that line them; or the trees that overhang their edges; or the huge boulder, egg-shaped, that is lodged between the walls just over the bridge where we stand,—as unpleasant to look at, if the nerves are irresolute, as the sword of Damocles, and yet held by a grasp out of which it will not slip for centuries? Was ever such an amount of water put to more various and romantic use, in being poured down a few hundred feet for calmer and prosaic service in the river below?

The struggling Rill insensibly is grown
Into a Brook of loud and stately march,
Crossed ever and anon by plank or arch;

And, for like use, lo! what might seem a zone
Chosen for ornament-stone matched with stone
In studied symmetry, with interspace

For the clear waters to pursue their race

Without restraint. How swiftly have they flown,
Succeeding still succeeding! Here the Child

Puts, when the high-swoln Flood runs fierce and wild,
His budding courage to the proof; and here
Declining Manhood learns to note the sly
And sure encroachments of infirmity,

Thinking how fast time runs, life's end how near!

One should remain at the Flume House a day or two, at least, in order to have the privilege of visiting "The Flume" two or three times. Most persons see it only once, and then in connection with large parties when there is too much confusion, distraction, and chatter. The early morning is the best time to seek it; and if not more than three or four will go together, the beauty of the place will open itself as it cannot in the first visit, and as it will not to a crowd. In the Odyssey we read of

This southerly entrance to the Flume may be found by those who seek it quietly, and with reverence for the Spirit out of whose peren nial bounty all beauty pours.

If we could visit Franconia in winter we should, no doubt, find scenery more startling than any which the summer has to offer. Those of our readers will believe it who have seen stereoscopic views of the Flume when

The Flume is the chief attraction in the immediate neighborhood of the Flume House, as the Profile is of the narrower portion of the Notch five miles above. And the Pool is another of its resources,a gloomy, natural well in the forest, a hundred fifty feet broad, and about as deep, which holds perpetually about forty feet of water.

At noon-day here

'Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night.

If this was hollowed out for Naiads, they must be of a very sullen temper, Nymphs of the Stygian order, that love

some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings
And the night raven sings.

One of the grandest cascades of the mountain region has been discovered on Moosehillock River, the child of a hill unnamed as yet, which is climbed by a path about two miles below the hotel. It is in such a hurry to get away from home, that it goes on the jump, almost all the way, to join the Pemigewasset, making two leaps of eighty feet each, one immediately after the other, which, as we climb towards them, gleam as one splendid line of light through the trees

and shrubbery that fringe the rocky cleft. Is it not possible to give them a more appropriate name than "Georgiana Falls?" The view

.

readers have heard discourse at the Pool about geology and the fate of Captain Symmes, "the stalwartest prospect in all Franconi'."

But the view from the Flume House itself is a perpetual refreshment, and one needs not seek by hard climbing or wandering for any increased temptation to contentment. No scenes can be more strongly contrasted in spirit and influence than those around the two hotels, five miles apart. From the Flume House the general view is cheerful and soothing. There is no place among the mountains where the fever can be taken more gently and cunningly out of a worried or burdened brain. So soft and delicate are the general features of the outlook over the widening Pemigewasset valley! So rich the gradation of the lights over the miles of gently sloping forest that sweeps down towards Campton ! So pleasant the openings here and there that show a cluster of farm-houses, and the bright beauty of cultivated meadows inclosed by the deeper green of the wilderness! How can the eye ever drain, or the mind ever weary of the loveliness in form and color of those hills that bubble off to the horizon? And here, too, we can have more of the landscape beauty of the larger mountains than the greater nearness of the Profile House to them would allow. The three peaks of the highest Haystacks, Lafayette, Pleasant, and Liberty, are in view, and at evening one can see the glorious purple mount the forests that hang shaggy on their sides,-extinguishing the green as completely as if the trees for miles had suddenly been clothed with leaves of amethyst,—and then chased by the shadow retreat upwards till it dyes the rocks with its harmless fire, and still upwards to the peaks, and then leaps to the clouds above, where

slowly from the scene

The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,
And puts them back into his golden quiver.

Or, by an easy climb of half an hour up Mount Pemigewasset directly back of the hotel,-a climb not at all difficult in dry weather to ladies, the sunset view will be far more impressive. The spurs

and hollows of Lafayette and his associates will be lighted up by the splendor that pours into them from the west. It searches and reveals all the markings of the torrents; it gilds the tautness of the rocky tendons that stretch from the summits to the valleys, and that run sometimes in hard lines and sometimes in curves full of rebellious energy, like a tough bow strung to the utmost tension; and it pours upon the

innumerable populace of trees which the mountain sides support one wide blaze of purple, which slowly burns off upward, leaving twilight behind it, and gleaming on the barren crests, long after the valley, which stretches in view for twenty miles, is dimmed with shade.

As we clomb,

The Valley, opening out her bosom, gave
Fair prospect, intercepted less and less,

O'er the flat meadows, far off,

And yet conspicuous, stood the old Church-tower
In majesty presiding over fields