I could make out more than half that number.

The

Righi has become almost a classic name, while the "Owl's Head," from which I date my letter, has never yet dared to show its face in civilized life. Indeed, the Cognomen has been given by a man wandering by, from its shape, and it waits a new christening. A forester here has requested me to give it a name, promising it shall keep it. If you will send me one, I will see to the baptism, and you shall have the honor of naming a mountain; which is far more imposing than giving a name to a baby. It deserves a good one, for insignificant as it may seem, to plant your feet on an "owl's head," it looks off on a prospect that would make your heart stand still in your bosom. Look away toward that distant horizon! In its broad sweep round the heavens, it takes in nearly four hundred miles, while between slumbers an ocean -but it is an ocean of tree tops.

Conceive, if you can, this vast expanse stretching on and spreading away, till the bright green becomes shaded into a deep black, with not a sound to break the solitude, and not a hand's breadth of land in view throughout the whole. It is a vast forest-ocean, with mountainridges for billows, rolling smoothly and gently on like

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the subsiding swell of a storm. I stand on the edge of a precipice which throws its naked wall far down to the tops of the fir trees below, and look off on this surpassingly wild and strange spectacle. The life that villages, and towns, and cultivated fields give to a landscape is not here, neither is there the barrenness and savageness of the view from Tahawus. It is all vegetation-luxuriant, gigantic vegetation; but man has had no hand in it. It stands as the Almighty made it, majestic and silent, save when the wind or the storm breathes on it, waking up its myriad lowtoned voices, which sing

"The wild profound eternal bass

In nature's anthem."

Oh, how still and solemn it slumbers below me; while far away yonder, to the left, shoot up into the heavens the massive peaks of the Adirondack chain, mellowed here, by the distance, into beauty. Yet there is one relief to this vast forest solitude-like gems sleeping in a moss bed, lakes are everywhere glittering in the bright sunshine. How calm and trustingly they repose on the bosom of the wilderness! Thirty-six, a hunter tells me, can be counted from this summit, though I do not see over twenty.

There, like a snake crawling out from the mountain gorge, comes Long Lake, with its glittering head— and yonder is Forked Lake, and farther on Raquette Lake and farther still, Great and Little Tuppers Lake, and away, a mere luminous point-but I will cut short the list, for, indeed, many have no names. Some of these are from four to six miles in width, and yet they look like mere pools at this distance, and in the midst of such a mass of green.

I have gazed on many mountain prospects in this and the old world, but this and the view from Tahawus have awakened an entirely new class of emotions. They are American scenes, constituting one of the distinctive features of our country, where nature seems to have formed everything on such a large model, merely because she had so much room to work in. I wanted to set fire to the trees on the summit of the mountain, so as to present an unobstructed view, but the foliage was too green to burn. A deep moss bed covered the whole top, on which we reclined as on the softest couch. You will get some conception of the wildness of the country, when I tell you that it took us nearly five hours to find this mountain after we first came in sight of it,

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though at the time not more than two miles distant, in a straight line, from its base. We rowed six miles and landed with its blue top in clear view-then took the direction with our pocket compasses, and started off. One who had been to the summit before acted as guide, but after circling round one or two swamps, and falling unconsciously out of our way, by following ridges that seemed to go in the direction we wished, we found ourselves wholly at loss. Hills and swamps, and a dense forest on every side, completely obstructed our view, and we stumbled on hour after hour, and ascended two mountains, before we could finally get another glimpse of the one we were after. We breakfasted about six in the morning, and had left our fishing-tackle on the shore, where we expected to be again by noon, and take some trout for dinnerbut it was half-past three when we reached the top of this mountain, making nine hours of the most desperate toil; with nothing to eat, and, what was worse, with no prospect of getting anything till we should again reach our boats. The doctor was in perfect despair, and declared he could not return without food. As a last resort, he took from his pocket a piece of venison he had brought along for trout bait,

(a Frenchman could not have wished it older,) and devoured it. I begged the half of a cigar of one of the company, (I offered him five dollars for the whole of it,) to stimulate my exhausted system, and we began our descent. We again lost our course and wandered about till, wearied out, and hungry, we sat down in a bed of wild "sheep sorrel," and plucked the green leaves and ate them. An owl fluttered on a branch over head, and I drew up my rifle and fired, but missed him. I verily believe, if I had killed him I should have eaten him on the spot. The doctor declared he would not stir-he would rather die than go any further. We cheered him up with the remembrance of his venison, at which he made sundry wry faces, not to be mistaken, and which drew peals of laughter from us, weary and faint as we were. The doctor would then stagger on, but it was really pitiful to look back and see him stop, put his shoulder to a tree, and sink his head against the trunk, then slide down in utter exhaustion, on the green moss at the root.

At length the rifle shot of the clergyman, who had gone on while we tarried for the doctor, announced that he had at last found the lake. This gave new life to our spirits, and we scrambled joyously for