TOPOGRAPHY. 
I I 
altitude of five thousand three hundred and forty-four feet (1,628.- 
85 1 metres). * 
The entire region is studded with hundreds of beautiful lakes of va- 
rious sizes and depths, and two of them are upwards of four thousand 
feet above tide level. The altitude of the western border of this area 
is nowhere less than one thousand feet (304.80 metres), and in most 
places is considerably more than this. From the valley of the Black 
River the slope is gradual, and the flattened summits of the first 
range of foot-hills form a terrace of great extent. The dense forests 
that formerly covered this terrace have mostly been destroyed, and 
it is now a sandy, barren region, overrun with blackberries and 
other rank undergrowth. Beyond, to the eastward, lie the ranges 
of low hills and irregularly distributed mountains, with their many 
lakes and rivers, that indicate the confines of the Adirondacks. 
On the eastward the case is very different. Lake Champlain is not 
an hundred feetf (30.48 metres) above tide-level, and Lake George is 
but three hundred and forty-three feet (104.546 metres). From the 
head (south end) of Lake George to Glen’s Falls, a distance of but 
nine miles (14,484 metres), there is a fall of sixty-one feet (18.69 
metres). Glen’s Falls, it will be remembered, is directly on the 
Hudson, just east of Luzerne. Hence it is clear that one can travel 
from New York city to Montreal on the St. Lawrence River, and 
by a very direct road, too, without passing over any elevation greater 
than the shore of Lake George. The route would be : up the Hud- 
son to Glen’s Falls, thence overland nine miles to Fort William 
Henry on Lake George, or down the valley to Whitehall, and 
thence, skirting the Adirondacks, down Lake Champlain and its 
outlet, the river Richelieu, to Sorel on the St. Lawrence, at the 
head of Lake St. Peter — about forty miles below Montreal. This 
is, indeed, the exact pathway traversed, but little more than two 
* Report of Adirondack Survey, Verplanck Colvin, Superintendent, 1880. 
f Exactly 99 feet. 
