navigation. The construction of the Caughnawaga Canal, when carried out, will remedy the difficulties which now exist and stand in the way of an uninterrupted water communication between the western states and the Atlantic seaboard."
From Rouse's Point we proceeded to a picturesque point which jutted into the lake below Chazy Landing, and was sheltered by a grove of trees into which we hauled the Mayeta. Bodfish's woodcraft enabled him to construct a wigwam out of rails and rubber blankets, where we quietly resided until Monday morning. The owner of the point, Mr. Trombly, invited us to dinner on Sunday, and exhibited samples of a ton of maple sugar which he had made from the sap of one thousand trees.
On Monday, July 20th, we rowed southward. Our route now skirted the western shore of Lake Champlain, which is the eastern boundary of the great Adirondack wilderness. Several of the tributaries of the lake take their rise in this region, which is being more and more visited by the hunter, the fisherman, the artist, and the tourist, as its natural attractions are becoming known to the public. The geodetical survey of the northern wilderness of New York state, known as the Adirondack country, under the efficient and energetic labors of Mr. Verplanck Colvin, will cover an area of nearly five thousand square miles. In his report of the great work he eloquently says:
"The Adirondack wilderness may be considered the wonder and the glory of New York. It is a vast natural park, one immense and silent forest, curiously and beautifully broken by the gleaming waters of a myriad of lakes, between which rugged mountain-ranges rise as a sea of granite billows. At the northeast the mountains culminate within an area of some hundreds of square miles; and here savage, treeless peaks, towering above the timber line, crowd one another, and, standing gloomily shoulder to shoulder, rear their rocky crests amid the frosty clouds. The wild beasts may look forth from the ledges on the mountain-sides over unbroken woodlands stretching beyond the reach of sight – beyond the blue, hazy ridges at the horizon. The voyager by the canoe beholds lakes in which these mountains and wild forests are reflected like inverted reality; now wondrous in their dark grandeur and solemnity, now glorious in resplendent autumn color of pearly beauty. Here – thrilling sound to huntsman – echoes the wild melody of the hound, awakening the solitude with deep-mouthed bay as he pursues the swift career of deer. The quavering note of the loon on the lake, the mournful hoot of the owl at night, with rarer forest voices, have also to the lover of nature their peculiar charm, and form the wild language of this forest.
"It is this region of lakes and mountains – whose mountain core is well shown by the illustration, 'the heart of the Adirondacks' – that our citizens desire to reserve forever as a public forest park, not only as a resort of rest for themselves and for posterity, but for weighty reasons of political economy. For reservoirs of water for the canals and rivers; for the amelioration of spring floods by the preservation of the forests sheltering the deep winter snows; for the salvation of the timber, – our only cheap source of lumber supply should the Canadian and western markets be ruined by fires, or otherwise lost to us, – its preservation as a state forest is urgently demanded. To the number of those chilly peaks amid which our principal rivers take their rise, I have added by measurement a dozen or more over four thousand feet in height, which were before either nameless, or only vaguely known by the names given them by hunters and trappers.
"It is well to note that the final hypsometrical computations fully affirm my discovery that in Mount Haystack we have another mountain of five thousand feet altitude. It may not be uninteresting also to remark that the difference between the altitudes of Mount Marcy and Mount Washington of the White Mountains of New Hampshire is found to be quite eight hundred feet. Mount Marcy, Mount MacIntyre, and Mount Haystack are to be remembered as the three royal summits of the state.
"The four prominent peaks are —
If the general reader will pardon a seeming digression to gratify the curiosity of some of my boating friends, I will give from the report of the Adirondack Survey Mr. Colvin's account of his singular boat, – one of the lightest yet constructed, and weighing only as much as a hunter's double-barrelled gun.
Mr. Colvin says:
"I also had constructed a canvas boat, of my own invention, for use in the interior of the wilderness on such of the mountain lakes as were inaccessible to boats, and which it would be necessary to map. This boat was peculiar; no more frame being needed than could be readily cut in thirty minutes in the first thicket. It was twelve feet long, with thin sheet brass prows, riveted on, and so fitted as to receive the keelson, prow pieces, and ribs (of boughs), when required; the canoe being made water-proof with pure rubber gum, dissolved in naphtha, rubbed into it."
Page 43 of Mr. Colvin's report informs the reader how well this novel craft served the purpose for which it was built.
"September 12 was devoted to levelling and topographical work at Ampersand Pond, a solitary lake locked in by mountains, and seldom visited. There was no boat upon its surface, and in order to complete the hydrographical work we had now, of necessity, to try my portable canvas boat, which had hitherto done service as bed or tent. Cutting green rods for ribs, we unrolled the boat and tied them in, lashing poles for gunwales at the sides, and in a short time our canvas canoe, buoyant as a cork, was floating on the water. The guides, who had been unable to believe that the flimsy bag they carried could be used as a boat, were in ecstasies. Rude but efficient paddles were hastily hewn from the nearest tree, and soon we were all gliding in our ten-pound boat over the waves of Ampersand, which glittered in the morning sunlight. To the guides the boat was something astonishing; they could not refrain from laughter to find that they were really afloat in it, and pointed with surprise at the waves, which could be seen through the boat, rippling against its sides. With the aid of the boat, with prismatic compass and sextant, I was able to secure an excellent map of the lake; and we almost succeeded in catching a deer, which was driven into the lake by a strange hound. The dog lost the trail at the water, and desiring to put him on the track, we paddled to him. He scrambled into the boat with an air of satisfaction, as if he had always travelled in just such a thing. Soon we had regained the trail, and making the mountains echo to his voice, he again pursued the deer on into the trackless forest.
"Continuing our work, we passed down into the outlet, where, in trying to effect a landing, we suddenly came face to face with a large panther, which had evidently been watching us. He fled at our approach.
"Our baggage was quickly packed, and the temporary frame of the canoe having been taken out and thrown away, we rolled up our boat and put it in the bottom of a knapsack… The same day by noon we reached Cold Brook again, here navigable. In an hour and a half we had re-framed the canvas, cut out two paddles from a dry cedar-tree, had dinner, loaded the boat, and were off, easily gliding down stream to the Saranac River. Three men, the heaped baggage in the centre, and the solemn hound, who seemed to consider himself part of the company, sitting upright near the prow, forming in all a burden of about one third of a ton, was a severe test of the green boughs of which we had made the frame.
"Ascending the Saranac River, we struck out into the broad Saranac Lake, some six miles in length, and though the winds and the waves buffeted us, the canvas sides of the boat responding elastically to each beat of the waves, we got safely along till near the Sister Islands, when, the wind blowing very fresh, the white-capped rollers began to pitch into the boat. The exertions of the guides brought us under the lee shore, and at evening we disembarked at Martin's."
Geographies, guide-books, and historical works frequently give the length of Lake Champlain as one hundred and fifty, or at the least one hundred and forty miles. These distances are not correct. The lake proper begins at a point near Ticonderoga and ends not far from the boundary line of the United States and Canada. Champlain is not less than one hundred nor more than one hundred and twelve miles long. The Champlain Canal, which connects the river that flows from Whitehall into the lake with the Hudson River, is sixty-four miles long, ending at the Erie Canal at Junction Lock, near Troy. From Junction
