Lemington are the Steep Falls, 

 of twenty feet. At Buxton are Salmon Falls, of thirty feet ; 

 and ten miles below we come to Saco Falls, where the river is 

 divided by Indian Island, containing thirty acres, and on each 

 side the river tumbles over a precipice of rocks forty-two feet 

 high, and disappears amid the waves of the Atlantic. From the 

 east side of the above-named island, which is fertile and pleasant, 

 the appearance of these falls is majestic. 



This river is easily affected by freshets. At such times the 

 water rises ten feet, and sometimes it has risen twenty-five feet ; 

 when in many places it overflows its banks, and makes great 

 havoc with property. 



This was particularly the case in the great flood of October, 

 1775, when a large stream, called Neiv River, broke out of the 

 White Mountains, and bore down every thing in its way, till it 

 found a channel in Ellis Hiver. The Saco, being swelled enor- 

 mously by this accession to its waters, swept away mills, bridges, 

 domestic animals, and great quantities of lumber. 



The burst of New River from the mountains was a great phe- 

 nomenon ; and as its waters were of a reddish brown or blood 

 color, the people considered it an ill omen in those times of revo- 

 lution.* 



In regard to the lumbering interests on this river we know but 

 little, save that in years gone by it has constituted a large share 

 of the business done on the river, and that at the present time it 

 has so much diminished as to be comparatively unimportant. f 



* Williamson's History of Maine. 



t Several letters were written to different gentlemen at Saco, such as were 

 named to me by their friends abroad, for information on this subject; but 

 from some cause, they have remained silent, having taken no notice of my 

 letters, which, I am happy to say, forms but one, and the only exception to 



