THE DEVIL'S PULPIT. 183 



the east, it rises gradually from the water, covered 

 with a luxuriant growth of fir, hemlock, and birch. 

 It increases in height as you advance, until, at the 

 west end, it stands out a perpendicular wall of seventy 

 feet. Not a ledge, arrayed in layers, but a square up 

 and down solid wall, as if a gigantic boulder had been 

 sawed asunder, and one-half of it removed. The top 

 of this great rock is bare and smooth. You can ap- 

 proach and look over the precipice without danger, so 

 level and flat is the surface. At the base the water is 

 said to be some fifty or sixty feet, at least, in depth. 

 I sounded thirty feet, and found no bottom. On the 

 top of this rock, an Indian tradition says, the bad 

 spirit preached to his followers congregated on the ice 

 below, while a furious snow storm swept over the 

 lake, and the winds roared and howled above the 

 frozen waters, and went thundering and crashing 

 through the old woods on the island, and along the 

 shore. On the north side, and a short distance from 

 the pulpit, are great steps, or successive breaks in the 

 rock, up which he went to deliver his sermon, while 

 on the other side, is a regular smooth descent, like the 

 steep roof of a house, worn by the attrition of ages, down 

 which, it is said, he slid when the service was over. 



