* * * * *
On the top of Wachusett, butterflies, large and splendid; also bees in
considerable numbers, sucking honey from the alpine flowers. There is a
certain flower, a species of Potentilla, I think, which is found on
mountains at a certain elevation, and inhabits a belt, being found
neither above nor below it. On the highest top of Wachusett there is a
circular foundation, built evidently with great labor, of large, rough
stones, and rising perhaps fifteen feet. On this basis formerly rose a
wooden tower, the fragments of which, a few of the timbers, now lie
scattered about. The immediate summit of the mountain is nearly bare and
rocky, although interspersed with bushes; but at a very short distance
below there are trees, though slender, forming a tangled confusion, and
among them grows the wild honeysuckle pretty abundantly, which was in
bloom when we were there (Sunday, June 17th). A flight of rude stone
steps ascends the circular stone foundation of the round tower. By the
by, it cannot be more than ten feet high, at the utmost, instead of
fifteen.
The prospect from the top of Wachusett is the finest that I have
seen,--the elevation being not so great as to snatch the beholder from
all sympathy with earth.
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