180 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
ing on a mountain in the midst of a lake, where would 
you look for the first sign of approaching fair weather ? 
Not into the heavens, it seems, but into the lake. 
Again we mistook a little rocky islet seen through the 
“ drisk,” with some taller bare trunks or stumps on it, 
for the steamer with its smoke-pipes, but as it had not 
changed its position after half an hour, we were unde¬ 
ceived. So much do the works of man resemble the 
works of nature. A moose might mistake a steamer for 
a floating isle, and not be scared till he heard its puffing 
or its whistle. 
If I wished to see a mountain or other scenery under 
the most favorable auspices, I would go to it in foul 
weather, so as to be there when it cleared up; we are 
then in the most suitable mood, and nature is most fresh 
and inspiring. There is no serenity so fair as that which 
is just established in a tearful eye. 
Jackson, in his Report on the Geology of Maine, 
in 1838, says of this mountain: “Hornstone, which will 
answer for flints, occurs in various parts of the State, 
where trap-rocks have acted upon silicious slate. The 
largest mass of this stone known in the world is Mount 
Kineo, upon Moosehead Lake, which appears to be en¬ 
tirely composed of it, and rises seven hundred feet above 
the lake level. This variety of hornstone I have seen 
in every part of New England in the form of Indian ar¬ 
row-heads, hatchets, chisels, etc., which were probably 
obtained from this mountain by the aboriginal inhabitants 
of the country.” I have myself found hundreds of ar¬ 
row-heads made of the same material. It is genera 11 7 
slate-colored, with white specks, becoming a uniform 
white where exposed to the light and air, and it breaks 
with a conchoidal fracture, producing a ragged cutting 
