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��Lake Winnifiseogce in October.
��shut in by untamed hills amid the heart of the wilderness, that Winui- piseogee inspires. Indeed, the lake is not shut in by any abrupt mountain walls. Its islands and shores fringe the water with winding lines, and long, low, narrow capes of green. But the mountains retreat gradually back from them, with large spaces of cheerful light, or vistas of more gently sloping land between. The whole impression is not of wild, but of cheerful and symmetrical, beauty. The form of the lake is very irreg- ular. At the west end are three large bays ; on the north is a fourth ; and at the east are three others. Its greatest length approximates thirty miles, and in width it varies from one to ten miles. Its waters lie at an altitude of five hundred feet above the sea level. The sources of the lake are principally from springs in its own bosom. Its outlet is a rapid river of the same name. Here and there along its shores, crowning pleasant hillsides, or lying in some quiet nook, are pleasant villages : Centre Harbor, Wolfeborough, Alton Bay, Lake Village are of these, but more frequently green slopes of hills and dark forests, interspersed with projecting rocks covered with moss and wild flowers, border and are re- flected back by the dark blue waters. Winnipiseogee is a queen, an Indian queen if you will, but yet, like Solo- mon's dark beauty in the Canticles, exquisitely comely. In fact, no more beautiful lake exists under Italian or tropical skies than this same moun- tain-girted Winnipiseogee, with its pure, unfathornable waters, and the three hundred and sixt3'-five fairy- like islands dotting its pellucid sur-
��face ; one, indeed, to each day of the twelve calendar months. Is there a providence in it that this lake, as well as Lake George and Casco bay, should bear just that number of bright green gems upon their bosoms?
Famous as is Lake Winnipiseogee for its beautiful surroundings, lovely islands, and sparkling waters, there are but a few people who realize its value as a reservoir of motive power, who stop to think that it has called into being Lacouia, Franklin, Con- cord, Hooksett, Manchester, Nashua, Lawrence, and Lowell, and that if some upheaval of nature should top- ple into it the hills and mountains that surround it, those places, with all their thriving industries, -would wither and die. It is in reality the heart of central New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Its waters are the life blood, the source of the wealth, thrift, and prosperity of the whole Merrimack valley. The Merrimack river is said to turn a greater number of water wheels than any other of equal length on the earth, and it is capable, when all its privileges are improved, of doing much more than it does now ; but the Merrimack is little more than the great lake let loose, and without that reservoir would be of small use in manufac- turing.
This fact is fully realized by the Massachusetts manufacturing corpor- ation which has control of the outlet at The Wiers, and watches with the closest attention every rise and fall of its waters, which are gathered and stored up in wet seasons and let loose in dry. The manufacturers of New Hampshire are of course as vitally interested in the matter as their Mas-
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