Mount Washington is the highest of all the White Mountains, being six thousand two hundred and thirty-four feet above the level of the sea. Next to Mount Washington in height is Mount Adams, then Jefferson, then Madison, all more than five thousand feet high; there are several besides these, though none so elevated. The country around and among the mountains is very wild and rough, and the mountains themselves are difficult of access. The east side of Mount Washington rises at an angle of forty-five degrees. The lower part of the mountain is covered with thick woods of spruce and fir trees, with deep beds of moss beneath. Heavy clouds of vapor often rest upon the mountain, and fill the moss with water, which cannot be exhaled or dried up by the sun on account of the woods, and therefore it breaks out in numerous springs which feed the streams from the mountain. The trees are short and stunted higher up the mountain; soon there are only bushes; then instead of bushes are vines; the last thing that grows is winter grass mixed with moss; the summit is entirely bare of vegetation. There is a plain from which the last height of Mount Washington rises to the height of fifteen hundred feet. This elevation or pinnacle is composed of huge grey rocks. Reaching the top much fatigued and out of breath, the traveller is instantly master of a boundless prospect, noble enough to pay him for his labor. The Atlantic dimly seen through a distance of sixty-five miles, the Vermont Mountains on the west, the southern and northern mountains of New Hampshire, Lake Winnipiseogee, ponds, streams, and towns, without number, all form a great impressive picture. The road from the seacoast to the mountains passes along the head stream of the Saco, which rises among these mountains, and breaks through them at a place known by the name of the Notch, a narrow defile extending two miles in length between two large cliffs, apparently rent asunder by some vast convulsion of nature.