Mount Greylock, the highest swell of this range, is 3600 feet above sea level, and commands a variable and extensive view from its bald summit, on which was early erected that first wooden observatory, during President Griffin’s term at Williams College. Here the poet and the philosopher, Hawthorne and Thoreau, have climbed to meditate. Many a message has gone forth from these heights to bless the busy world. Scarcely is there a son of old Williams who does not recall the mountain-day excursions led by Professor Albert Hopkins, and the glory of old Greylock at dawn and at the sunset hour. Thoreau writes of it: “It would be no small advantage if every college were thus located at the base of a mountain, as good at least as one well-endowed professorship. It were as well to be educated in the shadow of a mountain as in more classical shades. Some will remember, no doubt, not only that they went to college, but that they went to the mountain. Every visit to its summit would, as it were, generalize the particular information gained below, and subject it to more catholic tests.”[1] [Illustration: =Mount Greylock’s Brotherhood—the Berkshire Highlands, from Mount Œta, Bennington County, Vermont, Showing the College Town of Williamstown in the Valley.=] The peak especially designated as Saddleback Mountain is at the junction of the eastern abutments of that huge wall of Taconic Brotherhood which appears south of the old battle-ground where formerly stood the early border Fort Massachusetts, on the Harrison flats, near the flag station of Greylock. The union of Mount Williams, sloping to the east, and Prospect Mountain to the west forms the seat of the saddle. Mount Hopkins—so named in honor of Professor Albert Hopkins of Williams, the first nature-student of our land, making excursions afield in 1833—lies south of these. Old Greylock, proper, lifts its lofty brow still farther south, being situated about in the centre of this great range as it extends from east to west. Beyond Greylock stretches a long, misty line of blue peaks against the sky, which if observed from Mount Œta at the north, in Bennington County, Vermont, may be traced to the southwest to Symond’s Peak, the lowest of the group, named in memory of Captain Symond, who led the volunteer forces from our hills and vales to the memorable Battle of Bennington in 1777. Bald Mountain is also in the vicinity, and the closing in of these several peaks has conspired to form what is known as the “Hopper,” and the “Heart of Greylock.” The hollow vale amid these heights has the appearance of the hoppers used by millers years ago.