Joel Cook

XII.

THE ADIRONDACKS AND THEIR ATTENDANT LAKES.

The Great North Woods—Mount Marcy or Tahawus—Schroon Lake—Raquette River—View from Mount Marcy—Door of the Country—Lake George—Horicon, the Silvery Water—Isaac Jogues—Sir William Johnson—Lake George Scenery and Islands—Sabbath Day Point—Lake George Battles and Massacres—The Bloody Morning Scout—Colonel Ephraim Williams—Baron Dieskau Defeated and Captured—Fort William Henry—Fort Carillon—General Montcalm—Massacre at Fort William Henry—Alexandria—Ticonderoga—Abercrombie's Expedition—General Lord Howe—Rogers' Slide—Howe Killed and Abercrombie Defeated—Amherst's Expedition—Carillon Captured—Fort Ticonderoga—Conquest of Canada—Ethan Allen Captures Ticonderoga—Lake Champlain—Samuel de Champlain Explores It—Defeats the Iroquois—Crown Point—Port Henry—Bulwagga Mountain and Bay—Fort St. Frederic—Westport—Split Rock—Rock Reggio—Port Kent—Vermont—The Green Mountains—Bennington—John Stark—Rutland—Killington Peak—Mount Mansfield—Forehead, Nose and Chin—Camel's Hump—Maple Sugar—Burlington—University of Vermont—Ethan Allen's Grave—Winooski River—Smuggler's Notch—Montpelier—Hessian Cannon—St. Albans—Ausable Chasm—Alice Falls—Birmingham Falls—Grand Flume—Bluff Point—Lower Saranac River—Plattsburg—Fredenburgh's Ghost—McDonough's Victory—Chateaugay Forest—Clinton Prison—Rouse's Point—Richelieu River—Chambly Rapids—Entering the Adirondacks—Raven Pass—Bouquet River—Elizabethtown—Mount Hurricane—Giant of the Valley—Ausable River—Flats of Keene—Mount Dix—Noon Mark Mountain—Ausable Lakes—Adirondack Mountain Reserve—Mount Colvin—Verplanck Colvin—Long Pond Mountain—Pitch-Off Mountain—Cascade Lakes—Mount Mclntyre—Wallface—Western Ausable River—Plains of Abraham—North Elba—Whiteface—Old John Brown's Farm and Grave—Lake Placid—Mirror Lake—Eye of the Adirondacks—Upper Saranac River—Harrietstown—Lower Saranac Lake—Ampersand—Canoeing and Carrying—Round Lake—Upper Saranac Lake—Big Clear Pond—St. Regis Mountain and River—St. Germain Carry—St. Regis Lakes—Paul Smith's—Raquette River and Lake—Camp Pine Knot—Blue Mountain and Lake—Eagle Lake—Fulton Lakes—Forked Lakes—Long Lake—Tupper Lakes—Mountains, Woods and Waters—The Forest Hymn.

THE GREAT NORTH WOODS.

The Adirondack wilderness covers almost the whole of Northern New York. This region is an elevated plateau of about fifteen thousand square miles, crossed by mountain ranges. It stretches from Canada down almost to the Mohawk Valley, and from Lake Champlain northwest to the St. Lawrence, in rugged surface, the plateau from which its peaks arise being elevated about two thousand feet above the sea. Five nearly parallel mountain ranges cross it from southwest to northeast, terminating in great promontories upon the shores of Lake Champlain. The most westerly is the Clinton or Adirondack range, beginning at the pass of Little Falls upon the Mohawk River and crossing the wilderness to the bold Trembleau Point upon the lake at Port Kent. This range contains the highest peaks, the loftiest of them, Mount Marcy or Tahawus, rising fifty-three hundred and forty-five feet, while Mounts McIntyre, Whiteface, Seward and several others nearby approximate five thousand feet. A multitude of peaks of various heights are scattered through the region, over five hundred being enumerated. They are all wild and savage, and were covered by the primeval forests until the ruthless wood-chopper began his destructive incursions. The stony summits of the higher mountains rise above all vegetation, excepting mosses and dwarf Alpine plants. The geological formation is mainly granitic and other primary rocks. In the valleys are more than a thousand beautiful lakes of varying sizes, generally at fifteen hundred to two thousand feet elevation, Schroon Lake, the largest, being the lowest, elevated eight hundred and seven feet, while the highest is "The Tear of the Clouds," at forty-three hundred and twenty feet elevation, one of the Hudson River sources. Some of these lakes are quite large, while others cover only a few acres, and most of them are lovely and romantic in everything but their prosaic names; and their scenery, with the surrounding mountains and overspreading forests, is unsurpassed. The labyrinth of lakes is connected by intricate systems of rivulets which go plunging down myriads of cascades, their outlets discharging into several well-known rivers, the chief being the Hudson. The largest and finest stream within the district is the Raquette River, rising in Raquette Lake and flowing westward and northward to the St. Lawrence. Around it, in the olden time, the Indians gathered on snowshoes to hunt the moose—the snowshoe being the French Canadian's "raquette," and hence the name. The Ausable and Saranac pass through romantic gorges and flow northeastward to Lake Champlain. This "Great North Woods," as it was called by our ancestors, is being so greatly despoiled of its forests, that to preserve the water supply of the Hudson, as well as to protect its scenic attractions, New York is making a State Park to include four thousand square miles, of which nearly one-half is now secured, having cost about $1,000,000. Railways are gradually extending into the district; it is becoming dotted with summer hotels and camping-grounds; and is one of the most popular American pleasure resorts.

The highest peak, Mount Marcy, has a summit which is a bare rock of about four hundred by one hundred feet, elevated more than a mile, and its outlook gives a splendid map of the Adirondacks. All about are mountains, though none are as high; McIntyre and Colden are close companions, with the dark forests of the St. Lawrence region stretching far behind them to the northwest. To the northward is the beautiful oval-shaped Lake Placid, with Whiteface rising beyond it, and nearby, to the westward, is the Indian "Big Eye," Mount Seward, which, with the "Giant of the Valley," rises far above the attendant peaks. Behind these, the hills to the northward gradually melt into the level lands along the St. Lawrence, out of which faintly rises the distant Mount Royal, back of Montreal. The Vermont Green Mountains bound the eastern horizon, with the hazy outline of Mount Washington traced against the sky through a depression in that range, thus opening an almost deceptive view of the distant White Mountains. The Catskills close the southern view. The vast wilderness spreads all around this noble mountain, its white lakes gleaming, its dark forests broken by a few clearings, and smokes arising here and there disclosing the abiding-places of the summer sojourner. Off to the northeast stretches the long glistening streak of Lake Champlain, low-lying, the telescope disclosing the sails of the vessels like specks upon its bosom, and the Vermont villages fringing the farther shore. This narrow, elongated lake, filling the immense trough-like valley between the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains of Vermont, the Indians called as one of its names (for it had several) Cania-de-ri-qua-rante, meaning "The door of the Country." Naming everything from a prominent attribute, to their minds the chief use of this long water way was as a door to let in the fierce Hurons from Canada when they came south to make war upon the Mohawks or the Mohicans. Many a brave warrior, both Indian and white, has gone through that door to attack his foes, one way or the other. As far back as tradition goes, the dusky savages were darting swiftly along the lake in their canoes, bent upon plunder or revenge. Then came Champlain, its white discoverer, to aid the Hurons with his arquebuse in their forays upon the Mohawks and Iroquois. In the ante-Revolutionary days many a French and Indian horde came along to massacre and destroy the English and Dutch settlements in the Hudson Valley. Then the current changed, and the English beat back their foes northward along the lake. Again it changed, as Burgoyne came in triumph through that door to meet defeat at Saratoga. Finally, in 1814, the last British forces moved southward on the lake, but they, too, were beaten. Since then this famous door has stood wide open, but only tourists and traders are passing through, though zest is given the present exploration by its warlike history of two centuries.

LAKE GEORGE.

Upon the southeastern border of the Adirondacks is Lake George, its head or southern end being nine miles north of Glen's Falls on the Hudson River. No American lake has had so many songs of praise; it is a gem among the mountains, its picturesque grandeur giving it the deserved title of the American Como. It reminds the Englishman of Windermere and the Scot of charming Loch Katrine, for while it is larger, it holds a place in our scenery akin to both those famous lakes. Embowered amid high hills, a crystal mirror set in among cliffs and forest-clad mountains, their wild and rugged features are constantly reflected in its clear spring waters. Its scenery mingles the gentle and picturesque with the bold and magnificent. George Bancroft, referring to its warlike history, says: "Peacefully rest the waters of Lake George between their ramparts of highlands. In their pellucid depth the cliffs and the hills and the trees trace their images, and the beautiful region speaks to the heart, teaching affection for nature." It is long and narrow, having more the character of a river than a lake, lying almost north and south, in a deep trough among the mountains, its waters discharging from the north end into Lake Champlain, and while thirty-six miles long, it is nowhere more than two or three miles wide. Washing the eastern verges of the Adirondacks, the bold ranges give it the rare beauties of scenery always presented by a mountain lake. Its surface is two hundred and forty-three feet above tide-water, and in some places it is over four hundred feet deep, the basin in which it rests being covered with a yellow sand, so that the bottom is visible through the pellucid waters at great depth. It is dotted with romantic islands, beautiful hill-slopes border the shores, and the background rises into dark and bold mountains. This magnificent lake was Horicon, or the "Silvery Water" of the Mohicans, a name which Cooper, the novelist, vainly endeavored to revive for it. The Mohawks called it Andiatarocte, or the "Place where the Lake Closes." The Hurons, as it appeared much like an appendage to Lake Champlain, named it Canaderioit, or the "Tail of the Lake." The first white man who saw it was the young French Jesuit missionary, Isaac Jogues, who had been captured on the St. Lawrence by a band of Mohawks, and was brought through it a captive in 1642, and after horrible maltreatment escaped to Albany. He went home to France, and in 1646 came out again, determined to convert them. His canoe entered its quiet waters on his beneficent mission on the eve of the festival of Corpus Christi, and he named it Lac du Saint Sacrament. He went on to the Mohawk Valley and ministered to them, but soon they murdered him. The French prized its clear and sparkling waters so highly that they were sent to Canada for baptismal uses. When Sir William Johnson came along more than a century later and took possession for England, he brushed aside all these romantic names, and in honor of his King George II., called it Lake George, the name which remains.

A charming steamboat ride over the lake best discloses its delicious scenery as one glides among the lovely islands, and through scenes like a fairy-land, their brilliant prospects constantly changing. At almost every hour from noon to eve, or in the gathering storm, the islands of Lake George—which are said to equal in number the days of the year—exhibit ever new phases. They may sleep under the cloud-shadow, and then the sun brightly breaks over them; they present a foreground of rough rocks or of pebble and shingle-covered beach, or an Acadian bower of rustic beauty, while the landscape is filled with the spreading waters and the distant-tinted hills. Tea Island, near the head of the lake, is a picnic-ground; Sloop Island has its tree-trunks looking like the spreading sails of a single-masted vessel; Diamond Island yields beautiful quartz crystals. Near the centre of the widest portion of the lake is Dome Island, richly wooded, and resembling the noted "Ellen's Isle" of Loch Katrine. The Sisters are diminutive islets, lonely in their isolation. The beautiful Recluse Island has a picturesque villa, while all about it rise high mountains. Green Island bears the Sagamore, and behind it the encircling shores of Ganouskie Bay are lined with villas at Bolton, which look out upon a grand archipelago. Green Island covers seventy acres, and is a perfect gem of rich green surface. On the shores and islands all about are numerous summer camping-places, a favorite resort being the Shelving Falls, coming through the Shelving Rock, an impressive semicircle of Palisades, behind which rises the lake's greatest mountain, ever present in all its views, Black Mountain, elevated twenty-nine hundred feet. Just beyond, the towering hills thrust out on either hand contract the waters into the Narrows, dotted with a whole fleet of little islands, the most picturesque part of the lake, and here a brief fairy-like glimpse of the hamlet of Dresden is got, nestling under these great mountains, down Bosom Bay. Northward from the Narrows, a long projecting point of low and fertile land stretches out on the western side, still retaining that air of restful peace which in the eighteenth century secured it the name of Sabbath Day Point. Farther on, and near the outlet, Rogers' Slide is on one side and Anthony's Nose on the other, these bold cliffs contracting the lake into a second Narrows. Beyond these are lower and less interesting shores, and finally, at the foot, its waters are discharged through the winding Ticonderoga Creek into Lake Champlain.

LAKE GEORGE BATTLES AND MASSACRES.

The historical associations of Lake George are of the deepest interest, for it was the route between the colonial frontier and Lake Champlain, and the scene of great military movements and savage combats. For over a century this attractive region was the sojourning place of religious devotees coming down from Canada to convert or conquer the heathen Iroquois, or of hostile expeditions moving both north and south—Indians, French, Dutch, English—all passing over its lovely waters; and it was the scene of two of the most horrid massacres of the colonial wars. Whenever there was war between France and England this lake saw fierce conflicts, the red men taking part with the whites on both sides. In 1755 Sir William Johnson's expedition started northward from the Hudson to capture Crown Point on Lake Champlain, advancing from Glen's Falls to Lake George, over the route still taken. Colonel Ephraim Williams of Massachusetts commanded part of this expedition, and was ambushed by the French and Hurons near the lake, in what was called the "Bloody Morning Scout." Upon the road still exist grim memorials of the ambush and massacre in the "Bloody Pond" and "Williams' Rock." He had twelve hundred troops and two hundred Mohawk Indians, and both Williams and the white-haired Mohawk chief, Hendrick, were slain, with hundreds of their followers, and the bodies of the dead were thrown into the pond. When the brave Williams started on this sad expedition he had a presentiment of his fate and made his will at Albany, giving his estate to support a free school, and from this bequest was founded the well-known Williams College, at Williamstown, in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts. A monument on the hillside, resting upon "Williams' Rock," was erected in 1854 by the College Alumni, to mark the place of his death, while deep down in the glen is the sequestered pond which, tradition says, had a bloody hue for many years.

After the surprise and massacre, Johnson's main forces, which had been at the head of Lake George and heard the firings came up and engaged the French, defeating them with great slaughter, wounding and capturing Baron Dieskau, their commander, who was badly maltreated until Johnson, learning who he was, sent for surgeons, took him into his own tent, and, although wounded himself, had Dieskau's wounds dressed first. The Mohawks, furious at the massacre and loss of their old chief, Hendrick, wanted to kill Dieskau, and a number of them, going into the tent, had a long and angry dispute in their own language with Johnson, after which they sullenly left. Dieskau asked what they wanted. "What do they want!" returned Johnson. "To burn you, by God, eat you, and smoke you in their pipes, in revenge for three or four of their chiefs that were killed. But never fear; you shall be safe with me, or else they shall kill us both." A captain and fifty men were detailed to guard Dieskau, but next morning a lone Indian, who had been loitering about the tent, slipped in and, drawing a sword concealed under a sort of cloak he wore, tried to stab the disabled prisoner. He was seized in time, however, to prevent the murder. The distinguished captive, as soon as his wounds permitted, was carried on a litter over to the Hudson, and sent thence to Albany and New York. He was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, and remarked of the provincial soldiers that in the morning they fought like good boys, about noon like men, and in the afternoon like devils. He returned to Europe in 1757, but he never recovered from his wounds and died a few years later. Johnson after the battle built a strong fort at the head of Lake George to hold his position, while the straggling French and Indians, who had retired to the foot of the lake, entrenched themselves at Ticonderoga. Thus was built the famous Fort William Henry by the English, named in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, brother of King George II., the hero of Culloden, while the French named their entrenched camp at Ticonderoga Fort Carillon, or the "Chime of Bells," in allusion to the music of the waterfalls in the outlet stream flowing beside it between the lakes.

Bitter enemies thus holding either end of Lake George, it became a constant battleground. In 1757, after numerous skirmishes, a considerable British and Colonial force was collected at Forts Edward and William Henry, intended to attack Carillon and Crown Point and drive the French down Lake Champlain. General Montcalm then commanded the French, and learning what was going on, and that the main British force was at Fort Edward, he swiftly traversed the lake with a large army and cut off and besieged Fort William Henry, garrisoned by twenty-five hundred men. The commander at Fort Edward was afraid to send reinforcements, and after a few days the British garrison, their guns dismounted and their works almost destroyed, were forced to capitulate. No sooner had they laid down their arms and marched out of the fort and an adjacent entrenched camp, than the Indian allies of the French, the fierce Hurons, fell upon them, plundering indiscriminately and murdering all they could reach, there being fifteen hundred killed or carried into captivity, and over a hundred women slain, with the worst barbarities of the savage. Montcalm did his best to restrain them, but was powerless. The fort was an irregular bastioned square, formed by gravel embankments, surmounted by a rampart of heavy logs laid in tiers, the interstices filled with earth, and it was built almost at the edge of the lake, the site being now occupied by a hotel. The French spent several days demolishing it. The barracks were torn down and the huge logs of the rampart thrown into a heap. The dead bodies filling the casemates were added to the mass, which was set fire, and the mighty funeral pyre blazed all night. Then the French sailed away on the lake, and Parkman says "no living thing was left but the wolves that gathered from the mountains to feast upon the dead." When the English on the subsequent day sent a scouting party from Fort Edward they found a horrible scene; the fires were still burning, and the smoke and stench were suffocating, the half-consumed corpses broiling upon the embers. The fort had mounted nineteen cannon and a few mortars, a train of artillery which Johnson had highly prized. The French carried these guns off with them to Carillon, and they afterwards had a chequered history. The English subsequently retook them at Carillon, and changed the name of that fort to Ticonderoga. At the dawn of the Revolution, Ethan Allen and his Vermonters surprised Ticonderoga and got them. Then the guns were drawn on sledges to Boston, and did notable service in the American siege and capture of that city, afterwards going into many engagements with Washington's army.

ATTACKING CARILLON.

The Lake George outlet stream, which the French called Carillon, from its waterfalls, was known by the Indians as Ticonderoga, or "the sounding waters." It winds through a ridge about four miles wide between the lakes, is pretty but turbulent, and falls down two series of cascades, giving music and water-power to the paper and other mills at the villages of Alexandria and Ticonderoga, the descent being two hundred and thirty feet. The upper cascade at Alexandria goes down rapids descending two hundred feet in a mile, and the lower cascade is a perpendicular fall of thirty feet at Ticonderoga, this village being called by its people "Ty," for short. Here stood the original French Fort Carillon guarding the pass at the verge of Lake Champlain. After the horrible massacre at Fort William Henry, the British colonists determined upon revenge, and General James Abercrombie, who had been made the Commander-in-Chief of all the British forces in North America through political influence, gathered an army of nearly sixteen thousand men at the head of the lake, while Montcalm was at Carillon with barely one-fourth the number. Abercrombie, however, was little more than the nominal British commander. General Wolfe described him as a "heavy man;" and another soldier wrote that he was "an aged gentleman, infirm in body and mind." The British Government meant that the actual command should be in the hands of General Lord Howe, who was in fact the real chief, described by Wolfe as "that great man" and "the noblest Englishman that has appeared in my time, and the best soldier in the British army;" while Pitt called him "a character of ancient times; a complete model of military virtue." This young nobleman, then in his thirty-fourth year, was Viscount George Augustus Howe, in the Irish peerage, the oldest of the three famous Howe brothers who took part in the American wars. The army, Parkman says, "felt him from General to drummer-boy." In that army were also two future famous men, Israel Putnam and John Stark.

They advanced northward on Lake George, July 5, 1758, in a grand flotilla of over a thousand boats, with two floating castles, the procession brilliant with rich uniforms and waving banners, and the music from its many bands echoing from the enclosing hills. Fenimore Cooper, in Satanstoe, gives a vivid description of this pageant. Passing beyond the Narrows, Abercrombie, on a Sunday morning, landed upon the fertile Sabbath Day Point to refresh his men before making the attack, thus naming it. Among them was Major Rogers, the Ranger, and in front could be seen the steep and rugged cliff of Rogers' Slide, named after him, its face a comparatively smooth inclined plane of naked rock, rising four hundred feet. The tale, as Rogers told it, was, that the previous winter, fleeing from the Indians, he practiced upon them a ruse, making them believe he had actually slid down this rock to the frozen surface of the lake. He was on snowshoes, the savages following, and ran out to the edge of the precipice, casting down his knapsack and provision-bag. Then turning around and wearing his snowshoes backward, he went to a neighboring ravine, and making his way safely down, fled over the ice to the head of the lake. The Indians saw the double set of shoe-marks in the snow, and concluded two men had jumped down rather than be captured. They saw Rogers going off over the ice, and believing he had safely slid down the face of the cliff, regarded him as specially protected by the Great Spirit and abandoned the pursuit. Thus has his name clung to the remarkable rock, though he was said to be a great braggart, and there were people who suggested that he ought to have been a leading member of the "Ananias Club." Beyond the slide, at the foot of the lake, is the low-lying Prisoners' Island, where the British kept the captives they took, and nearby Howe's Landing, where the army landed to attack Fort Carillon.

There was then a dense forest covering almost all the surface between the lakes, greatly obstructed by undergrowth, and Montcalm had protected his position at Carillon with massive breastworks of logs, eight or nine feet high, having in front masses of trees cut down with their tops turned outwards, thus making it almost impossible for an enemy to get through, the sharpened points of the broken branches bristling like the quills of a porcupine. As the British troops advanced in four columns, they got much mixed up in the forest and undergrowth, and Howe, with Putnam and a force of rangers at the head of the principal column, although they could not see ahead, suddenly came upon the French, were challenged, and a hot skirmish followed, in which Howe was shot through the breast and dropped dead. Then all was confusion, but they beat this French advanced force and killed or captured most of them. The loss of Howe, however, was irretrievable, for Abercrombie, deprived of his advice, seemed unable to direct. The fort was attacked after a fashion, but the troops floundered about in the woods and the network of felled trees, suffered from a murderous fire, and were beaten and hurled back discomfited to the shore of the lake. A few days later the shattered army, having left nearly two thousand dead and dying in front of Carillon, sailed back up the lake again to Fort William Henry. Leadership had perished with Lord Howe. His monument is in Westminster Abbey, London, having been erected to his memory by the General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts, who voted £250 for it. So proud was Montcalm of his victory that he caused a great cross to be erected on the battlefield, with an inscription in Latin composed by himself, which is thus translated:

"Soldier and chief and rampart's strength are naught;

Behold the conquering Cross! 'Tis God the triumph wrought."

TICONDEROGA.

Abercrombie was superseded after this disaster and went home, his successor in command being Baron Jeffrey Amherst, who the next year led another grand martial procession northward along the lake to attack the French. His expedition had better success, for it resulted in the conquest of Canada, and the treaty of peace which followed closed the great "Seven Years' War" most triumphantly for England. Fort Carillon, the name of which the English changed to Fort Ticonderoga, stood upon a high rocky promontory, the termination of a mountain range, the extremity, then called Sugar Loaf Hill, but since named Mount Defiance, rising eight hundred and fifty feet above Lake Champlain. It is a lofty peninsula, nearly a square mile in surface, almost surrounded by water, with a swamp on the western side. When Amherst advanced, the French garrison was meagre, for Wolfe was threatening Quebec, and Montcalm had gone with reinforcements to repel him; so that actually without a struggle they abandoned the fort, after blowing up the magazine and burning the barracks. Amherst then pushed on to conquer Canada, and the war ending, the British regarded this and Crown Point, ten miles northward on Lake Champlain, as among their most important posts, commanding the route to the new Dominion. Both were greatly enlarged and strengthened, over $10,000,000 being expended upon them, an enormous sum for that day, so that they became the most elaborate British fortresses in the American colonies, the citadel and field works of Ticonderoga including an area of several square miles, having buildings and barracks and defensive constructions anterior to the Revolution, covering almost the entire surface. In 1763 France ceded Canada to England, and afterwards Ticonderoga was neglected and partially decayed. When the Revolution began in 1775 it was one of the earliest strongholds captured by the Americans. Ethan Allen, with eighty men, crossed over Lake Champlain from Vermont, surprised the small and unsuspecting garrison of fifty men in the night, and Allen, penetrating to the bedside of the astonished commandant, made his famous speech demanding surrender. "In whose name?" asked the surprised officer. "In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." The Americans held it for two years, when Burgoyne, on his southern march in 1777, besieged it, and discovering that Mount Defiance, not then in the works, completely commanded it, he dragged cannon up there and erected batteries, which soon compelled the garrison to abandon it, and the British were in possession until the war closed.

Ticonderoga has since fallen into utter decay, but parts of the ruins are now preserved as a national memorial. A portion of wall and a dilapidated gable enclosing a window still stand, and make a picturesque ruin on top of a high slope rising from Lake Champlain, with a background of timbered hills. These forests to the west and south have grown during the nineteenth century, and are full of the remains of the old redoubts and entrenchments. Well-defined dry ditches are traced beyond the ramparts, with the barrack walls surrounding the parade-ground, an old well, and also the sally-port on the water side where Allen and his bold Green Mountain boys effected their entrance. During many years after the fort fell into ruins, the neighbors carried off its well-cut brick and stone work to build the growing villages on Lake Champlain's shores. All the surroundings are now eminently peaceful. The invaders, no longer warlike, are on pleasure bent; the inhabitants make paper and textiles, saw lumber, and also manufacture good lead-pencils from graphite found nearby. Sheep contentedly browse amid the relics of the great fortress, and vividly recall Browning's pastoral:

LAKE CHAMPLAIN.

The elongated and narrow water way of Lake Champlain stretches northward one hundred and twenty-six miles, dividing New York from Vermont, and its head, south of Ticonderoga, extending to Whitehall, is so contracted between generally low and swampy shores, that it there seems more like a river than a lake, in some places being scarcely two hundred yards across. Northward, however, it broadens into a much wider lake, the greatest unobstructed breadth being about ten miles, opposite Burlington, Vermont, where it seems to expand almost into a sea. The widest part of all is beyond this, being about fifteen miles across, but with intervening islands. Over sixty islands are scattered about this attractive lake, the contour of the shores being very irregular, with numerous indenting bays. The northern outlet is by the Richelieu River and the Chambly Rapids into the St. Lawrence. Lake Champlain fills a long trough-like valley, bordered by mountain ranges. When compared with Lake George, however, its shores present a striking difference. There the declivities generally descend abruptly to the water, but on Champlain the distant ranges, usually far away on either side, have in front, bordering the water, wide stretches of meadow and farm land and broad green slopes. Upon the Vermont shore the prevailing aspect is a pastoral region, having the Green Mountains rising in the distant eastern background. These are the "Verts Monts," which the earliest French explorer of the St. Lawrence, Jacques Cartier, saw from afar off, when the Indians of Hochelaga, where Montreal now stands, took him to the top of their mountain—"Mont Real"—to show him the glorious southern landscape. These mountains gave Vermont its name, their highest peaks rising behind Burlington, Mount Mansfield and the Camel's Hump. The New York shore of the lake to the westward presents barren and mountainous scenery, the terminations of the Adirondack ranges being occasionally pushed out as bold promontories to the water's edge, while behind them the higher peaks loom in dark grandeur against the horizon.

The adventurous French warrior and pioneer Samuel de Champlain was the first European who sailed upon the waters of Champlain, and he gave it his name. Anxious for exploration and adventure, in 1609 he joined a band of Huron and Algonquin warriors on an expedition against their enemies, the Mohawks and Iroquois in New York. After a grand war-dance at Quebec they set out, ascending the St. Lawrence and Richelieu, and on July 4th they entered the lake, Champlain having two French companions, and the three being armed with arquebuses. As they progressed towards the south, nearing the haunts of the Iroquois, they travelled only at night, hiding by day in the forest. On July 29th, while thus hiding, Champlain fell asleep and had a dream, wherein he beheld the Iroquois drowning in the lake, and, trying to rescue them, was told by his Huron companions that they were good for nothing, and had better be left to their fate. When he awoke he told them of his vision, and they were delighted. That very night they observed a flotilla of Iroquois canoes, heavier and slower than their own, in motion on the lake before them. Each saw the other, and mingled war-cries pealed over the dark waters. The Iroquois, not wanting to fight on the lake, landed and made a barricade of trees, which they cut down. The Hurons lashed their canoes together and remained a bowshot off-shore, shouting and dancing all night on their frail vessels. It was agreed they should fight in the morning, and until dawn the two parties abused each other, shouting taunts and defiance "much," writes Champlain, "like the besiegers and besieged in a beleaguered town," Champlain and his two companions, as day approached, put on their light armor and lay in the bottom of their canoes to keep hidden. Soon they all landed unopposed, and then the Iroquois, some two hundred in number, came out of their barricade to fight. The Hurons, who had surrounded Champlain, now opened their ranks, and he passed to the front, levelled his arquebuse and fired,—a chief fell dead, and soon another rolled among the bushes. Then the Hurons gave a yell, which Champlain says would have drowned a thunderclap, and the forest was filled with whizzing arrows. The Iroquois for a moment replied lustily, and the other Frenchmen, who were in the thicket on their flank, gave successive gunshots, which they could not withstand, but soon broke and fled in terror. The Hurons pursued them like hounds through the bushes, some were killed and more were taken prisoners, and the arquebuse, till now unknown to them, had won the victory. Then the victors, with their captives and spoils, withdrew to the St. Lawrence; and Champlain had thus assisted at the beginning of the awful series of conflicts which these lakes witnessed during two centuries. This fight was in the neighborhood of Crown Point, on Bulwagga Bay.

The latest of these conflicts on the lake was Commodore McDonough's brilliant victory over the British fleet in 1814, since which time the history of Lake Champlain has been peaceful. Despite this early discovery and naming, however, it was not until long afterwards that it was generally known by the present name. The Mohawks and Iroquois, as already explained, called it the "Door of the Country." Among their other bitter foes were the Abenaqui Indian nation of New England, who called it Lake Potoubouque, or "the waters that lie between," that is, between their country and the land of the Iroquois. For similar reasons the French in Canada called it the "Iroquois Sea." A Dutch officer having afterwards been drowned here, both the French and the English for a long time styled it after him, "Corlaer's Lake." These names, however, all long ago vanished, and since the eighteenth century it has borne, undisputed, the name of Champlain, the great Father of Canada.

CROWN POINT.

Progressing northward from Ticonderoga, the lake suddenly makes a right-angled narrow bend to the westward, its channel compressed between a broad, flat, low promontory coming up from the south, and the protruding opposite shore that encircles and almost meets it. These are the Champlain Narrows, the southern promontory being Crown Point, and the opposite rock compressing the channel Chimney Point. A broad bay opens behind Crown Point to the westward, and under the shadow of Mount Bulwagga, the end of one of the long Adirondack ranges, is the village of Port Henry, a producer of iron-ores, there being furnaces here as well as on the shore south of Crown Point. Upon the southern promontory, thus thrust out between the lake and Bulwagga Bay, are the ruins of the famous fortress of Crown Point, which so well guarded the narrow crooked channel and its approaches, and closed the "door of the country" leading from Canada. Soon after Champlain's time the French, who held all this region, built a stone fort on the opposite point, and ambitiously planned a province, stretching from the Connecticut River to Lake Ontario, of which this was to be the capital. A town was started, with vineyards and gardens, and the "Pointe de la Couronne," as it was called, became widely known. Early in the eighteenth century the French built Fort St. Frederic here in the form of a five-pointed star, with bastions at the angles, and its ruins yet remain, showing traces of limestone walls, barracks, a church, and tower. For thirty years this fort was the base of supplies for forays on the colonial settlements, but it fell before Lord Amherst's march northward in 1759. This English conquest translated the "Pointe de la Couronne" into Crown Point, and then the British Government constructed enormous works to control the lake passage. There thus was built the great English fortress of Crown Point, covering the highest parts of the peninsular promontory southwestward from the old French fort. The limestone rocks were cut into deeply, and ramparts raised twenty-five feet thick and high, the citadel being a half-mile around. The ruins of these heavy walls, the ditches, spacious parade and demolished barracks, give an idea of the costly but obsolete military construction of that time. These extensive works were blown up by an exploding powder magazine.

From the northeastern bastion of Crown Point a covered way leads to the lake, and here a well was sunk ninety feet deep for a water supply. Tradition told of vast treasures concealed by the French, and so excited did the people become that a joint-stock company was formed to search for them, clearing out the well and making excavations, but nothing was found but some lead and iron. The ruins are in lonely magnificence to-day, the red-thorn bushes brilliantly adorning them, and the place is a popular picnic-ground. From the northern ramparts there is a magnificent view of the distant Green Mountains on the right hand, with their gentle fields and meadows stretching down to the lake, and the rugged Adirondack foothills on the left, the distant dark mountain ranges looming far away behind them, with the huge broad-capped "Giant of the Valley" standing up prominently. Gazing at their sombre contour, the reason can be readily divined why the Indians called this vast weird region Cony-a-craga, or the "Dismal Wilderness." The higher Adirondack summits, composed of the hardest granite, are said by the geologists to be the oldest land on the globe and the first showing itself above the universal waters. Some distance above Port Henry is Westport Landing, the village standing in the deep recesses of Northwest Bay, where the long ridge of Split Rock Mountain, stretching towards the northeast, makes a high border for the bay. This curious ridge is of historical interest. The outer extremity is a cliff thirty feet high, covering about a half-acre, and separated from the main ridge by a cleft twelve feet wide cut down beneath the water. This cliff was the ancient Rock Reggio, named from an Indian chief drowned there, and was for a long time the boundary between the New York Iroquois and the Canadian Algonquins, whose lands were held respectively by the English and the French. It is mentioned in various old Colonial treaties as fixing the boundary between New York and Canada, but during the Revolution the Americans passed far beyond it, conquering and holding the land for seventy-seven miles northward to the present national boundary.

THE GREEN MOUNTAINS.

Above, the lake gradually broadens, and at the widest part are seen, on opposite sides, the village of Port Kent with its furnaces, and the flourishing Vermont city of Burlington. The great Adirondack ridge of Trembleau runs abruptly into the water as a sort of guardian to Port Kent, and just above, Ausable River flows out through its sandy lowlands into the lake. Vermont, which makes the entire eastern shore of Champlain, is a region of rural pastoral joys with many herds and marble ledges, a land of fat cattle and rich butter-firkins, overlooked by mountains of gentle slope and softened outline. Southward from Lake Champlain is Bennington, in a mountain-enclosed valley, near which was fought in August, 1777, the famous battle in which Colonel John Stark's Green Mountain boys cut off and signally defeated Baum's detachment of Burgoyne's army. It is now a flourishing manufacturing town. East of the head of Lake Champlain is Rutland, the centre of the Vermont marble-quarrying industry and the site of the great Howe Scale Works, a city of twelve thousand people. Three-fourths of the marble produced in the United States comes from this district of Vermont, and the Sutherland Falls Quarry at Proctor, near Rutland, is said to be probably the largest quarry in the world. These quarries are in the flanks of the Green Mountains which stretch northward, making the watershed between the upper Connecticut River and Lake Champlain. The Killington Peak, forty-two hundred and forty feet high, is not far from Rutland.

Mansfield, the chief of the Green Mountains, is behind Burlington, and rises forty-three hundred and sixty-four feet. Seen from across the lake, it presents the upturned face of a recumbent giant, the southern peak being the "Forehead," the middle one the "Nose," and the northernmost and highest the "Chin." The latter, as seen against the horizon, protrudes upwards in most positive fashion, rising three hundred and forty feet higher than the "Nose," about a mile and a half distant. This decisive-looking Chin is thus upraised about eight hundred feet from the general contour of the mountain, while the Nose is thrust upward four hundred and sixty feet, its nostril being seen in an almost perpendicular wall of rock facing the north. Mansfield is heavily timbered until near the summit, and a hotel is perched up there at the base of the Nose, both Nose and Chin being composed of rock ledges, which have been deeply scratched by boulders dragged over them in the glacial period. These Green Mountains extend down from Canada, and terminate in the Taghkanic and Hoosac ranges of Berkshire in Massachusetts. They do not attain very high elevations, the Camel's Hump, south of Mansfield, rising forty-one hundred and eighty-eight feet. This was the "Leon Couchant" of the earliest French explorers, and it bears a much better resemblance to a recumbent lion than to a camel's back. The western slopes of these mountains are chiefly red sandstone, while their body and eastern declivities are granite, gneiss and similar rocks, and they are filled with valuable mineral products, marbles, slates and iron-ores. Their slopes have fine pastures of rich and nutritious grasses, and the green and rounded summits present a striking contrast to the lofty, bare and often jagged peaks of the White Mountains of New Hampshire beyond them. There are cultivated lands on their slopes, at an elevation as high as twenty-five hundred feet, and in and about them are the forests producing the dear, delicious maple sugar:

BURLINGTON AND MONTPELIER.

Burlington, the chief Vermont city, is built on the sloping hillside of a grandly curving bay, making a resemblance to Naples and its bay, which has inspired a local poet to address the city as "Thou lovely Naples of our midland sea." It has fifteen thousand people, and its prosperity has been largely from the lumber trade, the logs coming chiefly from Canadian and Adirondack forests. It is attractive, with broad tree-embowered streets, the elm and maple growing in luxuriance, while the hills run up behind the town into high summits. One of these, the College Hill, rising nearly four hundred feet, has the fine buildings of the University of Vermont, attended by six hundred students, its tower giving a superb outlook over Lake Champlain, which at sunset is one of the most gorgeous scenes ever looked upon. Lafayette laid the corner-stone of this college on his American visit in 1825, and his statue in sturdy bronze adorns the grounds. The finest college building is the Billings Library, presented by Frederick Billings, a projector, and once President of the Northern Pacific Railway. All about these hills there are attractive villas and estates, enjoying the view, of which President Dwight wrote, when wandering over New England in search of the historic and picturesque, that "splendor of landscape is the peculiar boast of Burlington." On the northern verge of College Hill is the city's burial-place of the olden time—Green Mount Cemetery. Here Ethan Allen is buried, a tall Tuscan monument surmounted by a statue marking the spot, which is enclosed by a curious fence made of cannon at the corners and muskets with fixed bayonets. Allen lived at Burlington during his later life, dying there in February, 1789.

College Hill falls off to the northward to a broad intervale, down which winds the romantic Winooski or Onion River, flowing into Lake Champlain a short distance above Burlington. It comes out of a gorge in the Green Mountains, where it falls down pretty cascades and rapids. This Winooski gorge was a dreaded defile in the early days of the New England frontier, for by this route the fierce Hurons came through those mountains from Champlain and Canada to make forays upon the Massachusetts and New Hampshire border settlements. This gorge passes between Mount Mansfield and the Camel's Hump. To the northward is the noted "Smuggler's Notch" beyond the Chin of Mansfield, between it and Mount Sterling beyond, the name having been given because in the olden time contraband goods were brought through its gloomy recesses from Canada into New England. An affluent of the Winooski, the Waterbury River, comes out of this notch, a rapid stream. Upon the upper Winooski is Montpelier, the Vermont State Capital, pleasantly situated among the mountains near the centre of the commonwealth. Its State House is a fine structure of light granite, surmounted by a lofty dome. Massive Doric columns support its grand portico, under which stands the statue, in Vermont marble, of Ethan Allen, by Vermont's great sculptor, Larkin G. Mead. Here are also two old cannon which Stark captured from the Hessians at Bennington. They were afterwards used by the Americans with good effect throughout the Revolution, and subsequently were part of the army equipment taken to the western frontier. In the War of 1812 the British captured them in Hull's surrender at Detroit, but they were recaptured in a subsequent battle in Canada, and were sent as trophies to Washington. Congress ultimately gave them to Vermont, and they were placed in the State Capitol as relics of the battle of Bennington. Admiral George Dewey is a native of Montpelier, born there December 26, 1837. St. Albans, a great railroad centre and market for dairy products, is north of Burlington, near Lake Champlain, a picturesque New England town, with the elm-shaded central square. It is fourteen miles from the Canada border, and an important customs station. Of it, Henry Ward Beecher wrote that "St. Albans is a place in the midst of greater variety of scenic beauty than any other I remember in America."

AUSABLE CHASM.

One of the chief Adirondack rivers flowing into Lake Champlain is the Ausable. Its branches come out of the heart of the mountains, one through the beautiful Keene Valley and the other through the Wilmington Notch, and uniting at Ausable Forks, it flows along the northwestern side of the long ridge terminating in Trembleau Point at Port Kent, and enters the lake just above. The river escapes from the mountains through the wonderful gorge of Ausable Chasm. It is an active stream, bringing down vast amounts of sand, which wash through this gorge and are spread over the flats north of Trembleau, where the river flows out through two mouths. These prolific sand-bars, when first seen by the French, caused them to name the stream Ausable, the "river of sands." This renowned chasm, in its colossal magnificence and bold rending of the hard sandstone strata, is one of the wonders of America. A local poet has written on a little kiosk adjoining the river chasm this rhythmic explanation of its origin:

This splendid gorge, cut down in getting out of the highlands, is carved in the hardest Potsdam sandstones. It is a profound, and in most of its length a very narrow chasm, with almost vertical walls from seventy to one hundred and fifty feet high, the torrent pouring through the bottom being compressed within a width of eight to thirty feet, and rushing with quick velocity. The chasm is about two miles long, having several sharp bends, the stratified walls being built up almost like artificial masonry. The sides are frequently cut by lateral fissures, making remarkable formations, and the tops of the enclosing crags are fringed with a dense growth of cedars. The river of dark amber-colored water first comes out of the forest past Keeseville, where mills avail of its water-power, and then pours over the ledges of the Alice Falls, the finest in the Adirondacks. This splendid cataract of forty feet descent is above the entrance to the gorge, much of it being an almost sheer fall, having magnificent foaming watery stairways down the ledges, bordering it with their delicate lacework on either hand. The dark waters tumble in large volume into an immense amphitheatre, which has been rounded out by the torrent during past ages. Then bending sharply to the right, the river goes down some rapids and over a mill-dam built just above the chasm. The opening of this extraordinary rent in the earth is startling. Suddenly the river pours over a short fall, and then down another deep one strangely constructed, the line of the cataract being almost in the line of the stream. These are the Birmingham Falls, down which the Ausable plunges into the deep abyss, while high above stands a picturesque stone mill whose wheels are turned by the waters, and just below a light iron bridge carries a railway over the gorge.

It is difficult to describe the profound chasm opening below the Birmingham Falls. It is a prodigious rent in the earth's crust, making sudden right-angled turns. The visitor at first goes down a long stairway and walks on the rocky floor adjoining the torrent, enormous walls rising high above. There are various formations made by the boiling waters, ovens, anvils, chairs, pulpits, punch-bowls and the like, and, judging by their names, the Devil seems to be the owner of most of them. The chasm turns sharply around the "Elbow," and the waters rush through the narrow passage of "Hell Gate." There are many caves and lateral fissures, all the masonry being hewn square, as in fact the whole gorge is, such being the regularity of the stratification and the accuracy of the angles and joints,—the ponderous walls, reared on high, sometimes almost close together, making the deep pass narrow and gloomy. The gorge finally contracts so much there is no further room for walking, and a boat is taken for the remainder of the journey down the "Grand Flume." The torrent carries the boat along swiftly, guided by strong oarsmen both at bow and stern, swinging quickly around the bends, shooting the rapids and whirling through the eddies. After rushing along the "Flume," embracing the narrowest portions of the profound chasm, the boat finally floats out into the "Pool," where the waters at length settle into rest as they pass from the broken-down sandstone strata to the flat land beyond, where the river flows through its two mouths into the lake.

PLATTSBURG AND ITS NAVAL BATTLE.

Northward from Ausable River, Lake Champlain contains a number of large islands. Valeur Island is near the New York shore, and in the narrow channel separating them, in 1776, a desperate naval contest was fought between Arnold and Carleton, resulting in the defeat of the Americans. Beyond are the large islands of Grand Isle, South Hero and North Hero. Standing in an admirable position on Bluff Point, a high promontory on the western shore, is the great Hotel Champlain, elevated two hundred feet above the lake. To the north the Saranac River, coming from the southwest, flows out of the Adirondacks through its red sandstone gorge into Cumberland Bay, and at its mouth is the pleasant town of Plattsburg, having a population of seven thousand. The broad peninsula of Cumberland Head, projecting far to the southward into the lake, encloses the bay in front of the town. Plattsburg's greatest fame comes from its battle and Commodore McDonough's victory in 1814. The earliest settler was a British army officer, one Count de Fredenburgh, who built a sawmill at a fall near the mouth of the Saranac; but he was made way with early in the Revolution, and many have been the startling tales since told of his ghostly figure, in red coat and knee-breeches, stalking about the ruins of the old mill at Fredenburgh Falls. After the war, New York State confiscated the property and gave it to Zephaniah Platt and his associates, who established the town, and in 1785 rebuilt the mill. Plattsburg had become a place of so much importance that in the War of 1812-15 the English sent a large force from Canada for its capture. They attacked it on a Sunday morning in September, 1814, Sir George Prevost commanding the land forces and Commodore Downie a fleet of sixteen vessels. General Macomb had a small American detachment entrenched on the southern bank of the Saranac in hastily constructed earthworks, some remains being yet visible. The naval contest, however, decided the day, the superior British fleet being overcome by the better American tactics. McDonough had but fourteen vessels, anchored in a double line across the mouth of Cumberland Bay. As the British fleet rounded Cumberland Head to make the attack, a cock that was aboard McDonough's flag-ship, the "Saratoga," suddenly flew upon a gun and crowed lustily. This was esteemed a good omen, and giving three cheers, the Americans went to work with a will. After two hours' conflict the British fleet was defeated and captured. Downie was killed early in the action, and with fifteen other officers sleeps in Plattsburg Cemetery. McDonough was crushed by a falling boom, and afterwards was stunned by being struck with the flying head of one of his officers, knocked off by a cannon-shot, but he was undaunted to the end. Honors were heaped upon him, Congress giving him a gold medal, and he was also presented with an estate upon Cumberland Head overlooking the scene of his victory.

Plattsburg has the chief United States military post on the Canadian border, there being usually a large force stationed at the extensive barracks. It is also the terminus of railways coming from the Adirondacks, originally built to fetch out the iron-ores, of which it is an active market. One of these railways comes from Ausable Forks. Another is the Chateaugay Railroad, which has a circuitous route around the northern and eastern verges of the wilderness, from the Chateaugay and Chazy Lakes, where are the ore beds in a dismal region. Lyon Mountain, one of the chief ore producers, has its mines at two thousand feet elevation above the lake. Stretching far away to the northward is the immense Chateaugay forest and wilderness, extending into Canada. This railroad passes Dannemora, where is located the Clinton Prison, a New York State institution, at which it is said "they always have a number of people of leisure, who pass their time in meditation, making nails, cracking ore, and in other congenial pursuits." The railroad route cuts into the red sandstone gorge of the Saranac, and follows its valley out to Plattsburg. Some distance north of Plattsburg, and at the Canadian boundary, is Rouse's Point, a border customs station. This is the northern end of Lake Champlain, which discharges through the Richelieu or Sorel River into the St. Lawrence, the waters descending about one hundred feet, and mostly by the Chambly Rapids. The Chambly Canal, which locks down this descent, provides navigation facilities from Champlain to the St. Lawrence waters.

ENTERING THE ADIRONDACKS.

From Westport on Lake Champlain is one of the favorite routes into the Adirondacks. The name of this dark region originally came from the Mohawks, who applied it in derision to the less fortunate savages that inhabited the forbidding forests. The luxurious Mohawk, living in fertile valleys growing plenty of corn, could see nothing for his dusky enemy in this dismal wilderness to eat, excepting the dark trees growing on its mountain sides, and therefore the Mohawk called these people the Adirondacks, or "the bark and wood eaters." The actual derivation of the word is thought to come from the Iroquois root "atiron," meaning "to stretch along," referring to the mountain chains. Starting from Westport, we penetrate the region by a steep road into the Raven Pass, known as the "Gate of the Adirondacks," going through one of the ridges, among juniper bushes and aspen poplars, and thus get to the pleasant valley beyond, where flows the lovely Bouquet River. Here are a bunch of red-roofed cottages surrounded by elms contrasting prettily with the green fields, with boarding-houses and hotels interspersed, making up the village of Elizabethtown, the county-seat of Essex, which is hereabout called E-Town, for short. It spreads over the flat bottom of a fertile valley, encompassed around by high mountains. Circling all over the valley and yet concealed in deep gorges is the Bouquet River, which flows out to Lake Champlain, near the Split Rock. To the westward rises the sharp bare granite top of Mount Hurricane, nearly thirty-eight hundred feet, and to the southwest the towering Giant of the Valley, over forty-five hundred feet. Cobble Hill, rising two thousand feet, closes up the western end of the main village street, its ball-like top being a complete reproduction of a huge cobble-stone. Out to the northward goes a wild mountain road, through the Poke o' Moonshine Pass, leading to Ausable Chasm, twenty-three miles away.

Travelling westward from E-Town, we mount the enclosing slope of the Pleasant Valley, and through the gorge alongside Mount Hurricane, up the canyon of the western branch of Bouquet River. Crossing the summit among the granite rocks and forests, we then descend into another long, trough-like valley, stretching as a broad intervale far away both north and south, through which flows Ausable River. This intervale includes the charming "Flats of Keene," the sparkling Ausable waters meandering quietly over them beneath overhanging maples and alders, quivering aspens and gracefully swaying elms, occasionally dancing among the stones and shingle in some gentle rapid. Here are farmhouses, with many villas, the great mountain ridges protecting the valley from the wintry blasts. This intervale has in the eastern ridge the Giant of the Valley, with Mount Dix alongside, rising nearly five thousand feet, and to the southward, reared thirty-five hundred feet, exactly at the meridian, is the graceful Noon Mark Mountain, which casts the sun's noon shadow northward over the centre of the "Flats of Keene." The river, coming from the south, flows out of the lower Ausable Lake or the Long Pond, and dashes swiftly down its boulder-covered bed. Its waters are gathered largely from the eastern flanks of Mount Tahawus, and also from the galaxy of attendant peaks—Dix, Noon Mark, Colvin, Boreas, the Gothics, and others—grandly encircling the southern head of the attractive Keene Valley. The Ausable River rises under the brow of Tahawus, and flowing through the two long and narrow Ausable Lakes at two thousand feet elevation, traverses the whole length of the Keene Valley northward, to unite with its western branch at Ausable Forks, and thence goes through the great chasm to Lake Champlain. The head of the Keene Valley with the adjacent mountain slopes, extending through parts of three counties and covering a tract of forty square miles, is the "Adirondack Mountain Reserve." This reservation gives complete protection to the fish and game, and also preserves the forests and sources of the water supply. The Lower Ausable Lake is about two miles long and the Upper Ausable Lake nearly the same length, there being over a mile's distance between them. Some of the highest and most romantic of the Adirondack peaks environ these lakes. The sharply-cut summit of Mount Colvin rises forty-one hundred and fifty feet alongside them. The Ausable Lakes are in the bottom of a deep cleft between these great mountains, their sides rising almost sheer, two thousand feet and more above them. The lake shores are steep and rocky walls, reared apparently to the sky, the deep and contracted cleft making the lakes look more like rivers, surmounted high up the rocks by overhanging foliage, the trees diminutive in the distance. Of the Upper Ausable Lake, Warner writes that "In the sweep of its wooded shores, and the lovely contour of the lofty mountains that guard it, this lake is probably the most charming in America."

ADIRONDACK ATTRACTIONS.

The western guardian peaks of the Keene Valley are the main range of the Adirondacks, including Mount Marcy or Tahawus. Mount Colvin, alongside the Ausable Lakes, was named in honor of Verplanck Colvin, the New York surveyor and geologist, who devoted years of energy to the survey of this wilderness, and perhaps knew it better than anyone else. He was always in love with it, and thought that few really understood it. He described it as "a peculiar region, for though the geographical centre of the wilderness may be readily reached, in the light canoe-like boats of the guides, by lakes and rivers which form a labyrinth of passages for boats, the core, or rather cores, of this wilderness extend on either hand from these broad avenues of water, and in their interior spots remain to-day as untrodden by men and as unknown and wild as when the Indian paddled his birchen boat upon those streams and lakes. Amid these mountain solitudes are places where, in all probability, the foot of man never trod; and here the panther has his den among the rocks, and rears his savage kittens undisturbed, save by the growl of bear and screech of lynx, or the hoarse croak of the raven taking its share of the carcass of slain deer." The tangled Adirondack forest may to some seem monotonous and even dreary, but Mr. Street, the poet-writer of the region, thus enthusiastically refers to it: "Select a spot; let the eye become a little accustomed to the scene, and how the picturesque beauties, the delicate minute charms, the small overlooked things, steal out like lurking tints in an old picture. See that wreath of fern, graceful as the garland of a Greek victor at the games; how it hides the dark, crooked root, writhing snake-like from yon beech! Look at the beech's instep steeped in moss, green as emerald, with other moss twining round the silver-spotted trunk in garlands or in broad, thick, velvety spots! Behold yonder stump, charred with the hunter's camp-fire, and glistening black and satin-like in its cracked ebony! Mark yon mass of creeping pine, mantling the black mould with furzy softness! View those polished cohosh-berries, white as drops of pearl! See the purple barberries and crimson clusters of the hopple, contrasting their vivid hues!—and the massive logs peeled by decay—what gray, downy smoothness! and the grasses in which they are weltering—how full of beautiful motions and outlines!"

From the Keene Valley we climb up the gorge of a brisk little brook to the westward, and passing through the notch between Long Pond Mountain and the precipitous sides of the well-named Pitch-Off Mountain, come to the pair of elongated deep and narrow ponds between them,—the Cascade Lakes,—stretching nearly two miles. Huge boulders line their banks with a wall of rough and ponderous masonry, entwined with the roots of trees, and like the Ausable Lakes, they are another Alpine formation, their surfaces being at twenty-one hundred feet elevation, yet resting in the bottom of a tremendous chasm. An unique cascade, falling in successive leaps for seven hundred and fifty feet down the southern enclosing mountain wall, has given them the name—a delicate white lace ribbon of foaming water, finally passing into the lower lake. The grand dome of Mount McIntyre, in the main Adirondack range, rises in majesty to an elevation of fifty-two hundred feet, a sentinel beyond the western entrance to this remarkable pass. Formerly iron-ores were found here, but iron-making has been abandoned for the more profitable occupation of caring for the summer tourist. Beyond these lakes the summit of the pass is crossed, and there is a farm or two upon a broad plateau, at twenty-five hundred feet elevation, the highest cultivated land in New York State. Comparatively little but hay, however, can be raised, the seasons are so short and fickle. Deer haunt this remote region, and their runways can be seen. Emerging from the pass, with the little streams all running westward to the Ausable's western branch, there is got a fine view of the main Adirondack range, with the massive Mount McIntyre and the almost perpendicular side of Wallface rising beyond, the deep notch of the famous Indian Pass, cut down between them, showing plainly. Both peaks tower grandly above a surrounding galaxy of bleak, dark mountains.

OLD JOHN BROWN OF OSAWATOMIE.

This broad flat valley of the Western Ausable, the stream winding through it in a deeply-cut gorge, and surrounded on the south and west by an amphitheatre of the highest Adirondack peaks, is the township of North Elba in Essex county; and the valley and its fertile borders are the "Plains of Abraham." It is a farming district, so well enclosed by the mountains that the soil is fairly tillable. These plains gradually slope northwestward to the banks of two of the most noted of the Adirondack waters, Lake Placid and the Mirror Lake, with old Whiteface Mountain for their guardian, "heaving high his forehead bare." Here are the scattered buildings of the village of North Elba on the plains, and the more modern and fashionable settlement beyond at the lakes. To the southward is the great rounded top of Tahawus, the highest Adirondack peak, displayed through an opening vista, and at the northern border grandly stands Whiteface, the black sides abruptly changing to white, where an avalanche years ago denuded the granite cliffs near the top and swept down all the trees. Here at North Elba was the home and farm of "Old John Brown of Osawatomie." He had been given this homestead by Gerrit Smith, the great New York Abolitionist, in 1849, and there had also been founded here a colony of refuge for the negro slaves. It was then a remote and almost unknown place in the wilderness. Brown settled in the colony and built his little log house and barn near a huge boulder which stood a short distance from the front door. Here he formed his plan for liberating the slaves, and from here went to engage in the Kansas border wars of 1856. Returning, for three years he brooded on plans to liberate the negroes, and after further conflicts in Kansas projected the expedition into Virginia for the capture of Harper's Ferry in October, 1859. He declared his object to be to free all the slaves, and that he acted "by the authority of God Almighty." After his capture and conviction he discouraged efforts at liberation, saying, "I am of more use to the cause dead than living." After his death his body was brought up here to his home in the wilderness, for he had said, "When I die, bury me by the big rock, where I love to sit and read the word of God." Here he was buried on a bitterly cold day in December, 1859, a few sorrowing friends conducting the services and covering up his body in the frozen ground.

The old gravestone of his grandfather was brought from New England and put at the head of the grave, but it was soon so chipped off and broken by relic-hunters, it had to be enclosed in a case for preservation. Behind the grave rises the huge boulder on which has been carved, in large letters, "John Brown, 1859." The old gravestone is full of names both front and back, containing the record of his own death, and that of three sons, two losing their lives at Harper's Ferry and one in Kansas. The record of his life, graven on the stone, is: "John Brown, born May 9, 1800, was executed at Charleston, Va., Dec. 2, 1859." It is here that

Forty years afterwards, in 1899, the remains of seven of his companions in the Harper's Ferry raid were removed here and interred beside him. This region no longer knows Brown's kindred, for all have disappeared. Yet in the world's mutations, nothing could be more strange than that this remote wilderness, originally selected as a refuge and hiding-place for runaway slaves, should have become one of the most fashionable and popular health resorts in America. The farm and graves are now kept by New York State as a public park.

LAKE PLACID TO PAUL SMITH'S.

Lake Placid, nestling at the base of old Whiteface and elevated eighteen hundred and sixty feet above the sea, is often called the "Eye of the Adirondacks." Its mountain environment has made it almost a rectangle, four miles long and two miles wide. Down its centre, arranged in a row, are three beautiful islands, named respectively the Hawk, Moose and Buck, two being large and high and the third smaller. These divide it into alternating spaces of land and water much like a chess-board. To the eastward is the pretty Mirror Lake, about three miles in circuit. Both lakes have high wooded shores, and around them are gathered the hotels, cottages and camps of a large summer settlement. Surrounded by a grander galaxy of finer and higher mountains than any other lakes of this region, here is truly the "Eye" that views these dark Adirondacks in all their glory. These mountains are all sombre, and some almost inky black; many are hazy in the distance. To the northeast the Wilmington Pass, alongside Whiteface, lets out the western branch of Ausable; to the southward, the Indian Pass opening between McIntyre and Wallface is a source of the Hudson; to the westward, on the spurs of lower ranges, are the forests separating these lakes from the Saranacs. There are more than a hundred peaks around, of varying heights and features, among them the greatest of the Adirondacks. Embosomed within this wonderful amphitheatre is the glassy-surfaced lake, protected from the winds and storms, which is so attractive and so peaceful that it fully deserves its name, Lake Placid.

Crossing again to the westward through the forests and over the ridges, we come into the valley of the Saranac, with its lakes, and the ancient village of Harrietstown under the long ridge of Ampersand Mountain. Here on the Lower Saranac Lake is another summer settlement of villas, hotels and camps. Behind the mountain there is a little lake out of which flows a stream so crooked and twisted into and out of itself, turning around sweeping circles without accomplishing much progress, that its discoverers could not liken it to anything more appropriate than to the eccentric supernumerary of the alphabet, the "&." Thus the name of the "Ampersand" of the old spelling-books was applied first to the stream, and then to the lake and mountain, the latter being the guardian of the many lakes of this region. The Lower Saranac Lake is at fifteen hundred and forty feet elevation, and the Ampersand Mountain rises a thousand feet above it. A pretty church in the village is appropriately named for St. Luke the Physician, and here is located the Adirondack Sanitarium, this district being a favorite refuge for consumptives. The Chateaugay railroad comes in here, but the district beyond to the south and west has neither railroads nor wagon roads. It is such a labyrinth of lakes and water courses it can only be traversed in boats.

The whole western part of the Adirondacks is an elevated tableland, containing many hills and peaks, but saturated by water ways. Therefore "canoeing and carrying" is the method of transportation. The Lower Saranac Lake is five miles long, and beyond it is Round Lake, over two miles in diameter, beyond that being the Upper Saranac Lake, nearly eight miles long and dotted with islands. There are portages between them where the canoes have to be carried. The outlet of the Upper Saranac is a magnificent cataract and rapid, descending thirty-five feet in a distance of about one hundred yards. From the Upper Saranac Lake other portages, or "carrys," as they are called, lead over to the Blue Mountain region, the Raquette River and the Tupper Lakes to the westward. The Adirondack ranges here are lower, and the forests get denser, but all about are dotted the summer settlements, some of them displaying most elaborate construction. Every place has its boat-house and canoe-rack, and boats are moving in all directions. At the head of the Upper Saranac is St. Regis Mountain, and a long "carry" of about four miles through the forest goes over to the Big Clear Pond, the head of the Saranac system of waters. Crossing this lake, yet another "carry" takes us over the watershed. This is a famous portage in the liquid district, the "St. Germain carry" of over a mile between the Saranac headwaters and the sources of St. Regis River, flowing out westward and then northward to the St. Lawrence. It leads to the series of St. Regis Lakes, and finally on the bank of the Lower St. Regis to the great hotel of the woods—Paul Smith's—with many camps surrounding the shores of the lake. Apollus Smith, a shrewd Yankee, came here many years ago, when the locality was an unbroken wilderness, and built a small log house in the forest as an abiding-place for the hunter and angler. It was repeatedly enlarged, and with it the domain, now covering several thousand acres, until the hostelrie has become an unique mixture of the backwoods with modern fashion, and is everywhere known as the typical house of the Adirondack region. Upon the hill behind the hotel is the attractive little church of "St. John in the Wilderness," appropriately built of logs hewn in the surrounding forest.

ADIRONDACK LAKES.

To the westward is the water system of the Raquette River, leading to the St. Lawrence; this stream, the chief one in the district, flowing out of Raquette Lake. This lake is irregularly shaped, about ten miles long, and surrounded by low hills, its elevation being nearly eighteen hundred feet. The dense forests that are adjacent teem with game, and its hotels and private camps are among the best in the region, "Camp Pine Knot" being especially famous as the most elaborate and attractive of its kind in America. Blue Mountain rises to the eastward nearly thirty-eight hundred feet, and at its southwestern base is the Blue Mountain Lake, having on its southern edge the small Eagle Lake, where lived in a solitary house called the Eagle's Nest the noted "Ned Buntline," the author. To the southwest of Raquette are the chain of eight Fulton Lakes. North of Raquette are the Forked Lakes, and northeast of it, following down the Raquette River, Long Lake, which is fourteen miles long and barely a mile wide in the broadest part, having Mount Seward rising at its northern end. To the northwest, still following down the Raquette, are the Tupper Lakes. These are a few of the larger lakes in this labyrinth of water courses, there being hundreds of smaller ones; and, as the forest and water ways extend northwest, the land gradually falls away towards the great plain adjoining the St. Lawrence. These regions, however, are remote from ordinary travel, and the western Adirondack forests are rarely penetrated by visitors excepting in search of sport.

This wonderful region has only during recent years attracted general public attention as a great sanitarium and summer resort, but its popularity constantly increases. Its dark and forbidding mountains have become additionally attractive as they are better known, probably for the reason, as John Ruskin tells us, that "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery." Its universal woods and waters have a resistless charm. As one wanders through the devious pathways, or glides over the glassy surface of one of its myriad lakes, the vivid coloring and richness of the plant life recall Thomson, in the Seasons:

"Who can paint

Like Nature? Can imagination boast

Amid its gay creation hues like her's?

Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,

And lose them in each other, as appears

In every bud that blows?"

But after all, the great Adirondack forests, vast and trackless, much of them in their primitive wildness, are to the visitor possibly the grandest of the charms of this weird region. The "Great North Woods" still exist as the primeval forest on many square miles of these broad mountains and deep valleys, recalling in their solitude and grandeur William Cullen Bryant's Forest Hymn: