The sweetest of juices, which is pure maple sap."
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:
"Nature one day had a spasm
With grand result—Ausable Chasm."
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.