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 MERRJM1ACR'R VER;
with divers kinds of wholesome fish. From this lake run two rivers
southward, which fall into the eastern and southern sea-coast of New
England."
It may not be wondered at that the people of Europe should entertain extravagant ideas of the New World. when Gorges himself,
a man naturally endowed with a gorgeous fancy, should write such
descriptions for the information of the people at home, or that those
who sought the New World should do so with a reasonable expectation of ob)taining wealth by exploring the land, rather than by the oldfashioned slow and uncertain process of tilling it. Among those who
entertained the greatest expectations of this kind was Capt. Mason
himself; he knew that the Spanish expeditions to the western hemnisphere had returned to Europe heavily freighted with gems and
precious metals. The Spaniards had reported that gold was so
abundant that the natives, ignorant of its great value, freely used it
in the manufacture of the most ordinary ornaments and imuplements.
"Why do you quarrel," said a young cazique to the Spaniards,
about such a trifle as gold? I will conduct you to a region where
the meanest utensils are made of it." Mason had learned that gold
was obtained from the mountains. New Ilampshire was full of
mountains; and, reasoning from analogy, bri,lght visions of untold
wealth perpetually appeared before him. In his vivid imagination,
mines of incomputable riches reposed under the granite base of each
great hill, waiting only the magic touch of his masterly energy to
arouse it, when it would come forth and invest him with the title,
dignity, and prerogative of a feudal lord, while the inhabitants of his
extensive domain should merely be his vassals. Such was Laconia,
or, at least, the ideal Laconia. The real Laconia was yet to be developed by unwearied exertion, years of toil, patience, endurance,
and privation.
After ten years of hardship the disheartened colonists found their
condition and prospects no better than at the commencement. This,
instead of discouraging the proprietor, seemed to have the effect to
render him, if possible, still more sanguine; adversity mi,lght darken
his prospects, but it only s&qved to strengthen his faith. Chimerical
as were his ideas he seems to have been restrained by a most curious mental organization from realizing it, nor does it appear, in all
his checkered colonial career, that he secured scarcely a penny's
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