Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/151

 " MOOSILAUKE."

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��The housewife rocking her cradle of a stormy night, below, would mutter as a gust of storm thundered over the roof, "• O then it is poor Jim that has enough of fresh air about his head up there this night, the creature." !

Let us get up on the deck of the roof. It is the best view of all from here ; the grandest and most sublime, far surpass- ing that from any other peak in New England, because of its isolated position, and of its great height, and no other mountains near to hide the prospect, as is the case at the White mountains. Then standing alone it does not attract the clouds as the White mountains do, and for a whole month in the season it shoots up into the clear heaven when all the eastern peaks are cloud capped.

Just around us, the mountain is green with mosses and lichens, thirty kinds of mosses; and harebells and mountain cranberries, with their millions of flow- ers, make it seem like a garden, with a green border of firs and spruces and birches below. Purple finches, snow birds, and the mountain whistler are sing- ing in this garden.

Look away to the south first. How the ruby light is gleaming on Lake Winne- pisseogee, " The Smile of the Great Spir- it ;" see that tall shaft just on the hori- zon beyond. It is Bunker Hill monu- ment standing " down by the sea." Car- ry your eye round to the west ; Mt. Bel- knap is first, then Wachusett in Massa- chusetts, the Uncanoonucks, and to the right of them, Jo English, Kearsarge, Mt. Cardigan, Monadnock, and Croydon mountains. Close by is Waternomee, Cushman, Kineo, Mount Carr, Stinson mountain in Romney, Smart's mountain in Dorchester, Mt. Cube in Orford, Sen- tinel mountain in Warren, snd Piermont mountain.

Across the Connecticut river to the southwest is Ascutney, and beyond it, farther down, is Saddle mountain, Gray- lock, and Berkshire hills, in Massachu- setts. Then wheeling round towards the north are Killington peaks, sharp and needle like, shooting up above the neigh- boring hills; farther north and directly west, is Camel's Hump, unmistakable in ts appearance ; then Mt. Mansfield, tow-

��ering above the thousand other summits of the Green Mountains.

Above and beyond them, in the far- thest distance, are counted nine sharp peaks of the Adirondacks in New York, Mt. Marcy higher than all the rest. To- morrow morning at sunrise you will see the fog floating up from Lake.Champlain this side of them.

In the northwest is Jay peak on Cana- da line, and to the right of it you see a hundred summits rising from the table lands of Canada. Then there is the notch at Memphremagog lake, Owl's head by Willoughby lake, and Monadnock in northern Vermont.

Closedown is Black mountain; Owl's head of New Hampshire, and Blueberry, Hogback and Sugarloaf mountains. Then north is Cobble hill in Landafl*; Gardner mountain in Lyman, and Stark peaks away up in northern Coos.

To the right, and stretching away to the northeast in Maine, you see a long rolling range of hills, the water-shed be- tween the Atlantic ocean and the St. Lawrence river, said by Agassiz to be the oldest land in the word. East of these is the white summit of the Azis- coos, by Umbagog lake.

Nearest and to the north-east is Mt. Kinsman, the Profile mountain, and above and over them Mt. Lafayette, its sides scarred and jagged where a hun- dred torrents pour down in spring, its peaks splintered by lightning. South of this, and near by, are the Haystacks. Over and beyond the latter are the Twins, more than five thousand feet high ; and just to the right of them Mt. Washington, dome shaped and higher than all the rest. Around this monarch of mountains, as if attendant upon him, are Mts. Adams and Jefferson, sharp peaks on the left, and Mt. Moriah, the Imp, Mts. Madison and Monroe, Mt. Webster, the Willey notch precipice, Double head, and a hundred other great mountains standing to the right and left.

A little to the south is Carrigan, 4,S00 feet high, black and sombre, most at- tractive and most dreaded, not a white spot nor a scar upon it ; covered with dark woods like a black pall, symmetri- cal and beautiful, the eye turns away to

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