make the ascent of Mount Adams, whose topmost rocks were still nearly a mile off from us. Between the spires of Adams and Madison on the ridge there is a pond of icy water, refreshing enough to weary climbers, and from this point another view peculiarly striking, and in itself worth the whole toil of the expedition, is gained. We are almost overhung by the lawless rocks of a subordinate peak of Mount Adams, which we called John Quincy Adams, and back of that was the profile line of the higher crest, bulging off and sweeping down into a ravine deep below the general level of the ridge. The rocks were very jagged, and at first sight nothing could seem more harsh and chaotic. Yet the view was strangely fascinating. I could not understand why the impression of beauty, even of unusual softness and melody, should be made by such ragged desolation. And if I had never read the seventeenth chapter of Mr. Ruskin's fourth volume of Modern Painters, I might have been ignorant of the secret. We are told there that a line drawn over a great Alpine ridge, so as to touch the principal peaks that jut from it, will usually be found to be part of an unreturning or immortal curve. The grandeur of the Alpine pinnacles is bounded by that law of symmetry. And I soon saw that the precipices of Mount Adams were in subjection to the same line of grace. The jutting rocks and the seemingly lawless notchings, like the scalloping of a lovely leaf, hinted the sweep of an infinite curve. I had often found great pleasure in detecting the recurrence of a few favorite angles and forms in the chain-like lines of hills within ten miles of Mount Washington; but the revelation of this curve by the sharp edges of the cliff of Adams was not the simple perception of a pleasant fact, but the opening of my eyes to a new page in the meaning of Nature. As soon as I returned, I sought the volume I have mentioned, and I cannot refrain from quoting in this letter the passage on the 189th page, that now lies open before me, and which I have read with new interest.

"A rose is rounded by its own soft ways of growth, a reed is bowed into tender curvature by the pressure of the breeze; but we could not from these have proved any resolved preference, by Na

ture, of curved lines to others, inasmuch as it might always have been answered that the curves were produced, not for beauty's sake, but infallibly by the laws of vegetable existence; and looking at broken flints or rugged banks afterwards, we might have thought that we only liked the curved lines because associated with life and organism, and disliked the angular ones because associated with inaction and disorder. But Nature gives us in these mountains a more clear demonstration of her will. She is here driven to make fracture the law of being. She cannot tuft the rock-edges with moss, or round them by water, or hide them with leaves and roots. She is bound to produce a form, admirable to human beings, by continual breaking away of substance. And behold, so soon as she is compelled to do this, she changes the laws of fracture itself. "Growth," she seems to say, "is not essential to my work, nor concealment, nor softness; but curvature is and if I must produce my forms by breaking them, the fracture itself shall be in curves. If, instead of dew and sunshine, the only instruments I am to use are the lightning and the frost, then their forked tongues and crystal wedges shall still work out my laws of tender line. Devastation instead of nurture may be the task of all my elements, and age after age may only prolong the unrenovated ruin; but the appointments of typical beauty which have been made over all creatures shall not therefore be abandoned; and the rocks shall be ruled, in their perpetual perishing, by the same ordinances that direct the bending of the reed and the blush of the rose.'

"From the top of this pyramid of Adams, whose rocks are so huge and lawless that it would be scarcely possible to make a horse-path to it from the plateau, we gained glorious views of the northern country, the beautiful Kilkenny range, the lovely farms and uplands of Randolph and Jefferson, the long unrolled purple of the Androscoggin, making a right angle at the Lary Farm, the Pond of Safety, on the northerly side of the Pilot Hills, and Umbagog, Richardson's Lake, and Moosetockmaguntic, whose dreamy waters, framed by the unbroken wilderness, are stocked with portly trout, and haunted by droves of moose.

"The long tramp which follows next, around the bending ridge between Jefferson and Adams, is rewarded by the glorious picture of Washington, superior to any other which the range affords. The long easterly slope is shown from its base in the Pinkham forests;

the cone towers sheer out of the Gulf of Mexico, and every rod of

the bridle-path is visible, from the Ledge to the Summit House. From the peak of Adams one can see as much as from the top of Washington, except the small segment of the circle which the dome

of Washington itself conceals. But this loss is far more than made up by having Mount Washington thus in the picture. Gaining the crest of the stout and square-shouldered Jefferson, our route ran next over the dromedary humps of Mount Clay, and up the long and tedious slope of Mount Washington to the Tip-Top House. We reached it at seven o'clock, pretty thoroughly tired, but not so exhausted that we could not enjoy the marvellous water-views which the setting sun kindled for us on the southeast,-Lovell's Pond, Sebago Lake, Ossipee, Winnipiseogee, and beyond them the silver sea plainly cut by the line of the Maine shore,—the first time I had ever clearly seen it from the summit. It was something to be truly grateful that we had been able to fulfil our plan in the excursion without an accident, and without delay from unpleasant weather. The day had been perfect. The mists of the morning had lifted from the peaks when we gained the ridge, and there had been clouds enough to shed sufficient shadows to give variety of expression to the splendid scenes with which we had made acquaintance.

"As to our satisfaction with the excursion, costing as it did no little toil, let me say that there is no approach to Mount Washington, and no series of mountain views, comparable with this ascent and its surroundings on the northerly side. Your path lies among and over the largest summits of the range. Between Madison and Adams you have the noblest outlines of rocky crest which the whole region can furnish. Mount Jefferson glories in the afternoon light with the most fascinating contrast of purple and orange hues. Mount Washington shows himself in impressive and satisfactory supremacy. You wind around the edges of every ravine that gapes around the highest summits. You see the long and narrow gully between Madison and Adams; the tremendous hollow of Adams itself which we climbed ; the precipitous gulf between Jefferson and Adams on the southeast; the deep cut gorge in Jefferson on the northwest, whose westerly bones of gray cliffs, (see sketch in the next chapter,) breaking bare through the steep verdure, are perhaps the most picturesque of all the rock-views we beheld; the chasm between Jefferson and Clay, divided

from the savage Gulf of Mexico by a spur of Jefferson that runs out towards the Glen House; and the long rolling braces that prop Mount Pleasant, and Franklin, and the tawny Munroe,—the boundaries of the ravines that you look into in riding to Mount Washington over the Crawford path.

"The only trouble with the route is, that there is too much to see in one day. It would be better to camp, if possible, near the summit of Mount Adams, and thus spread the delight more equally and profitably over two days, and have a sunset and sunrise also from the ridge to remember. This last was denied to us. We slept soundly in the Summit House, and waked the next morning to find ourselves wrapped in cloud and rain. But in spite of our tramp the day before, we walked from the top to the Alpine House in Gorham, through showers and mud, a distance of fifteen miles, in less than five hours.

"P. S. Since the excursion thus hastily described, I have been twice over the best portion of our route. Once a small party of us climbed the northerly slope of Mount Madison through the Gordon path,' which our excellent guide blazed' for us with a hatchet. Four hours' climbing carried us to the summit. We went nearly over to Mount Jefferson, and returned to Gorham by the same track, down Mount Madison,-making the whole journey in fourteen hours from the Alpine House. The second time, we rode to the Glen ; took horses to the base of the cone of Mount Washington; went around, in the upper portion of the Gulf of Mexico, to Mount Clay; thence to Jefferson, where we dined; thence around the edge of the Adams ravine; up the cone of Madison, and down the Gordon path to the foot of Randolph Hill. This excursion required fifteen hours from the Alpine House. To all lovers of the most exciting and noble scenery which the White Mountains furnish, I commend this northerly route to the summit of Mount Washington, with Mr. Gordon-who may always be found by inquiry at the Alpine House-for guide."

Thus ends the original account of our expeditions through the unbroken forests to the northerly portion of the White Mountain ridge.