To the westward is the water system of the Raquette River, leading to
the St. Lawrence; this stream, the chief one in the district, flowing
out of Raquette Lake. This lake is irregularly shaped, about ten miles
long, and surrounded by low hills, its elevation being nearly eighteen
hundred feet. The dense forests that are adjacent teem with game, and
its hotels and private camps are among the best in the region, "Camp
Pine Knot" being especially famous as the most elaborate and
attractive of its kind in America. Blue Mountain rises to the eastward
nearly thirty-eight hundred feet, and at its southwestern base is the
Blue Mountain Lake, having on its southern edge the small Eagle Lake,
where lived in a solitary house called the Eagle's Nest the noted "Ned
Buntline," the author. To the southwest of Raquette are the chain of
eight Fulton Lakes. North of Raquette are the Forked Lakes, and
northeast of it, following down the Raquette River, Long Lake, which
is fourteen miles long and barely a mile wide in the broadest part,
having Mount Seward rising at its northern end. To the northwest,
still following down the Raquette, are the Tupper Lakes. These are a
few of the larger lakes in this labyrinth of water courses, there
being hundreds of smaller ones; and, as the forest and water ways
extend northwest, the land gradually falls away towards the great
plain adjoining the St. Lawrence. These regions, however, are remote
from ordinary travel, and the western Adirondack forests are rarely
penetrated by visitors excepting in search of sport.
This wonderful region has only during recent years attracted general
public attention as a great sanitarium and summer resort, but its
popularity constantly increases. Its dark and forbidding mountains
have become additionally attractive as they are better known, probably
for the reason, as John Ruskin tells us, that "Mountains are the
beginning and the end of all natural scenery." Its universal woods and
waters have a resistless charm. As one wanders through the devious
pathways, or glides over the glassy surface of one of its myriad
lakes, the vivid coloring and richness of the plant life recall
Thomson, in the _Seasons_:
"Who can paint
Like Nature? Can imagination boast
Amid its gay creation hues like her's?
Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows?"
But after all, the great Adirondack forests, vast and trackless, much
of them in their primitive wildness, are to the visitor possibly the
grandest of the charms of this weird region. The "Great North Woods"
still exist as the primeval forest on many square miles of these broad
mountains and deep valleys, recalling in their solitude and grandeur
William Cullen Bryant's _Forest Hymn_:
"The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them--ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence he knelt down
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication."