. The White hills; their legends, landscape, and poetry. ng huge hemlocks before them, and leaving no treenor root of a tree in their path. Soon after, a party ascending bythe Ammonoosuc counted thirty slides along the acclivity theyclimbed, some of which ravaged thus more than a hundred acres ofthe Avilderness,—not only mowing off the trees, but tearing out all thesoil and rocks to the depth of tAventy and thirty feet. And on thedeclivities toAvards North ConAvay, it Avas thought that this one stormdismantled more of the great range, during the terrible hours of thatMonday night, than all the
. The White hills; their legends, landscape, and poetry. ng huge hemlocks before them, and leaving no treenor root of a tree in their path. Soon after, a party ascending bythe Ammonoosuc counted thirty slides along the acclivity theyclimbed, some of which ravaged thus more than a hundred acres ofthe Avilderness,—not only mowing off the trees, but tearing out all thesoil and rocks to the depth of tAventy and thirty feet. And on thedeclivities toAvards North ConAvay, it Avas thought that this one stormdismantled more of the great range, during the terrible hours of thatMonday night, than all the rains of a hundred years before. What had been the fate of the little house in the Notch, and of theWilley family, during the deluge ? All communication Avith them onTuesday morning was cut off by the floods of the Saco. But at four THE SACO VALLEY. 193 oclock in the afternoon of Tuesday, a traveller passing Ethan Craw-fords, some seven miles above the Willey House, desired, if possible,to get through the Notch that night. By swimming a horse across. the wildest part of the flood, he was put on the track. In the nai>rowest part of the road within the Notch, the water had torn outhuge rocks, and left holes twenty feet deep, and had opened trenches, 27* 192 THE WHITE also, ten feet deep and twenty feet long. But the traveller, whiledaylight lasted, could make his way on foot over the torn and ob-structed road, and he managed to reach the lower part of the Notchjust before dark. The Uttle house was standing, but there were nohuman inmates to greet him. And what desolation around ! Themountain behind it, once robed in beautiful green, was striped fortwo or three miles with ravines deep and freshly torn. The lovelylittle meadow in front was covered with wet sand and rocks inter-mixed with branches of green trees, with shivered trunks, whosesplintered ends looked similar to an old peeled birchbroom, andwith dead logs, which had evidently long been buried beneath themount
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectwhitemo, bookyear1876
