each other: one about twenty feet in height, the other about 

 twelve. Half of the space is occupied by the brook men- 

 tioned as the head stream of the Saco; the other half by the 

 road. The stream is lost and invisible beneath a mass of 

 fragments, partly blown out of the road and partly thrown 

 down by some great convulsion. 



When we entered the Notch, we were struck with the 

 wild and solemn appearance of everything before us. The 

 scale on which all the objects in view were formed was the 

 scale of grandeur only. The rocks, rude and ragged in a 

 manner rarely paralleled, were fashioned and piled on each 

 other by a hand operating only in the boldest and most ir- 

 regular manner. As we advanced, these appearances in- 

 creased rapidly. Huge masses of granite, of every abrupt 

 form and hoary with a moss which seemed the product of 

 ages, recalling to the mind the "Saxum vetustum" of Virgil, 

 speedily rose to a mountainous height. Before us the view 

 closed almost instantaneously and presented nothing to the 

 eye but an impassable barrier of mountains. 



About half a mile from the entrance of the chasm we saw 

 in full view the most beautiful cascade, perhaps, in the world. 

 It issued from a mountain on the right, about eight hundred 

 feet above the subjacent valley, and at the distance of about 

 two miles from us. The stream ran over a series of rocks, 

 almost perpendicular, with a course so little broken as to pre- 

 serve the appearance of an uniform current, and yet so far 

 disturbed as to be perfectly white. The sun shone with the 

 clearest splendour from a station in the heavens the most 

 advantageous to our prospect; and the cascade glittered 

 down the vast steep, like a stream of burnished silver. 



At the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the en- 

 trance, we passed a brook, known in this region by the name 

 of the Flume from the strong resemblance to that object 

 exhibited by the channel which it has worn for a considerable 

 length in a bed of rocks, the sides being perpendicular to the 

 bottom. This elegant piece of water we determined to ex- 

 amine further, and, alighting from our horses, walked up the 



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