At Montpelier our photographer proceeded due east over the Montpelier and Wells River Railroad to Woodsville, a route which follows a third confluent of the Winooski for some miles to Marshfield station, where it makes an elbow-turn southwest by Peabody’s Lake, and thence keeps close to the bank of Wells River, a small stream that discharges into the Connecticut at Woodsville. The region thus traversed is somewhat broken, but is highly cultivated; and the farm scenes along the way are particularly charming. Agriculture in the Eastern States exhibits a striking contrast with that in the West, and in Vermont and New Hampshire the dissimilarity of method and the size of farm is especially great. The soil down east, in the sections named, has to be reclaimed, not from the forests so much as from the rocks, for it is essentially a rocky country. The fences are usually made of stumps and stones, material which is plentifully at hand, so that the barb-wire trust has no grip upon New England agriculturists. The farms, too, are what Westerners would call “small acre-patches,” but they are so industriously and intelligently tilled that every foot of ground is made to yield its full capacity. Frugal, yet hospitable—poor, maybe, yet refined—the down-east farmer is a hard worker, a lover of books, patient, contented, and, withal, a generous man, philosophic and industrious enough to extract happiness out of harsh natural conditions.
FALLS OF THE AMMOONOOSUC, IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
Woodsville is at the junction of the Ammoonoosuc with the Connecticut River, along the valley of which former stream the railroad runs until it strikes the White Mountains, into which region of world-famous scenery our artist journeyed. A branch of the road extends south to a terminus at Profile House, which is at the base of Profile Mountain, in the Franconia Range. This peak, which is 4,000 feet above the sea, possesses two remarkable features that have served to make it known throughout the world. At the crown there are several colossal stones, so distributed by chance that when viewed from Profile Mountain House they resemble a mounted cannon, on which account the peak is often called Mount Cannon. But a greater natural curiosity occurs to visitors after 1,200 feet of the ascent is made, for suddenly there appears the bold and exceedingly well-defined features of “The Old Man of the Mountains,” formed by three masses of rock so disposed that its ninety feet of face exhibits the clean-cut characteristics of forehead, nose, lips and chin perfectly outlined against the sky. A few feet below the point of observation, where the old man’s face is exposed, the stone giant changes his features like a magician and becomes “a toothless old woman in a mop-cap.” Hawthorne has used this wonderful image to excellent effect in his “Twice-Told Tales,” in which the Great Stone Face is made the subject of a weird theme. Still nearer the base of the mountain is an exquisite lakelet known as the “Old Man’s Wash-bowl,” just large enough for the purpose, but full of fish, and from the shore of which a splendid view of Eagle Cliff may be had. In the immediate neighborhood is the lofty peak of Mount Lafayette, 5,269 feet above the sea, from whose wind-swept head a landscape of marvelous diversity and beauty may be surveyed, including miles of the Green Mountain Range and the entire aggregation of White Mountain peaks.
THE FLUME, NEAR PROFILE HOUSE, FRANCONIA MOUNTAINS.
Less than one mile from Profile House, and reached by a perfect carriage-road, is Franconia’s chiefest marvel, known as the Flume. Six hundred feet of cascades go churning their way through a fissure whose vertical walls are sixty feet high and less than twenty feet apart. In this chasm is the Flume, along the narrow confines of which a plank-walk has been built to permit visitors to observe more closely the wonders that nature has planted along this mountain brook. One mile south are the Georgianna Falls, the largest yet discovered in the mountainous districts of the State, plunging in successive leaps over two precipices, each eighty feet in height, and scattering their spray into vapor that keeps the vicinity drenched. Other mountain or detached peaks near-by are Lincoln, Liberty, Flume, and Big Coolidge; while further towards the east, yet in sight, are North, and South, Twin, Lowell, Carrigan and Huntington, from any of which magnificent views are obtainable.
ELEPHANT’S HEAD AND MOUNT WEBSTER, NEAR CRAWFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE.—Standing on the piazza of the hotel at Crawford’s Notch one observes a splendid view of that celebrated natural wonder, Elephant’s Head. The enormous head and trunk seem to be just emerging from the deep woods near the entrance to the pass, and the gray of the granite slope serves to heighten the illusion. The resemblance is so perfect and striking that even a stranger who had never heard of this marvel would need no introduction to be made fully aware of the fact that he was in the presence of the colossal counterpart of the great beast.