Miscellaneous Notices of Mountain Scenery, ^c. 225 



obliged to leave our wagon half a mile behind. In many 

 places in these six miles, the road and the whole adjacent 

 woods, as it appeared from the marks on the trees, had been 

 overflowed to the depth of ten feet. In one place the river, 

 in consequence of some obstruction at a remarkable fall, 

 had been twenty feet higher than it was when we passed. 

 We stopped to view the fail, which Dr. Dwight calls ^' beauti- 

 ful." He says of it — " The descent is from fifty to sixty feet, 

 cut through a mass of stratified granite ; the sides of which 

 appear as if they had been laid by a mason in a variety of 

 fantastical forms ; betraying, however, by their rude and 

 wild aspect, the masterly hand of nature." This descrip- 

 tion is sufl&ciently correct; but the beauty of the fall was- 

 nowlost in its sublimity. You have only to imagine the whole 

 body of the Amonoosuck, as it appeared at the bridge which 

 we crossed, now compressed to half of its width, and sent 

 downward at an angle of twenty or twenty five degrees be- 

 tween perpendicular walls of stone. On our arrival at Craw- 

 ford's the appearance of his farm was like that of Rose- 

 brook's, only much worse. Some of his sheep and cattle 

 were lost ; and eight hundred bushels of oats were destroy- 

 ed. Here we found five gentlemen, who gave us an inter- 

 esting account of their unsuccessful attempt to ascend Mount 

 Washington the preceding day. They went to the "Camp" 

 at the foot of the mountain on Sabbath evening, and lodged 

 there with the intention of climbing the summit the next morn- 

 ing. But in the morning the mountains were enveloped in 

 thick clouds ; the rain began to fall, and increased till after- 

 noon, when it came down in torrents. At five o'clock they 

 proposed to spend another night at the camp, and let their 

 guide return home for a fresh supply of provisions for the 

 next day. But the impossibility of keeping a fire where ev- 

 ery thing was so wet, and the advice of their guide, made 

 them all conclude to return, though with great reluctance. 

 No time was now to be lost, for they had seven miles to trav- 

 el on foot, and six of them by a rugged path through a 

 gloomy forest. They ran as fast as their circumstances 

 would permit; but the dark evergreens around them, and the 

 black clouds above, made it night before they had gone half 

 the way. The rain poured down faster every moment ; and 

 the little streams, which they had stepped across the even- 

 ing before, must now be crossed by wading, or by cutting 

 down trees for bridges, to which they were obliged to clinff 

 Vol, XV.— No. 2. 4 



