HOFFMANN: FLORA OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY. 185 
of the County Mt. Everett, better known in the County as The Dome, 
rises to an elevation of 2624 feet. In the northern end of the County, 
lies the mass of which Mt. Greylock is the highest point. This peak 
is 3505 feet above sea level, and is the highest mountain in the State. 
The eastern portion of the County is composed of a broad series of 
ranges, which are a continuation of the Green Mountain range of 
Vermont. The highest peaks rise to an elevation of 2840 feet in 
Florida and 2280 feet in Windsor, but there are no deep valleys sepa- 
rating one range from another as in the Taconic range. For long 
distances the upland rises steeply from the valleys of the Housatonic 
and the Hoosac to a very uniform level, about 2000 feet in the north, 
falling to 1500 feet in the south. The whole upland is so distinct in 
its character from either the valleys above described or from the well- 
drained Taconics that for convenience it will be called, in the following 
list, the Hoosac Plateau or the Plateau. 
There are nine or ten large lakes and a number of small ponds in the 
County. Most of the lakes are remnants of glacial lakes formed in the 
river valleys. The largest are Onota and Pontoosuc in Pittsfield, Lake 
Mahkeenac (Stockbridge Bowl) in Stockbridge, Lakes Garfield (Brewer 
Pond) and Buel in Monterey, and Cheshire Reservoir in Cheshire. 
Several of these have comparatively soft bottoms and marshy places 
along part of the shore-line. There are in the upland, particularly in 
Becket and Otis, a number of small ponds with hard bottoms and 
rocky shores. There are also small ponds both on the upland and in 
the valleys in the center of "ciuaking" peat bogs. In Lenox and 
Sheffield there are extensive swampy woods bordering the Housatonic 
and its tributaries. 
The altitude of much of the Plateau and of many of the liills, not- 
ably The Dome and the Greylock mass, is such that snow falls (>arlier 
and lingers later there than in the A'alleys, and clouds and mist often 
rest on the heights when the ^•alley is clear. 
The distribution of plants depends so intimately on the tharacter 
of the soil and this in turn so much on ])ast geological history that a 
brief account of the main geological changes that \\n\v taken place in 
the County is necessary. The u])land designated abovi' as the 
Hoosac Plateau is composed for the most part of hard igneous or 
metamorpliic rocks dating from the Areluiean and Cambrian periods. 
The principal rocks are granitic gneiss, sericite schist, ;nnl (|uart/,ite. 
The valli>ys of the Housatonic and lloosiic :ind their principal lril>u- 
