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 MERRI'MACK RIVER;
-CHAPTER II.
The Pemigewasset. -Mountains in Summer. -In Winter. -Source of the Merrimack. Method of taking Salmon and Trout.- Franconia Notch. - Echo Lake. - The Flume.
-The "Old Man of the Mountain."
THE Pemigewasset is the name of the principal stream which, at
the forks in Franklin, takes the name of the Merrimack. This is a
corruption of the Indian word Pemegewasset, signifying "the crooked
mountain-pine place," from Pennaquis (crooked), wadchu (a mountain), cooash (pine), and auke (a place). By the adoption of this
name the Merrimack was to that extent curtailed and shorn of its
fair proportions, for substantially it is the same river in every respect. It seems, then, not only a geographical outrage, but really
a deliberate attempt to belittle this lovely river by requiring a large
section of it to bear another name; however, as "the rose by any
other name would smell as sweet," so the Merrimack, call it what
you please, is the same most important stream, the same beautiful
and transparent water, the same pride, and honor, and glory of the
State and of New England. It stands pre-eminent, and without a
parallel the greatest manufacturing river in the civilized world.
Not only does this stream attract the notice and attention of the
capitalist, the mechanic, the farmer, and the speculator, but its picturesque and romantic beauty, the wonderful physical phenomena
spread out from its pellucid bosom, attract the attention of the man
of leisure, the tourist, the student and admirer of nature, and even
the true sportsman, who finds in this river and in the numberless
tributaries, large and small, and in the fields and the magnificent
forests stretching away for many miles, a great abundance and endless variety of fish and game, and, above all else, occasion and cause
to offer up a spontaneous tribute of admiration to the great Author
of all these wonders and beauties and blessings.
The Merrimack River cannot boast of the gigantic size of the
Amazon, the Mississippi, or the St. Lawrence, nor of the white
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