The Connecticut River comes from the northeast to its confluence with
the Passumpsic, a stream of reduced volume, flowing down rapids. There
is only sparse population above, and in New Hampshire, some distance
east of Colebrook, is the famous Dixville Notch. This is an attractive
ravine about ten miles long, cut through the isolated Dixville Range.
It is not a mountain pass in the usual sense, but a wonderful gorge
among high hills, the cliffs being worn and broken down into strange
forms of ruin and desolation. Theodore Winthrop describes the Dixville
Notch as "briefly, picturesque--a fine gorge between a crumbling,
conical crag and a scarped precipice--a place easily defensible,
except at the season when raspberries would distract sentinels."
Approached from Colebrook to the westward, the view is disappointing,
as it is entered at a high level, but after an abrupt turn to the
right, the tall columnar sides are seen frowning at each other across
the narrow chasm; cliffs of decaying mica slate presenting a scene of
shattered ruin that is mournful to behold. To the right of the Notch,
Table Rock rises five hundred and sixty feet above the road, being
elevated nearly twenty-five hundred feet above the sea, and is
ascended by a rude stairway of stone blocks called Jacob's Ladder. Its
summit is a narrow pinnacle only eight feet wide, with precipitous
sides. It gives an extensive view over the Connecticut Valley
northward to the Connecticut Lakes, and over the upper Androscoggin
Valley to the southeastward. Its most impressive sight, however, is
much nearer, the narrow dreary chasm immediately below, with its
broken palisades that seem almost ready to fall. Beyond is the Ice
Cave, a deep ravine where snow and ice remain throughout the summer.
Washington's Monument and the Pinnacle, remarkable rock formations,
rise high on the north side of the Notch. Beyond the Notch
southeastward is the Androscoggin, which small steamboats ascend to
Lake Umbagog on the Maine boundary. Still farther eastward and deep in
the Maine forests are the noted fishery waters of the Rangeley Lakes,
which have polysyllabic names, such as Mooselucmaguntic,
Mollychunkamunk, and Welokenebacook. They are elevated fifteen hundred
feet above the sea and cover eighty square miles of surface.
We have now ascended the picturesque Connecticut River to its mountain
sources. It has become only a brook, and having followed it up to the
Canadian boundary of Vermont, it is found to come out of Northern New
Hampshire, flowing westward from the Connecticut Lakes. The main lake
of this group is twenty-five miles northeast of Colebrook, covering
about twelve square miles, a favorite haunt of anglers, and navigated
by a small steamboat. The second lake, four miles farther northeast
through the forest, has about five square miles of surface, and the
third lake is to the northward, covering two hundred acres. The
Canadian northern boundary of New Hampshire is a low mountain range,
and on its southern slope is the fourth and highest lake, at
twenty-five hundred feet elevation above the sea, a pond of about
three acres, in which the great New England river has its head. These
Connecticut Lakes are in an almost unbroken forest.