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.

ITS SOURCE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
Little River, a lively but inconsiderable affluent of the Merrimack,
has its source in Plaistow, N. H., and effects a junction with the
Merrimack here. Hale's Flannel Mills are located on this stream,
as also numerous shops and mills of various kinds along the entire
course of the river and its tributaries.
Fishing River, so called from the quantities of alewives formerly
taken, is the principal tributary of Little River.
Meadow River, which also runs through Haverhill, rises in Newton, N. IH., and drives many small mills, shops, etc.
There are two long bridges spanning the Merrimack, - the Boston
and Maine Railroad bridge, and a toll bridge, which is the highway
between this town and Bradford.
Haverhill supports eleven churches, an excellent and flourishing
high school, and a very good library. Its towvn hall is a costly,
eleg,ant, and convenient structure. There are nearly thirteen hundred houses, and one hundred shoe manufactories, which is the principal business of the place. The.population is largely transient and
floating, varying as much as four thousand between high and low
tide of business.
The view from Silver HIill is exceedingly beautiful. Before us,
and almost at our very feet, lies the pleasant village of Haverhill,
with its twelve hundred dwelling-houses, its one hundred shoe manufactories, and its eleven churches. Its natural situation is uncommonly fine. Built upon a gentle acclivity, the houses rise one above
another in such regular order that nearly every one can be counted.
The Merrimack, dotted here and there with a variety of craft, from
the li,lght and trembling skiff to thle heavy gondola, and the still more
imposing and majestic moving ocean craft, with their broad, white
sails and tall masts overshadowing the water, and, spanned with its
bridges, flows calmly at its base, not in straight, monotonous course,
but with a gentle meandering, of which the eye can never tire.
" Across the river are seen the smoothly rounded hills, the green
and fertile fields, and the pleasant villages of Bradford and Groveland. To the south rise the hills of Andover, with their wooded
slopes dotted here and there witl neat, white firm-houses. A little
to the west, the tall spires, just peeping above the hills, point out the
wherealbouts of tne city which sprang into existence almost like Jonah's gourd,- the city of Lawrence. A little farther still to the
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