2,6 $cto=<£nglairtis Parities. 



Northeafl an hundred Leagues, known by the name of the 

 White Mountains, upon which lieth Snow all the year, and 

 is a Land-mark twenty miles off at Sea. It is rifing 

 ground from the Sea fhore to thefe Hills, and they are 

 inacceffible but by the Gullies which the diffolved Snow 

 hath made; in thefe Gullies grow Savcn Bufhes, which 

 being taken hold of are a good help to the climbing Dif- 

 coverer; upon the top of the higheft of thefe Mountains 

 is a large Level [4] or Plain of a days journey over, 

 whereon nothing grows but Moss ; at the farther end of 

 this Plain is another Hill called the Stigar-Loaf, to out- 

 ward appearance a rude heap of maflie ftones piled one 

 upon another, and you may as you afcend ftep from one 

 ftone to another, as if you were going up a pair of ftairs, 

 but winding ftill about the Hill till you come to the top, 

 which will require half a days time, and yet it is not 

 above a Mile, where there is alfo a Level of about an 

 Acre of ground, with a pond of clear water in the midft of 

 it; which you may hear run down, but how it afcends is a 

 myftery. From this rocky Hill you may fee the whole 

 Country round about; it is far above the lower Clouds, 

 and from hence we beheld a Vapour (like a great Pillar) 

 drawn up by the Sun Beams out of a great Lake or Pond 

 into the Air, where it was formed into a Cloud. The 

 County beyond thefe Hills Northward is daunting terri- 

 ble, being full of rocky Hills, as thick as Mole-hills in a 

 Meadow, and cloathed with infinite thick Woods. 1 



1 The earliest ascents of the White Mountains were those made by Field and 

 others in 1642, of which we have some account in Winthrop's Journal (by Savage, 



