V.—THE ADIRONDACS.
This interesting mountain region embraces the triangular plateau lying between Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario and the Mohawk. The name was formerly restricted to the central group containing the highest peaks, but is now applied to the various ranges traversing the northeastern counties of the State of New York. The loftiest points are found in the County of Essex and the neighboring corners of Franklin; but the surfaces of Clinton, St. Lawrence, Herkimer, Hamilton, Warren, and Washington are all diversified by the various branches of the same mountain system. The principal ranges have a general northeasterly and southwesterly direction, and are about six in number. They run nearly parallel with one another, and with the watercourses flowing into Lake Champlain, namely, Lake George and Putnam's Creek, the Boquet, Au Sable, and Saranac Rivers. Recent surveys made by, or under the direction of, Professor A. Guyot, will doubtless furnish us with more accurate information regarding ranges and measurements of heights than any we can now refer to. So far as we have been able to learn from the best authorities within our reach,[2] the situation and names of the most prominent ranges are as follows: The most southerly is that known as the Palmertown or Luzerne Mountains, and embraces the highlands of Lake George, terminating at Mount Defiance, on Lake Champlain. This range has also been called Black Mountain range and Tongue Mountains. The second range, the Kayaderosseras, ends in the high cliff overlooking Bulwagga Bay. The third, or Schroon range, terminates on Lake Champlain in the high promontory of Split Rock. It borders Schroon Lake, and its highest peak is Mount Pharaoh, nearly 4,000 feet above tidewater. The fourth, or Boquet range, finds its terminus at Perou Bay, and contains Dix Peak (5,200 feet), Nipple Top (4,900 feet), Raven Hill, and Mount Discovery. The fifth or Adirondac range (known also as Clinton or Au Sable) meets Lake Champlain in the rocks of Trembleau Point, and embraces the highest peaks of the system, namely, Mount Tahawus (Marcy), 5,379 feet, and Mounts Mc-Intire, McMartin, and San-da-no-na, all above 5,000 feet in elevation. The series nest succeeding on the northwest, does not consist of a single distinguishable range, but of a continuation of groups which may be considered as a sixth range, under the name of Chateaugay or Au Sable. Its highest points are Mount Seward (5,100 feet), and Whiteface, nearly 5,000 feet in height. We have also seen noticed as distinguishable a ridge still exterior to the last mentioned, as Chateaugay, i.e., the range of the St. Lawrence.
The above-named ranges are not always clearly defined, as cross spurs or single mountains sometimes occupy the entire space between two ridges, reducing the customary valley to a mere ravine. The usual uncertainty and redundancy of nomenclature common to mountain regions, adds to the difficulty of obtaining or conveying clear ideas of the local distribution of elevation and depression. On the northern slope, the three rivers, Boquet, Au Sable (with two branches, East and West), and Saranac, furnish to the traveller excellent guides for the arrangement of his conceptions, regarding the general face of the country. To the south, the same office is performed by the various branching headwaters of the Hudson.
These mountains are granitic, and the river bottoms have a light, sandy soil. The Au Sable well deserves its name, not only from the bar at its mouth, but also from the sand fields through which it chiefly flows. Steep, bare peaks, wild ravines, and stupendous precipices characterize the loftier ranges. The waterfalls are numerous and beautiful, and the lakes lovely beyond description. More than one hundred in number, they cluster round the higher groups of peaks, strings of glittering gems about the stately forms of these proud, dark-browed, Indian beauties—mirrors wherein they may gaze upon the softened outlines of their haughty heads, their wind-tossed raiment of spruce fir, pines, and birch.
In the lowest valleys the oak and chestnut are abundant, but as we leave the shores of Lake Champlain and ascend toward the west, the beech and basswood, butternut, elm, ash, and maple, hemlock and arbor vitæ, tamarack, white, black, and yellow pines, white and black birch, gradually disappear, until finally the forest growth of the higher portions of the loftier summits is composed almost exclusively of the various species of spruce or fir. The tamarack sometimes covers vast plains, and, with the long moss waving from its sombre branches, looks melancholy enough to be fancied a mourner over the ring of the axe felling noble pines, the crack of the rifle threatening extermination to the deer once so numerous, or the cautious tread of the fisherman under whose wasteful rapacity the trout are gradually disappearing. We have reason to be thankful that all are not yet gone—that some splendid specimens are left to tell the glorious tale of the primeval forest, that on the more secluded lake shores an occasional deer may yet be seen coming down to drink, and that in the shadier pools the wary and sagacious prince of fishes still disports himself and cleaves the crystal water with his jewelled wedge.
Berries of all sorts spring up on the cleared spots; the wide-spreading juniper, with its great prickly disks, covers the barer slopes; the willow herb, wild rose, clematis, violet, golden rod, aster, immortelle, arbutus, harebell, orchis, linnæa borealis, mitchella, dalibarda, wintergreen, ferns innumerable, and four species of running pine, all in due season, deck the waysides and forest depths.
The climate is intensely cold in winter, and in the summer cool upon the heights, but in the narrow sandy valleys the long days of June, July, and August are sometimes uncomfortably hot. The nights, however, are ordinarily cool. Going west through the middle of the region, from Westport to Saranac, a difference of several weeks in the progress of vegetation is perceptible. Long after the linnæa had ceased to bloom at Elizabethtown, we found its tender, fragrant, pink bells flushing a wooded bank near Lake Placid. Good grass grows upon the hillsides, and in the valleys are found excellent potatoes, oats, peas, beans, and buckwheat. The corn is small, but seems prolific, and occasional fields of flax, rye, barley, and even wheat, present a flourishing appearance. Lumber, charcoal, and iron ore of an excellent quality are, however, the present staples of this mountain region. Bears and panthers are found in some secluded localities, and the farmer still dreads the latter for his sheep. The wolves are said to kill more deer than the hunters. The otter and beaver are found among the watercourses, and the mink or sable is still the prey of the trapper. The horses are ordinarily of a small breed, but very strong and enduring.
The men are chiefly of the Vermont type, most of the original settlers having come from the neighboring State. The school house, court house, church, and town hall are hence regarded as among the necessary elements of life to the well-ordered citizen. Honest dealing, thrift, and cleanliness are the rule, and the farm houses are comfortable and well cared for. The men look intelligent, and the women are handsome, although, indeed, too many pale or sallow complexions give evidence of sedentary habits, and of the almost universal use of saleratus and hot bread [??]. The families of many farmers far in among the mountains rarely taste fresh meat, but subsist chiefly upon salt pork, fish, fresh or salted, as the season will permit, potatoes, wheat, rye, and Indian meal, with berries, dried apples, perhaps a few garden vegetables, plenty of good milk, and excellent butter. Eggs, chickens, and veal are luxuries occasionally to be enjoyed, and, should one of the family be a good shot, venison and partridge may appear upon the bill of fare. Bright flowers ornament the gardens, and gay creepers embower doors and windows. Along the more secluded roads are the log cabins of the charcoal burners, said cabins containing, if apparently nothing else, two or three healthy, chubby, pretty children, and a substantial cooking stove, of elaborate pattern, recently patented by some enterprising compatriot.
Among the most remarkable features of these mountains are the 'Passes,' answering to Gaps, Notches, and Cloves in other parts of the Union. They afford means for excellent roads from end to end of the mountain region, and are, in addition, eminently picturesque. The two most noteworthy are the Indian and Wilmington Passes; the first too rugged for the present to admit of a road; and the latter containing the beautiful Wilmington Fall. Many of the mountains have been burned over, and the bare, gaunt-limbed timber, and contorted folds of gray, glittering rock, afford a spectral contrast to the gentler contours of hills still clad in their natural verdure, bright or dark as deciduous or evergreen trees preponderate. The variety of form is endless; long ridges, high peaks, sharp or blunt, sudden clefts, great bare slides, flowing curves, convex or concave, serrated slopes crowned with dark spruce or jagged as the naked vertebræ of some enormous antediluvian monster, stimulate the curiosity and excite the imagination of the beholder. There is an essential difference in the character of the views obtained, whether looking from the south, or the east. In the former case, the eye, following the axes of the ranges, sees the mountains as a cross ridge of elevated peaks; and in the latter, where the sight strikes the ranges perpendicularly to their axes, one, or, at most, two ridges are all that can be seen from any single point.
This region may be approached from Lake Champlain by way of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Port Henry, Westport, and Port Kent, the two latter places being the nearer to the higher peaks; or from the lake country in Hamilton County, by way of Racket and Long Lakes.