Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/159

 The White and Franconia Mountains.

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��of the plains. '•' Flee to the mountains," cried the angel to Lot. Ah I there was meaning in the command. Men stagnate upon the plain ; they grow indolent, sensual, mediocre there, and are only vivified as they seek the great alphabet of nature, as they pulsate with her in her wondrous heart-beats. It has been the mountam men who have ruled the world.

New Hampshire is a land of moun- tains. She is indeed throned among the hills, and well deserves the title of the " Switzerland of America." Her cloud-capped peaks, even in mid-sum- mer, glisten with frosts and snows of winter, and they stand watchful senti- nels over the liberties of her children. Our Alps are the \Vhite Mountains, and they hold no mean place beside their

��rivals in the. old world. Their lofty elevation, their geological formation, the wild and romantic scenery in their vicinity, and their legeiKls of white and red men, all concur to render them pe- culiarly interesting.

The White Mountain range is lo- cated in Coos, Grafton, and Carroll Counties, covering an area of about two thousand square miles, or nearly a third of the northern section of the State. Four of the largest rivers of New Eng- land receive tributaries from its streams, and one has its principal source in this region. The peaks cluster in two groups, the eastern or \\'hite Mountain group, proper, and the Franconia group, separated from each other by a table- land varying from ten to twenty miles in breadth. These mountains differ from

���OWL'S HEAD AND MOOSILAUKE, WARREN, N. H.

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