and overcast. Now we see them clothed in the crimson and golden tints of the evening-now in the cold, leaden grey of the morning; now silvery mists creep up their shaggy sides and linger languidly in their valleys-then purple shadows flit across them and play upon their summits. Sometimes the air is so pure and clear after a storm breaks away, that all the mountains stand out with outlines so sharply defined, and their giant forms seemingly appear so near, that we fancy human voices might be heard from the farthest of them. Then again they are all mantled with the matchless soft blue haze, often called mountain smoke, which is that dim, impalpable but lovely illusion and semblance of a color, that indescribable appearance of the fleeting, the vanishing and the spiritual, seen nowhere else in nature's realm but among the mountains, that makes the bristling crags and towering peaks, and solid mountain masses seem for all the world like softly sleeping clouds, hanging low down in a far-off shadowy sky, or floating over the sleeping bosom of some distant mountain lake. Thus the scene forever changes, every day in the year, and every hour in the day presenting some new feature in the mountain landscape.

But more striking and more wonderful than all else is the corrugated, wave-like, billowy appearance of the whole mountain region, that so forcibly reminds one of the wide, rolling sea. It seems as though the ocean, in one of its wildest, maddest storms, had suddenly

"Stood still with all its rounded billows fixed

And motionless forever."

XI.

ALTITUDE OF MOUNTAIN PEAKS.

Below is a table showing the height of some of the principal mountains of the Wilderness, mostly as measured by Verplanck Colvin in his Adirondack survey:

8

1882 Panther Mountain 1899 Piseco Mountain 1891 Fish Mountain 1896 T Kake Mountain

3,763

3,727

3,715

CHAPTER VI.

MOUNTAIN PASSES.

I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save by fits when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.
-Sir Walter Scott.

I.

THE INDIAN PASS.

Among the stern and rugged features of the grim Wilderness, none are more awfully grand and imposing than The mountain passes over the highest ranges, and the dreadi gorges that so often furrow the mountain sides.

The most celebrated of these mountain passes is the Indian Pass over the Adirondack range in the town of North Elba, in Essex county. This pass was called by the Indians Otne-yar-heh-"Stonish Giants," Ga-nos-gwah"Giants clothed with stone," Da-yoh-je-ga-go-"The place where the storm clouds meet in battle with the great serpent," and He-no-do-aw-da-“The Path of the Thunderer." Through this pass ran the old Indian trail which led from the head waters of the rivers that flow into Lake Champlain to the head waters of the forest branches of the Hudson, and through it now runs the trail of the tourist and modern hunter. The old Indian Pass is an appalling chasm of more than a mile in length, and more than a thousand feet in depth, cut through the solid rock between Mounts McIn tyre and Wall Face. The bottom of this awful gorge is a

narrow ravine strewn with huge fragments of rock that some Titanic force has hurled from the towering mountain walls on either side.

On its westerly or Wall Face side, a perpendicular precipice or wall of rocks towers up to the giddy height of thirteen hundred feet; while on its easterly side is a steep acclivity which rises at an angle of forty-five degrees, more than fifteen hundred feet towards the lofty summit of Mount McIntyre. Near the center of this wondrous chasm, high upon the shaggy side of Mount McIntyre, two little springs issue from the rocks so near to each other that their waters almost mingle. From each spring flows a tiny stream. These streams at first interlock, but soon separating, run down the mountain side into the bottom of the chasm, which is here 2,937 feet above tide. After reaching the bottom, one runs southerly into the head waters of the Hudson, and the other northerly into the waters that flow into the St. Lawrence.

Only a little while at mid-day does the sunshine chase away the gloomy shadows of the perpetual twilight of this awful chasm, and the snow and ice linger all summer in its deep fissures.

The towering precipice on the side of Mount Wall Face is the most striking feature of the old Indian Pass. It seems as if Mount McIntyre, suddenly, in some great convulsion of nature, or by slow degrees, had sunk more than a thousand feet below its former level, leaving this grand perpendicular wall of solid rock on the side of Wall Face to mark the extent of the great depression. The scenc presented by this stupendous yawning chasm and awful precipice is sublimely grand beyond description. "In

viewing this great precipice," says Prof. Emmons, "no feeling of disappointment is felt in consequence of the expectation having exceeded the reality." "What a sight," says Alfred B. Street, "horrible, and yet sublimely beautifulno, not beautiful, scarce an element of beauty there-all grandeur and terror."

II.

OTHER MOUNTAIN PASSES.

Between Mounts Dix and Nipple Top, another gloomy gorge extends across the Boquet range, called the Hunter's Pass. It is second in wild grandeur only to the famous Indian Pass. The height of the center of the Hunter's Pass is 3,247 feet above tide. In this pass also, two rivers take their rise whose waters seek the sea in contrary directions-the Boquet running northerly to Lake Champlain, and the Schroon southerly into the Hudson.

In the gorge next west of Nipple Top is the Elk Pass. This pass leads from the head of an easterly branch of the Schroon to a branch of the Au Sable, and opens upon the head of Keene Valley. Its summit is 3,302 feet above the level of the sea.

Between Russagonia or Sawtooth Mountain and Mount Colvin is the Au Sable Pass. It leads from the Lower Au Sable Lake to the head waters of the Boreas River, a branch of the Hudson. It is a water-gap, forming a natural gateway through the mountains.

The Opalescent-head Pass and the Avalanche Lake Pass are elevated mountain passes whose centers are more than four thousand feet above tide.