Notices of Mount Washington and the vicinity. 79 



thickly around us, and disclosed the immense bosoms of the val- 

 leys and the green forests that opened among this wild ocean 

 of mountains ; the trees on their sides, appeared minute and deli- 

 cate as geraniums, while the deep and wide chasms produced by 

 vast slides, presented horrid features of devastation, attesting the 

 ravages of alpine floods, bearing down before them forest, soil, 

 and rocks, with every movable thing, and thus gashing the solid 

 frame work of the everlasting hills with the deep wounds of the 

 olden and the modern time. 



duite at the feet of the mountains, and along the opening vales 

 and plains, ran in full view, silver streams, among cultivated fields, 

 gracefully bordering the works of man — his houses, farms, and 

 villages. 



Again, the clouds of flying ice, resembling tufts of cotton, closed 

 thickly around, and hung an impenetrable veil between us and 

 the world below ; a wintry tempest now raged around, and with 

 great difficulty we mounted the last rocks, and saw that there was 

 nothing higher than ourselves. Here the wind blew a furious 

 gale, and the strongest man among us could not keep his stand- 

 ing without holding fast by the rocks, while those who neglected 

 this precaution were instantly prostrated by the storm, which, as 

 if in exultation, roared and howled with a truly savage grandeur, 

 over this wild alpine solitude. The cold was so severe and the 

 pelting of the storm so violent, that a few minutes at a time was 

 all that we could give to the mountain peak. We were glad to 

 step under a covert, where the rocks aflbrded a partial shelter 

 from the tempest, and here we finished our little remaining store 

 of refreshments. 



For science there was little to survey. The piles we trod on 

 were the ruins of the stupendous granite mountains, elevated in 

 ancient time, lashed by the stonns, cracked by frost, and mutilated 

 for untold ages by the sure, although slow agencies of nature. 

 The very peak of the mountain is mica slate supported by granite. 

 There could be no doubt, that the immense masses of loose rocks, 

 of every size, which we saw around us, were once united in a 

 connected summit, and that these ruins are only evidence of the 

 mighty work of demolition, which is always going on with a real 

 although imperceptible progress. As to organic remains, it were 

 vain to look for them in this primitive region, and almost equally 

 vain is it to expect to find any living animal in these wild and bar- 

 ren solitudes. It is, however, a satisfaction to have trod on the 



