this lake is probably the most charming in America." ADIRONDACK ATTRACTIONS. The western guardian peaks of the Keene Valley are the main range of the Adirondacks, including Mount Marcy or Tahawus. Mount Colvin, alongside the Ausable Lakes, was named in honor of Verplanck Colvin, the New York surveyor and geologist, who devoted years of energy to the survey of this wilderness, and perhaps knew it better than anyone else. He was always in love with it, and thought that few really understood it. He described it as "a peculiar region, for though the geographical centre of the wilderness may be readily reached, in the light canoe-like boats of the guides, by lakes and rivers which form a labyrinth of passages for boats, the core, or rather cores, of this wilderness extend on either hand from these broad avenues of water, and in their interior spots remain to-day as untrodden by men and as unknown and wild as when the Indian paddled his birchen boat upon those streams and lakes. Amid these mountain solitudes are places where, in all probability, the foot of man never trod; and here the panther has his den among the rocks, and rears his savage kittens undisturbed, save by the growl of bear and screech of lynx, or the hoarse croak of the raven taking its share of the carcass of slain deer." The tangled Adirondack forest may to some seem monotonous and even dreary, but Mr. Street, the poet-writer of the region, thus enthusiastically refers to it: "Select a spot; let the eye become a little accustomed to the scene, and how the picturesque beauties, the delicate minute charms, the small overlooked things, steal out like lurking tints in an old picture. See that wreath of fern, graceful as the garland of a Greek victor at the games; how it hides the dark, crooked root, writhing snake-like from yon beech! Look at the beech's instep steeped in moss, green as emerald, with other moss twining round the silver-spotted trunk in garlands or in broad, thick, velvety spots! Behold yonder stump, charred with the hunter's camp-fire, and glistening black and satin-like in its cracked ebony! Mark yon mass of creeping pine, mantling the black mould with furzy softness! View those polished cohosh-berries, white as drops of pearl! See the purple barberries and crimson clusters of the hopple, contrasting their vivid hues!--and the massive logs peeled by decay--what gray, downy smoothness! and the grasses in which they are weltering--how full of beautiful motions and outlines!"