Upon the southeastern border of the Adirondacks is Lake George, its
head or southern end being nine miles north of Glen's Falls on the
Hudson River. No American lake has had so many songs of praise; it is
a gem among the mountains, its picturesque grandeur giving it the
deserved title of the American Como. It reminds the Englishman of
Windermere and the Scot of charming Loch Katrine, for while it is
larger, it holds a place in our scenery akin to both those famous
lakes. Embowered amid high hills, a crystal mirror set in among
cliffs and forest-clad mountains, their wild and rugged features are
constantly reflected in its clear spring waters. Its scenery mingles
the gentle and picturesque with the bold and magnificent. George
Bancroft, referring to its warlike history, says: "Peacefully rest the
waters of Lake George between their ramparts of highlands. In their
pellucid depth the cliffs and the hills and the trees trace their
images, and the beautiful region speaks to the heart, teaching
affection for nature." It is long and narrow, having more the
character of a river than a lake, lying almost north and south, in a
deep trough among the mountains, its waters discharging from the north
end into Lake Champlain, and while thirty-six miles long, it is
nowhere more than two or three miles wide. Washing the eastern verges
of the Adirondacks, the bold ranges give it the rare beauties of
scenery always presented by a mountain lake. Its surface is two
hundred and forty-three feet above tide-water, and in some places it
is over four hundred feet deep, the basin in which it rests being
covered with a yellow sand, so that the bottom is visible through the
pellucid waters at great depth. It is dotted with romantic islands,
beautiful hill-slopes border the shores, and the background rises into
dark and bold mountains. This magnificent lake was Horicon, or the
"Silvery Water" of the Mohicans, a name which Cooper, the novelist,
vainly endeavored to revive for it. The Mohawks called it
Andiatarocte, or the "Place where the Lake Closes." The Hurons, as it
appeared much like an appendage to Lake Champlain, named it
Canaderioit, or the "Tail of the Lake." The first white man who saw it
was the young French Jesuit missionary, Isaac Jogues, who had been
captured on the St. Lawrence by a band of Mohawks, and was brought
through it a captive in 1642, and after horrible maltreatment escaped
to Albany. He went home to France, and in 1646 came out again,
determined to convert them. His canoe entered its quiet waters on his
beneficent mission on the eve of the festival of Corpus Christi, and
he named it Lac du Saint Sacrament. He went on to the Mohawk Valley
and ministered to them, but soon they murdered him. The French prized
its clear and sparkling waters so highly that they were sent to Canada
for baptismal uses. When Sir William Johnson came along more than a
century later and took possession for England, he brushed aside all
these romantic names, and in honor of his King George II., called it
Lake George, the name which remains.
A charming steamboat ride over the lake best discloses its delicious
scenery as one glides among the lovely islands, and through scenes
like a fairy-land, their brilliant prospects constantly changing. At
almost every hour from noon to eve, or in the gathering storm, the
islands of Lake George--which are said to equal in number the days of
the year--exhibit ever new phases. They may sleep under the
cloud-shadow, and then the sun brightly breaks over them; they present
a foreground of rough rocks or of pebble and shingle-covered beach, or
an Acadian bower of rustic beauty, while the landscape is filled with
the spreading waters and the distant-tinted hills. Tea Island, near
the head of the lake, is a picnic-ground; Sloop Island has its
tree-trunks looking like the spreading sails of a single-masted
vessel; Diamond Island yields beautiful quartz crystals. Near the
centre of the widest portion of the lake is Dome Island, richly
wooded, and resembling the noted "Ellen's Isle" of Loch Katrine. The
Sisters are diminutive islets, lonely in their isolation. The
beautiful Recluse Island has a picturesque villa, while all about it
rise high mountains. Green Island bears the Sagamore, and behind it
the encircling shores of Ganouskie Bay are lined with villas at
Bolton, which look out upon a grand archipelago. Green Island covers
seventy acres, and is a perfect gem of rich green surface. On the
shores and islands all about are numerous summer camping-places, a
favorite resort being the Shelving Falls, coming through the Shelving
Rock, an impressive semicircle of Palisades, behind which rises the
lake's greatest mountain, ever present in all its views, Black
Mountain, elevated twenty-nine hundred feet. Just beyond, the towering
hills thrust out on either hand contract the waters into the Narrows,
dotted with a whole fleet of little islands, the most picturesque
part of the lake, and here a brief fairy-like glimpse of the hamlet of
Dresden is got, nestling under these great mountains, down Bosom Bay.
Northward from the Narrows, a long projecting point of low and fertile
land stretches out on the western side, still retaining that air of
restful peace which in the eighteenth century secured it the name of
Sabbath Day Point. Farther on, and near the outlet, Rogers' Slide is
on one side and Anthony's Nose on the other, these bold cliffs
contracting the lake into a second Narrows. Beyond these are lower and
less interesting shores, and finally, at the foot, its waters are
discharged through the winding Ticonderoga Creek into Lake Champlain.