This mountain, which is now much resorted to
for its cool, invigorating air and lovely prospect,
by the people of our eastern cities, is situated in
the town of Bridgeton, by the travelled route about
50 miles W. from Portland. The excursion to
the foot of the mountain is itself a delightful one,
having the pleasant variety of a ride in the cars
10 miles out. to Gorham, and thence 8 miles by
stage coach to the Sebago Lake, over which, and
the other lakes connected with it by romantic
streams, the trip to Bridgeton, 30 miles, in the
little steamer which plies upon these waters, is
quite enchanting. The mountain is more than
2000 feet above the level of the sea. The view
from its summit is extensive, reaching to the
ocean on one hand and the White Mountains on
the other, and embracing 30 or 40 beautiful sheets
of water, with the steamer, like a thing of life,
winding her way among them; together with
many neat and pretty villages, which dot the
landscape in various directions. Sometimes, the
morning mists are seen lying along the valleys,
giving the spectator to realize something like the
privilege of a celestial elevation above the clouds.

The ascent is accomplished with perfect ease,
by a good mountain path, for about one mile, on
horseback or on foot, as may suit the visitor. An
excellent house has been erected on the summit,
where boarders can enjoy every comfort and
luxury they may desire, from a well-spread table,
neat and well-furnished apartments, piano-forte,
and other accompaniments of our fashionable
hotels. No elevation, perhaps, in New England,
is so easily reached, where at once so fine a pros-
pect may be enjoyed, and the accommodations of
so comfortable a home obtained.

PLYMOUTH ROCK, MS.

This interesting locality takes the precedence,
in some important respects, of all other places
of public resort in our country. A natural and
laudable desire to stand upon the spot where the
forefathers o.f New England landed from the
Mayflower, in 1620; to survey the natural fea-
tures of the harbor, and the shore on which, in
its wild and wintry desolation, their eyes first
rested as their home in the new world; and to
feel the inspiration of the scenes where our glo-
rious institutions of civil and religious freedom
were first conceived and nurtured; cannot fail
to operate, with increasing numbers of our citi-
zens, to induce them, at least once in their lives,
to make a pilgrimage to the Rock of Plymouth.

“ No New Englander,'' says Dr. Dwight, “who
is willing to indulge his native feelings, can stand
upon the rock where our ancestors set the first
foot after their arrival on the American shore,
without experiencing emotions very different from
those which are excited by any common object
of the same nature. No New Englander could
be willing to have that rock buried and forgotten.
Let him reason as much, as coldly, and as in-
geniously as he pleases, he will still regard that
spot with emotions wholly different, from those
which are excited by other places of equal or
even superior importance. . . . Plymouth was
the first town built in New England by civilized
man; and those by whom it was built were infe-
rior in worth to no body of men whose names
are recorded in history during the last seventeen
hundred years. A kind of venerableness arising
from these facts attaches to this town, which may
be termed a prejudice. Still it has its foundation
in the nature of man, and will never be eradicat-
ed, either by philosophy or ridicule. . . . When
we call to mind the history of their sufferings on
both sides of the Atlantic, when we remember
their preeminent patience, their unspotted piety,
their immovable fortitude, their undaunted reso-
lution, their love to each other, their justice and
humanity to the savages, and their freedom from
all those stains which elsewhere spotted the char-
acter even of their companions in affliction, we
cannot but view them as illustrious brothers,
claiming the veneration and applause of all their
posterity.

“ The institutions, civil, literary, and religious,
by which New England is distinguished on this
side the Atlantic, began here. Here the manner
of holding lands in free socage, now universal
in this country, commenced. Here the right of
suffrage was imparted to • every citizen, to every
inhabitant not disqualified by poverty or vice.
Here was formed the first establishment of towns,
of the local legislature which is called a town
meeting, and of the peculiar town executive
styled the selectmen. Here the first parochial
school was set up, and the system originated for
communicating to every child in the community
the knowledge of reading, writing, and arithme-
tic. Here, also, the first building was erected for
the worship of God, the first religious assembly
gathered, and the first minister called and settled,
by the voice of the church and congregation.
On these simple foundations has since been erect-
ed a structure of good order, peace, liberty,
knowledge, morals, and religion, with which
nothing on this side the Atlantic can bear a re-
mote comparison.''

Since the opening of the Old Colony Railroad,
in 1845, connecting Plymouth with Boston, from
which it is distant 37j miles S.E., the access to
this interesting spot is rendered easy, and the
number of visitors, especially in the summer
season, has very much increased. The Samoset
House, a spacious and well-kept hotel, in a de-
lightful situation, looking out upon the harbor,
offering the most tempting inducements to per-
sons from the city to find a residence here dur-
ing the heat of summer, and always filled with
boarders during that season, furnishes another
means of augmenting the number of strangers in
Plymouth, who are interested to find out what-
ever is to be seen or known of the antiquities of
the place.

The first object, of course, for which the visitor
inquires, is, The Rock,—“ Forefatheks'
Rock.'' This remains, except a portion of it
which has been placed in front of Pilgrim Hall, in
its original position, where the Pilgrims stepped
upon it from their “ shallop; '' although the
whole appearance of the spot has been changed
by the erection of a wharf and warehouses over
and around it. The rock lies buried to its sur-
face in the earth at the head of “ Hedge's Wharf,''
and between two stores which stand on either
side of the passage to the wharf from Water
Street, a few feet S. of North Street. The top of
the rock is bare, and upon a level with the pres-
ent surface of the ground. It is about 6^ feet
broad in its horizontal diameter, and, since the
removal of the portion which lies in front of
Pilgrim Hall, about 4 feet in vertical thickness.
In its geological character it is a Bowlder, like
the Pilgrims themselves, a stranger upon these