64 MOUNTAIN PLANTS. ECHO. [CHAP. IV. 



Oct. 5. Penetrating still further into the mountains, we es 

 tablished ourselves in pleasant quarters for several days at Fa- 

 byan s Hotel, thirty-two miles from Conway, waiting for fine 

 weather to ascend Mount Washington. Whenever the rain 

 ceased for a few hours we explored the lower hills, and were for 

 tunate enough to have, as a companion in our walks, one of the 

 ablest botanists in America, Mr. William Oakes,^ of Ipswich, 

 Massachusetts, who is preparing for publication a fine work on 

 the Flora of the White Mountains. In one of our excursions 

 with him to see the falls of the river Amoonosuc, he showed us 

 several places where the Linncea borealis was growing, now in 

 fruit. I had seen this plant in flower in Nova Scotia in July, 

 1842, but was not prepared to find it extending so much farther 

 southward, having first known it as characteristic of Norway, 

 and of great Alpine heights in Europe. But I was still more 

 surprised when I learned, from Mr. Oakes, that it descends even 

 into the wooded plains of New Hampshire, under favor of a long 

 winter and of summer fogs, near the sea. What is most singu 

 lar, between Manchester and Cape Anne, lat 42 30 N., it in 

 habits the same swamp with the Magnolia glauca. The arctic 

 Linncea, trailing along the ground and protected from the sun 

 by a magnolia, affords a curious example of the meeting of two 

 plants of genera characteristic of very different latitudes, each on 

 the extreme limits of its northern or southern range. 



One evening, during our stay here, we enjoyed listening to the 

 finest mountain echo I ever heard. Our host, Fabyan, played a 

 few clear notes on a horn, which were distinctly repeated five 

 times by the echo, in softened and melodious tones. The third 

 repetition, although coming of course from a greater distance, 

 was louder than the two fi.rst, which had a beautiful effect, and 

 may be caused either by the concave form of the rocks being 

 more favorable to the reflection of sound, or from the place where 

 we stood being, in reference to that distant spot, more exactly in 

 the focus of the ellipse. 



In the elevated plain at the foot of the mountains at Fabyan s 



* Since writing the above, I have heard, with deep regret, of the death 

 of this amiable and accomplished naturalist. 



