Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/76

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��Asqiiam Lake and its Environs.

��New Hampshire. Five fair villages lie scattered in plain view — Alexan- dria, Tuftonborough, Meredith, Ash- land, and Hebron.

Beach hill, just over in New Hamp- ton, is the mountain of local fame. It is the peak everybody wishes to ascend, in order to see the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof. It is between seventeen and eighteen hundred feet high, and furnishes a very respectable little climb on a warm summer da3^ The view from the top, though not equal to that from Peaked hill or Mount Pros- pect, is a noble one, and seems to embrace all of central New Hamp- shire. Mount Lafayette stands firmly planted in the valley gateway, while Cliocorua and Paugus stand vast and rock-ribbed farther to the right. Can- non mountain just peers over the right shoulder of Lafayette, and is often lost in the vast bulk of the nearer mountain. Cardigan and Kear- sarge rise in the west and the south like twin sentinels against the dark blue skv. The nearer local heights are like strophe and anti-strophe in a grand chorus. Old Whiteface, across Lake Squam, answers to Guustock in the south-east, the Red Hills call to their vis-a-vis Mount Israel, in Sand- wich. The music swells all round to the south, when the foot-hills toward INIassachusetts rise in gentle undula- tions like the waves of the sea.

Over across the nearest valley, its rugged, cliff-like peaks nearly covered with pine and hemlock, is Mortar hill, so called from the Indian relic or natural curiosity on its summit. This is a mortar-shaped impression in the solid ledge, about a foot and a half deep and twelve inches across the

��top. The hole would contain, if the edges had not been battered off bv those who have visited it, about Jialf a, barrel of water. The mortar was probably once used by the Indians to grind their corn. It is an object of considerable interest to visitors ; and as the rock is in a good state of pres- ervation, the use to which the depres- sion in it was put, and the position of the squaw as she sat there and pounded out the maize for her liege lord, can readily be determined. The pestle, which must have been a sec- ond stone about a foot long, has been secured by some one and carried off, as no one about the place knows aught of it. Any one cannot but be delighted with his visit to the red men's granary, as it gratifies alike the antiquarian and the esthetic in- stinct.

The lake views at the east and north-east are magnificent. I know of no finer lookout in the country. The summit is a broad terrace, half ledge, half greensward ; delightful wood paths, shaded by oaks, beeches, and birches, skirt the eminence, and everywhere, from every point of view, spread the glistening waters, dotted with their green isles. All through this valley coniferous forests are blended with a larger proportion of deciduous trees. Pine groves, carpeted with red needles, and breath- ing out resinous perfumes, are only frequent enough to form a delightful feature in the landscape. The white birch is the most exquisite of the forest trees. Its stems show brilliant- ly in the sun on all the mountain sides. Beech, birch, and maple, though all begins with A, are all abundant. While roaming in the

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