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DESCRIPTION OF RAQUETTE

LAKE-ABUNDANCE

OF ITS

FISH-LAKE ELDON-ITS QUEER DISCOVERY-A MAN WHIPPED BY AN EAGLE-A HUNTER WITHOUT FEET.

THE WOODS, August.

DEAR H:

I DESIGNED to give you a lengthy description of Raquette Lake, which surpasses all the others in the beauty of its scenery, and can hardly be matched in the wide world. I was the more anxious to do this, because its sloping shores and fertile land make it the most desirable portion of this whole region for settlers. The Adirondack chain terminates here in the isolated peak of Mount Emmons, and the land sinks into an elevated plateau, furnishing many inducements to the emigrant. In place of this, however, I give you an extract from an interesting letter

which I received from a gentleman who has spent months around the Raquette.

"There are, perhaps, but few sections in our coun

try,

where the amateur of the beauties of nature, and the lover of sport, can better enjoy a few days of retreat from the thronged city and the cares of business, than at Raquette Lake. Here he feels liberated from the restraints of organized society, and meets the rude yet agreeable change, produced by an escape from the formalities of the world-indeed, he enters upon the enjoyment of that pure and artless freedom which the society of nature alone can impart. As a striking proof of the effect of this change, one can scarcely turn his attention from the objects around him, to the calculations of business, or the schemes of selfishness and pride-and I venture to say, if the mines of California were planted upon the shores of this beautiful lake, the miser even, would forsake his sordid labor, till he had viewed and re-viewed the enchanting landscape around him, while the man of taste would be absorbed as it were, in the midst of a new creation; and not an hour would pass, but what he would find something to admire, or amuse him.

"The natural scenery of the Raquette is, however,

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not so much distinguished for its sublimity as its beauty. Unlike the lakes of Switzerland, those of northern New York, making an extensive chain from the Saranac waters to the Moose River Lakes, are not surrounded by summits of perpetual snow, nor by naked rocks towering one above another in fragmentary peaks and disordered masses, but, for the most part, especially the south-western, are surrounded by gently-receding shores, swelling into moderate ridges, and bounding the view with a clear and beautiful outline of green hills-with here and there a conical mountain-top elevated in the distance. Nor do we, about the Raquette, discover any Alpine glaciers glittering in the sun, or huge masses of ice thundering down from their heights to the valleys below, but the country is made up of a broad plateau, elegantly varied upon its surface, and clothed by a rich and luxurious forest, and excelling all the others in the beauty of its situation, as well as in the fertility of its soil.

"As we take a more particular view of this lake, and the objects of interest in its immediate vicinity, we are at first struck with the crystal purity of its waters, and the irregularity of its form. Its waters

which I received from a gentleman who has spent months around the Raquette.

"There are, perhaps, but few sections in our country, where the amateur of the beauties of nature, and the lover of sport, can better enjoy a few days of retreat from the thronged city and the cares of business, than at Raquette Lake. Here he feels liberated from the restraints of organized society, and meets the rude yet agreeable change, produced by an escape from the formalities of the world—indeed, he enters upon the enjoyment of that pure and artless freedom which the society of nature alone can impart. As a striking proof of the effect of this change, one can scarcely turn his attention from the objects around him, to the calculations of business, or the schemes of selfishness and pride—and I venture to say, if the mines of California were planted upon the shores of this beautiful lake, the miser even, would forsake his sordid labor, till he had viewed and re-viewed the enchanting landscape around him, while the man of taste would be absorbed as it were, in the midst of a new creation; and not an hour would pass, but what he would find something to admire, or amuse him.

"The natural scenery of the Raquette is, however,

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[blocks in formation]

not so much distinguished for its sublimity as its beauty. Unlike the lakes of Switzerland, those of northern New York, making an extensive chain from the Saranac waters to the Moose River Lakes, are not surrounded by summits of perpetual snow, nor by naked rocks towering one above another in fragmentary peaks and disordered masses, but, for the most part, especially the south-western, are surrounded by gently-receding shores, swelling into moderate ridges, and bounding the view with a clear and beautiful outline of green hills-with here and there a conical mountain-top elevated in the distance. Nor do we, about the Raquette, discover any Alpine glaciers glittering in the sun, or huge masses of ice thundering down from their heights to the valleys below, but the country is made up of a broad plateau, elegantly varied upon its surface, and clothed by a rich and luxurious forest, and excelling all the others in the beauty of its situation, as well as in the fertility of its soil.

"As we take a more particular view of this lake, and the objects of interest in its immediate vicinity, we are at first struck with the crystal purity of its waters, and the irregularity of its form. Its waters

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