indeed throned among the
hills, and well deserves the title of the "Switzerland of America." Her
cloud-capped peaks, even in mid-summer, glisten with frosts and snows
of winter, and they stand watchful sentinels over the liberties of her
children. Our Alps are the White Mountains, and they hold no mean place
beside their rivals in the old world. Their lofty elevation, their
geological formation, the wild and romantic scenery in their vicinity,
and their legends of white and red men, all concur to render them
peculiarly interesting.

[Illustration: OWL'S HEAD AND MOOSILAUKE, WARREN, N.H.]

The White Mountain range is located in Coos, Grafton, and Carroll
Counties, covering an area of about two thousand square miles, or nearly
a third of the northern section of the State. Four of the largest rivers
of New England receive tributaries from its streams, and one has its
principal source in this region. The peaks cluster in two groups, the
eastern or White Mountain group proper, and the Franconia group,
separated from each other by a tableland varying from ten to twenty
miles in breadth. These mountains differ from most others in being
purely of a primitive origin. They are probably the most ancient
mountains in the world; not even the organic remains of the transition
period have ever been discovered near them; and they are essentially of
granitic formation. Underneath these coherent and indurate ledges the
most valuble ores exist, but coal and fossils are searched for in vain.
Many a change during the geological periods have these granite mountains
looked upon. They have seen fire and water successively sweep over the
surface of our globe. Devastating epochs passed, continents sunk and
rose, and mountains were piled on mountains in the dread chaos, but
these stood firm and undaunted, though scarred and seamed by glaciers,
and washed by the billows of a primeval sea, presenting nearly the same
contour that they do to-day. They are the Methuselahs among mountains.

[Illustration: "OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS."]

The Indians generally called these mountains Agiocochook, though one of
the eastern tribes bestowed upon them the name of Waumbek Ketmetha,
which signifies White Mountains. A mythic obscurity shadows the whole
historical life of this region till the advent of the white men. The red
man held the mountains in reverence and awe. What Olympus and Ida were
to the ancient Greeks, what Ararat and Sinai were to the Jews, what