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fall from different parts of this immense cluster of mountains, and unite about twelve or fifteen miles from the fource, at the plain of Pigwacket.

Winipifeogee river comes from the lake of that name, and unites its waters with Pemigewaffet, at the lower end of Sanborntown. From this junction, the confluent stream bears the name of Merrimack to the fea.

In its course through New-Hampshire, it paffes over several falls, the most beautiful of which is called the ifle of Hookfet, but the grandeft is Amufkeag. Hookset is about eight miles below the town of Concord; the descent of the water is not more than fifteen feet perpendicular in thirty rods; a high rock divides the stream, and a fmaller rock lies between that and the western fhore. From an eminence on the western fide there is a delightful landscape; the water above and below the fall, the verdant banks, the cultivated fields, and the diftant hills in the back ground, form a picturefque fcene, which relieves the eye of the traveller from the dull uniformity of a road through the woods.

Eight miles below Hookfet lies Amufkeag fall; it confifts of three large pitches one below the other, and the water is fuppofed to fail about eighty feet in the course of half a mile. The river here is fo crooked that the whole of the fall cannot be viewed at once, though the second pitch, which may be feen from the road, on the western fide, appears truly majestic. In the middle of the upper part of the fall, is a high, rocky ifland, on fome part of which are several holes of various depths, made by the circular motion of small stones, impelled by the force of the defcending water.*

At Walpole are thofe remarkable falls in Connecticut river, which we have before noticed, formerly known by the name of the Great Falls; the depth of the water is not known, nor have the

The following account of these cavities was formerly fent to the Royal Society, and printed in their Philofophical Transactions, vol. xxix. p. 70.

"A little above one of the falls of this river, at a place called Amufkeng, is a huge rock in the midst of the stream, on the top of which are a great number of pits, made exactly round, like barrels or hog/heads of different capacities, fome of which are capable of holding feveral tuns. The natives know nothing of the making of them; but the neighbouring Indians ufed to hide their provifions here in the wars with the Maquas, affirming, that God had cut them out for that purpofe; but they feem plainly to be artificial."

Thefe falls have been defcribed in the moft extravagant terms in an anonymous publication, entitled, "The History of Connecticut ;" and the defcription has been equently retailed in newspapers, and other periodical works.

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perpendicular height of the falls been ascertained; they are feveral pitches, one above another, in the length of half a mile, the largest of which is that where the rock divides the stream.

In the rocks of this fall are many cavities like those at Amuskeag, some of which are eighteen inches wide, and from two to four feet deep. On the steep fides of the ifland rock hang feveral arm-chairs, fastened to ladders, and fecured by a counterpoife, in which fishermen fit to catch falmon and shad with dipping nets.

Over this fall, in the year 1785, a ftrong bridge of timber was conftructed by Colonel Enoch Hale; its length is three hundred and fixty-five feet, and it is fupported in the middle by the great rock. The expense of it was eight hundred pounds; and by a law of the State, a toll is collected from passengers. This is the only bridge across Connecticut river; but it is in contemplation to erect one thirty-fix miles above, at the middle bar of White-river fall, where the paffage for the water, between the rocks, is about one hundred feet wide. This place is in the township of Lebanon, two miles be low Dartmouth college.

It would be endless to defcribe, particularly, the numerous falls, which, in the mountainous parts of the country, exhibit a great variety of curious appearances, many of which have been reprefented in the language of fiction and romance. But there is one in Salmonfall river which, not for its magnitude, but for its fingularity, deferves notice; it is called the Flume, and is fituated between the townships of Rochester and Lebanon. The river is confined between two rocks about twenty-five feet high; the breadth, at the top of the bank, is not more than three rods. The Flume is about four rods in length, and its breadth is various, not more in any part than two feet and a half, and in one part scarcely an hand breadth; but here the water has a fubterraneous paffage.

Mr. Belknap, who vifited this place in 1782, obferves, that in the flat rock there are divers cavities like thofe above mentioned; fome of them cylindrical, and others globular; all of them he found to contain a quantity of fmall frones and gravel, and in one of them wa a large turtle and feveral frogs. The dimenfions of five of these holes were as follows:

The largest of thefe cavities is confiderably higher than where the water now flows, unless in a great freshet.

From a series of obfervations made by James Winthrop, Efq. on the rivers of New-Hamphire and Vermont, he deduces this conclufion," that the defcent of their rivers is much less than European theorists have supposed to be neceffary to give a current to water. In the last hundred and fifty miles of Connecticut river, it defcends not more than two feet in a mile. Onion river, for fortythree miles from its mouth, falls four feet in a mile, and is exceedingly rapid between the cataracts. We may reckon the shore at Quebec to be at the level of the fea, and two hundred miles from that part of lake Champlain, where the current begins. The dif ference of elevation will be three hundred and forty-two feet, or twenty inches to a mile. If we extend our comparison from Quebec to the top of the Green Mountains, at Williamfton, the elevation will be one thousand fix hundred and fixty-fix feet, and the distance about three hundred and twenty miles; which is five feet two inches and a half to a mile."

It is a work of great curiofity, but attended with much fatigue to trace rivers up to their fources, and obferve the uniting of fprings and rivulets to form thofe ftreams which are dignified by majeftic names, and have been revered as deities by favage and fuperftitious people. Rivers originate in mountains, and find their way through the crevices of rocks to the plains below, where they glide through natural meadows, often overflowing them with their frefhets, bringing down from the upper grounds a fat flime, and depofiting it on the lower, which renews and fertilizes the foil, and renders these intervale lands extremely valuable, as no other manure is needed on them for the purposes of agriculture.

There is an important remark concerning the rivers of this part of America; and that is, that they often change their courfes, and leave their ancient channels dry. Many places may be seen in the wilderness in this State, where rivers have rolled for ages, and where ftones are worn fmooth as on the fea fhore, which are now at a confiderable distance from the prefent beds of the rivers. In fome places thefe ancient channels are converted into ponds, which, from their curved form, are called horfe-fhoe ponds; in others, they are overgrown with bushes and trees. Thefe appearances are frequent in the mountainous parts of the country. Connecticut river, which

MS. letter of James Winthrop, Efq.

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divides two States, has in fome places changed its courfe. Many acres have been thus made in a few years, and the land is of an excelfent quality.

There are generally two ftrata of intervale lands on the borders of the large rivers, one is overflowed every year, the other, which is feveral feet higher, and further removed from the water, is overflowed only in very high freshets. In fome places a third is found, but this is rare. The banks of the upper and lower intervales are often parallel to each other, and when viewed from the oppofite fide, appear like the terraces of an artificial garden.

Thefe intervale lands are of various breadths, according to the near or remote fituation of the hills. On Connecticut river they are from a quarter of a mile to a mile and a half on each side: in digging into them large found trunks of trees are found at various depths.

The frefhets are not equally high every year. Mafts have lain in the river above Amufkeag fall two or three years, waiting for a fufficiency of water to float them over: they fometimes fall athwart the stream and are broken; fometimes, in a narrow paffage, they are lodged fo firmly across, as to be removed only by cutting; and fome. times they are fo galled by the rocks in their passage, as to leffen their diameter, and confequently their value.

Every fpring there is more or lefs of a frefhet, caused by the diffolving of the fnow in the woods and mountains; if it be gradual, as it always is when not accelerated by a heavy rain, no damage is done by the rifing of the water.

Immenfe quantities of drift wood are brought down by these frefhets, from which the inhabitants of the lower towns contiguous to the rivers, are fupplied with fuel, and they have learned to be extremely dextrous in towing on fhore whole trees with their branches. But notwithstanding their activity, much efcapes them, and is driven out to fea, and fome of it is thrown back on the coast.

Saco river has rifen twenty-five feet in a great freshet; its common rife is ten feet. Pemigewaffet river has also been known to rife twenty-five feet. Connecticut river, in a common frefhet, is ten feet higher than its ufual fummer level: its greatest elevation does not exceed twenty feet.

Winipifcogee lake is the largest collection of water in New-Hamphire it is twenty-two miles in length from S. E. to N. W. and of very unequal breadth, but no where more than eight miles. Some very long necks of land project into it, and it contains feveral iflands, large and fmall. The mountains which furround it, give rife to

many

many ftreams which flow into it, and between it and the mountains are feveral leffer ponds which communicate with it. Contiguous to this lake are the townfhips of Moultonborough on the N. W.; Tuftonborough and Wolfborough on the N. E.; Meredith and Gilmantown on the S. W.; and a tract of land called the Gore, on the S. E.. From the S. E. extremity of this lake, called Merry-meeting bay, to the N. W. part, called Senter-harbour, there is good navigation in the fummer, and generally a good road in the winter; the lake is frozen about three months, and many fleighs and teams, from the circumjacent towns, crofs it on the ice.

The next largest lake is Umbagog, in the northern extremity of the State: it is but little known, and no other furvey has been made of it than was neceffary for extending the divifional line between New-Hampshire and Maine, in 1789. Next to this, are Squam, in the township of Holderneffe; Sunnapee, in the townships of Wendel and Fishersfield; and Great Offapy, in the ungranted land of the Mafonian purchase. Smaller ponds are very numerous, fcarcely any town being without one or more; there is generally a current through them, but fome have no visible outlet; their waters are limpid and sweet.

A remarkable circumftance is mentioned refpecting Mafcomy pond, which lies partly in Lebanon and partly in Enfield, and vents into Connecticut river. It is about five miles in length and one in breadth, its depth is from thirty to forty fathoms. The surrounding land bears evident marks that the furface of this pond was once thirty or forty feet higher than its prefent level. By what cause the altera tion was made, and at what time, is unknown; but appearances indicate a fudden rupture, there being no fign of any margin between its former and prefent height. About a mile distant from its outlet, there is a declivity of rocks forty feet higher than the stream as it now runs: by the fituation of these rocks, it appears that they were once a fall over which the water flowed; but it has now made for itself a very deep channel through folid earth, nearly a mile in length, where it seems confined for futurity.*

In the township of Atkinson, "in a large meadow, there is an ifland containing feven or eight acres, which was formerly loaded with valuable pine timber, and other forest wood. When the meadow is overflowed, by means of an artificial dam, this island rises in the. fame degree as the water rifes, which is fometimes fix feet. Near the middle of this ifland is a small pond, which has been gradually leffening

*MS. Letter of the Hon. Elisha Payne, Efq.