80 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



hotel, with accommodations for fifty guests. Upon the east side is the 

 Glen house, at the lower end of the carriage-road. This, and the Fabyan 

 house, are the largest hotels near Mt. Washington, either being capa- 

 ble of accommodating five hundred guests at one time. The Profile and 

 Flume houses, among the Franconia Mountains, and the large and well 

 appointed hotels of Plymouth, Littleton, Bethlehem, Lancaster, Jefferson, 

 North Conway, and other places, too numerous for particular mention 

 here, show the popularity of this portion of our state as a summer 

 resort. 



There are now three ways of ascending Mt. Washington from below, — 

 two from the west and one from the east ; or, a railway, a carriage-road, 

 and a bridle-path. In 1840, the bridle-path to the summit was cut from 

 the notch over Mts. Clinton, Pleasant, Franklin, and Monroe, to Washing- 

 ton, being nine miles in length. It affords a magnificent panorama of 

 mountain scenery, passing along over the treeless, wind-swept summits 

 of the range ; but, on account of its tiresomeness, few now ascend by this 

 route. A still longer bridle-path was soon afterwards opened by Mr. 

 Davis over Mt. Crawford, and thence along the east side of Dry, or Mt. 

 Washington river, but it is now wholly disused. Still later, the bridle- 

 path first opened by Ethan Crawford from the Giant's grave to " Cold 

 spring," or the base of Washington, was enlarged and became a carriage- 

 road. This was in use, though kept in poor repair, till it was superseded 

 by the "Fabyan turnpike," in 1866. It terminated about a quarter of a 

 mile higher up the mountain than the lower depot of the railway, known 

 as "Ammonoosuc," formerly " Marshfield." 



In June, 1853, a company was chartered to build a carriage-road from 

 the Glen to the Tip-top house, with a capital stock of fifty thousand 

 dollars. The length of this road is a little less than eight miles. By the 

 original design it was to be sixteen feet wide, macadamized, and to have 

 a protection wall three feet high in dangerous places. Its average grade 

 is twelve feet in one hundred, and the steepest is about sixteen feet in 

 one hundred, two and a half miles from the Glen. The work of its con- 

 struction was commenced in 1855, under the superintendence of C. H. 

 V. Cavis, engineer. It was carried as far as the " ledge," or half way, in 

 1856, and in 1861 it was completed to the summit. There is a small 

 house on this road half way up the mountain, at the point where the 



