WHITE MOUNTAINS, a group of peaks and hills, or a range of monuments, principally in New Hampshire, in the northern part; but which extend into Maine on the east and on the west are connected with the Green Moun tains in Vermont. They belong to the Ap palachian system. Mount Katandin, in Maine, is the highest clesation on the eastern rim, and in New Hampshire there are about 20 peaks, with deep narrow valleys and long lines of rcunded foot-hills. The peaks are in two groups: the eastern or White Mountain group prop( r and the Franconia group, separated by a tableland varying from 10 to 3) miles in width The principal summits of the eastern group are, beginning at the Notch and passing around to Gorham, Mounts Webster, Clinton, Pleasant, Franklin, Monroe, Washington, Clay, Jeffers“ti. Adams and Madison. Of these Mount Washington is the highest and is indeed the highest mountain summit in New England, being 6,293 feet above the level of the sea. The prin cipal peaks of the Franconia group are Pleasant. Lafayette, Liberty, Cherry and Moosehillock Near the southern border of the plateau are Whiteface, Chocorua, Red Hill and Ossipee. and in the southeast, Kearsarge. North of the plateau and near the upper waters of the Con necticut, are several elevations, among which are the twin mountains known as Stratford peaks. The plateau is deeply furrowed by sev eral streams. The geological formation of the White Mountains is almost entirely of ancseut metamorphic rocks. In many of the peaks the upper portion is composed of huge masses of naked granite or gneiss, and the debris which in the course of ages has clothed the lower portion with a coarse gravelly soil, possesses only enough of the constituents of vegetable life to support those trees and shrubs which will grow in the hardest and poorest soil Land slides, the result of dislodgment of bowlders and loosely adherent soil after heavy rains, arc not infrequent. One of these occurred in the notch of the White Mountain group in August 1826 and destroyed a whole family named Willey. The most noteworthy of many water falls among the mountains are the Artist's Fall in North Conway; the Silver Cascade, a beauti ful thread of water descending from far up the side of Mount Webster; Ripley's Falls, on a tributary of the Saco, below the Willey house, the lower one, Sylvan Glade cataract, falling at an angle of 45 degrees, 156 feet, in a stream from 50 to 75 feet in width; the falls of the Ammonoosuc, which in a course of .30
miles descends over 5,000 feet; the Berlin Falls on the Androscoggin, descending over 200 feet in the course of a mile, and the Crystal Cascade and Glen Ellis Fall, near the Glen house, on a tributary of the Andro scoggin. Of the 'notches,' or passages (not rent through the solid granite of the moun tains by sonic violent convulsion of nature as has often been supposed, hut carved by the slow action of rivers), there • are five; the White Mountain Notch, two miles in length and at its narrowest point only 22 feet wide, through which the Saco River passes; the Fran conia Notch, which permits the passage of the Pemigewasset; the Pinkham Notch, through which a branch of the Saco and one of the Androscoggin find their way, and the Grafton and Dixville notches, through which flow the Androscoggin and one of its tributaries. The first two of these are those best known. 'The Flume' at Franconia Notch is the most noted of those narrow waterways excavated through the rock, though there are others hardly in ferior to it in attractiveness. Among the other objects of interest in the Franconia group is the 'Old Man of the Mountain,' a well-defined profile of the human face formed by three projecting rocks. (See FRANcotetn). At the base of the mountain lies a beautiful lakelet one-fourth of a mile king and one-eighth wide, called •Profile Lake,' or the •Old Man's Wash bowl.• Five males south of the notch is the •Basin,• a circular bowl-like cavity 45 feet in diameter and 28 in depth, produced by the whirling of large stones in a natural hollow in the rock by the current it is filled clear sparkling water, which flows down the mountains in a succession of beautifully clear cascades. The 'Pool,' in the same vicinity, is a natural well in the solid rock 60 feet in diam eter and 190 feet deep, of which 40 feet is oats r. The White Mountains were first visited by a white man, Darby of Pascataquac, in 1642, when with two Indians he ascended Mount Washington. Later in the same year Thomas Gorges and companions traveled up the Saco and exploit d the mountains and the plateau and discovered the sources of the Saco, Connecticut. Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers. The White Mountains are a famous summer resort. Several railroads enter the mountains, and in the seasons special trains carry passen gers direct from many of the large cities.