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 SOUPCE ANVD ITS TRIBUTTAPRIES.
if the Almighty had here erected an impassable barrier to the contaminatirng contact of man with this bright and beautiful land of
gloom. The fearful stillness of death broods over all. The very
view of this glittering but ghastly. territory is frightful, and man
avoids it as he would the deadly shade of the poisonous Upas.
Even the wild beasts of the forests creep stealthily around the
firozen base of this polar MIalakoff, not caring or daring to risk a
conflict with a foe so formidable and invincible; and the hardiest
wild bird shrinks away down into the thickest and best protected
forest, or plunges boldly under the snow to escape the marrow-chilling breath of the dread monarch of this land of terror and loneliness.
Hiigh over all, at times, the cold, gray sky looks down without a
sign of relenting; while the atmosphere, misty with frosty distillations, or clear and rarefied, penetrates to the very vitals, biting like
a beaver and cutting like a Damascus blade. At other times, the
wild, angry clouds roll up in dense, dark masses, enveloping the
glistening summits in their angry folds, while the winds howl fiercely
aid roar savagely through the deep and yawning chasms, as the
hurricane tears along the boundless waste of ocean. Then comes
the snow, fine and thick, sweeping in great waves along the mountain-sidcle, even far out upon the plain, penetrating every nook and
crevice, whirling high in air, then rolling down in thick masses
resembling a mighty avalanche, then, turning back, apparently assume's a host of strange, fantastic shapes, reclimbs the rug,ged, dizzy
height, there again to be taken in the arms of a still more gigantic
blowo, and hurled with lightning speed far away, and scattered over
the land. Thus is another spread placed on these sleeping giants.
The winds abate to a dismal moan, then sadly sigh through the
wide-spreading branches of leafless forests, and die away to silence,
while ni,lght and the cold, round, silver moon together roll upon the
scene, intensifying its frightful polar horror.
The Merrimack River has its extreme northern source in the
WIilley Mountain, - so called in honor of the Willey family, which
was destroyed by the fearful slide that occurred on its eastern slope
in 1826.
This took place during the night. HIundreds of acres of the
almost perpendicular mountain-side, which had been loosened and
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