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572    MOUNTAINS IN NEW-HAMPSHIRE.

highest elevations. Through these traditions, the savages always
had a venerable respect for these mountains, and never attempted
to ascend the summit, deeming the undertaking dangerous, and suc-
cess impossible.    ^

President Alden states that the White Mountains were called by
one of the eastern tribes Waumbekketmethna ; Waumbekket signi-
fies white and methna mountains. Their great elevation has al-
ways rendered them exceedingly interesting, both to the aboriginal
inhabitants and to our ancestors. They were visited by Neil, Joc-
lyn, and Field as early as 1632 ; they gave romantic accounts of
their adventure, and the extent and sublimity of the mountains..

They gave them the name of Crystol Hills.

There are six summits belonging to the White Mountain range
that are over one mile high and are respectively named Mount
Washington, having an altitude of 6,293 feet; Mount Adams, 5,794
feet; Mount Jefferson, 5,714; Mount Clay, 5,553^61; Mount
Monroe, 5,384 feet and Mount Madison, 5,365 feet. Mount Washing-
ton is known by its superior elevation, and although sixty-five miles
distant from the ocean, in a clear day its snow white summit can be    ^

distinctly seen fifty miles at sea—

And like the father of our nation’s land,

He stands as beacon of his mountain chain,

To guide the bark upon the stormy main
■;    To friendly port surrounded by the strand.

!j    Mount    Adams    is known by its sharp terminating peak and being

the second north of Washington. Jefferson is situated between the
jj    two; Madison is the eastern peak of the range; Monroe is the first

I    south of Washington, and Clay north of Washington.

Travellers visiting the White Mountains never consider their
tour completed, unless they ascend Mount Washington and view
the grandest mountain 'scenery on the American Continent. A
traveller has well described the.view obtained from Mount Wash-
ington.

‘‘From the summit, if the day he clear, is afforded a view un-
equalled on the eastern side of the American Continent. Around
you, in every direction, are confused masses of mountainsyhearing    ¹

the appearance of a sea of moulten lava suddenly cooled/whilst its    .

ponderous waves were yet iu commotion. On the smith-eastern
horizon gleams a rim of silver light; it is the Atlantiq Ocean sixty-
five miles distant, laving the shores of Maine. Lakes of all sizes,    i