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 TPIBUTTAIES.
for instance, a question is asked, it will be distinctly repeated usually
several times; it then comes back a pleasant miurmur, then an
indistinct and solemn muttering, murmurs softly, and whispers a
final farewell, and is lost in infinitesimal and expanding circles!
Nestled down at the very base of these gigantic surrounding Alps,
as if seeking and enjoying a calm repose, hemmed in and fringed with
a deep foliage, this lake mirrors the sky and the fleecy clouds, tlhe
mountains and the forest, in its tranquil bosom. Its waters are
supplied with trout, and skiffs with fishing and pleasure parties skim
its placid surface. All sorts of appliances, cannon, speakingtrumpets, etc., are furnished with which to procure every variety and
volume of echlo, and a day's entertainment may be had here, free,
healthful, and interesting, if not profitable. Cannon Mountain has,a
huge rock poised upon its summit, of such peculiar shape as to be a
very accurate likeness of an immense cannon. This monster gun
appears to be in position, pointing its black mouth directly across
the Notch road, as if prepared to belch forth flame and iron hail upon
any who should attemnpt a hostile invasion of this modern Thermopylm.
Perhaps it is a simile of the "Union Gun," - a standing and enduring, menace to any who would trifle with that sacred compact.
The Flume is one of those works or freaks of nature that is viewed
with deepening amazement. The more it is seen and examined the
more intensified becomes this emotion, and the question at once arises,
-lowv came it so? Conjecture, speculation, and theory are resorted
to by each spectator as multifarious as the visitors; luminous but
unsatisfactory, for the great problem is still destitute of a definite
solution. W\as it accidentally left so when America was upheaved
firom the great world of watery waste in which it was submerged?
WAas it a deep cicatrice on the plastic fice of nature, torn by some
rough monster missile. hurled forward and impelled with impetuous
and resistless force from the overhanging summit? Was the granite
base of the everlasting hills riven by some convulsive throe or thiol)
of the great heart which swells and pulsates in the bosom of mother
Nature? No one can tell; neither the man who understands all
science and all learning, nor the'most inquisitive Yankee can trace the
cause the effect alone is visible.
Nearly three quarters of a mile the solid rock is cleft and rent
asunder some twenty feet, the sides being perpendicular and as
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