The Merrimack River: its source and its tributaries. Embracing a history of manufactures, and of the towns along its course; their geography, topography, and products, with a description of the magnificent natural scenery about its upper waters./ By J. W. Meader.

THE MERRIMACCK RIVER;
the house in their flight, and thus met inevitable death. Just before
it reached the house, the avalanche divided into two parts, one pasinog each side of the house, leaving it untouched. Thus was stricken
from the face of the earth a group, which the virtuous and the happy
could not but admire, which the rich and the proud might envy.
No mortal eye was permitted to witness and survive the agonies of
that awful moment; no mortal ear caught the expiring groan of the
sufferers. The horrors of the catastrophe are imprinted on the memory of no child of earth; yet were the hairs of their heads all numbered; and who is there that would not admire the kindness of that
Providence which left no bruised reed standing amidst a scene of
bereavements; no parent to weep over the mangled and faded flower;
no infant bud cut from the parent stock to wither and die in the
blast?" *
The scene of this appalling calamity continues to be invested with
a deep and mournful interest. It has been visited, in person, by
very many, - more than one hundred thousand people. Every account of it is read with avidity, and no description of it is perhaps
more interesting than the simple, touching, and beautiful ballad,
"The Willey House. A Ballad of the White Hills; by Dr. T. W.
Parsons, of Boston":
"Come, children, put your baskets down,
And let the blushing berries be;
Sit here and wreathe a laurel crown,
And if I win it, give it me.
"'Tis afternoon,- it is July, -
The mountain shadows grow and grow;
Your time of rest and mine is nigh, The moon was rising long ago.
"While yet on old Chocorua's top
The lingering sunlight says farewell,
Your purple-fingered labor stop,
And hear a tale I have to tell.
"You see that cottage in the glen, Yon desolate, forsaken shed, -
Whose mouldering threshold, now and then,
Only a few stray travellers tread.
* Extract from the "Boston Galaxy," 1826, Ittn. Joseph T. Buckingham, Editor.
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