In most parts of the State the thermometer (Fahrenheit) in winter occasionally falls as low as 24° or lower and at times in midsummer it may rise to 90° or more, but these arc un usual extremes and of short duration.
Severe stortns are uncommon. Notwith standing the uncertainty of the climate, the longevity of the inhabitants is reported as above the average for the whole country.
The rainfall is from 30 to 40 inches. During the winter the ground over most of the State is covered with snow and there may be good sleighing for three months or more, but some times, in the western part especially, there is little good sleighing.
Physiography.—As has been shown, Ver mont is long from north to south, narrow from east to west and the main physical features have a north and south trend. The Green Mountains dominate the State and have determined its physiography in a large degree. These moun tains enter from Canada in two irregular ranges, uniting in one about the middle of the State and continue into Massachusetts. The range culminates in Mansfield, one point of which, the chin, is 4,406 feet above sea-level. By the range the whole State is divided into an eastern and western part and, while it is easy to. pass from north to south, it is usually very difficult to find a passable road across from east to west The mountainous character of Vermont is shown by the fact that, aside from innumerable smaller mountains and hills, there are in the State seven peaks over 4,000 feet, more than 40 over 3,000, more than 100 over 2,000 feet above sea-level. The Green Mountains are well-named for nearly all are clothed completely by forests. The trees at and near the tops of these mountains are mostly black spruce, though there are other conifers intermingled to some extent with these such as balsam fir, white spruce, cedar. Below the summits, covering the sides of the mountains, are all sorts of deciduous trees, that grow in a northern temperate climate, especially birch, beech, maple, etc. So dominating are the Green Mountains that some part of the range is in sight froth nearly every town in the State, but these are not the only elevations. Between them and the New York border is' a consider able range, the Taconics, which extend from somewhat north of the middle of the State south into Massachusetts. The principal moun tains of the Taconic Range are Equinox, 3,816 feet ; Bear Mountain, 3,2W; Dorset, 3,804, and others 2,000 to 3,000 feet high. A third series of elevations is seen in the Red Sandrocic Hills. These do not form a range but are simply. a few isolated hills, most of them less than 1,000 feet high, though one, Hog back, is at the highest point, 1,850. Cobble Hill in Milton, Mount Philo in Charlotte and Snake Mountain in Addison County, are the best known of these. They are probaby remnants of a great mass of lower Cambrian sandstone with a little shale and quartzite, most of which has been carried off. All of these elevations are near Lalce Champlain, that is, they are along the extreme western border of the State. Between the Green Mountains and the Connecticut River there is a series of low mountains or hills which extend nearly the whole length of the State, but only as separate elevations usually at a considerable distance from each other. These are the Granite Hills
such as Burke Mountain, Robeson Mountain, Millstone Hill, Black Mountain, etc. From them come the granite which is so important an item in the industries of the State. One mountain, Ascutney, is in a class by itself, as it is of unique structure, being composed of material unlike that found elsewhere. The ((Windsor Green Granite') is a syenite from this mountain.
Nestling in hollows among the numerous mountains are many lakes and ponds, prob ably not less than 400 in all. Most of these are small, less than two miles long and usually narrow, but a few, as Willoughby, Dunmore, Bomoseen and Saint Catherine are several miles in length and breadth. All of these bod ies of water are very attractive and many wild and romantic.
Four rivers of considerable size flow into Lake Champlain, the Mississquoi, Lamoille, Winooslci and Otter. The White, Passumpsic, West and others smaller, flow east into the Connecticut and several small streams enter Lake Memphremagog on the north. Along the valleys of these streams there is much level and fertile land and everywhere charming scenery. It may easily he understood that this delightful combination of mountains, lakes, rivers and the less frequent plains gives a character and variety to the physiography of Vermont such as for restful beauty can. scarcely be equaled. Excellent roads make much of this easily accessible to the tourist Geology.— The geological features of much of Vermont are very complex and often ob scure in detail, but the general structure has been satisfactorily made out Practically the whole of what is now Vermont was formed as rock by the end of Ordovician time. By far the greater part of the rock is Cambrian and Ordovician but there is some pre-Cambrian to be seen and very likely there is more, com pletely covered. Thus Vermont is geograph ically one of the oldest portions of the United States. The oldest rock, as would be expected, is found in the axis of the Green and Taconic Mountains, but while probabl-y this old rock exists throughout these ranges, it is found at the surface only in a few places, the great mass of these elevations being highly metamorphic Ordovician material. The Red Sandrock Hills as before stated, are Lower Cambrian and the Granite Hills are probably upthrusts of volcanic rock formed in the Devonian. In the immediate vicinity of Lake Champlain and on its islands unchanged beds representing Lower Cambrian and all the groups of Ordovician from Beek mantown to Utica are well-displayed and often full of characteristic fossils, but in other parts of the State fossils, though occasionally found in limited number, are rare and mostly wanting, the rocks being schists, slates, gneiss and simi lar rocks. The most abundant rock of the Green Mountains is gneiss; formed, as has been stated, by metamorphic action from older stratified beds. There is a small strip of Tertiary, best seen near Brandon, but except very small areas, no beds appear to have been deposited until the Pleistocene. 'It is, however, indicated by the structure of some of the granites that these were solidified under pressure of overlying masses which, now wholly carried away, may have been of some age not now represented in Vermont.