Northeast of Buttermilk Falls is Adirondack station, on Henderson Lake, which is the central point of this whole mountain region, and a place where tourists are usually found in large numbers. Near the north end of the lake is Wall-Face Mountain, commanding an extensive view, and midway is Indian Pass, which is a tremendous chasm through what is known as the Dismal Wilderness. Notwithstanding the large number of visitors who annually summer in the vicinity, so dense is the forest and jungle- growth that surrounds the Pass, and so inaccessible the deepest portions of the gorge, that very few explorers have succeeded in making their way through it, and no one is sufficiently familiar with the region to act as a competent guide. It has been ascertained, however, that within the Pass, which is intersected by several streams, are springs which are the source of Ausable River, which, emptying into Champlain, finds an outlet into the Atlantic by way of the St. Lawrence, and also of the Hudson, whose drainage is in the opposite direction; and yet so close are these springs that it is possible to drink from each without shifting one’s position. In this vicinity is Gill Brook, which is picturesquely broken by Surprise Falls, composed of a succession of sharp leaps over limestone ledges, but so narrow that the forest trees form a perfect canopy above, excluding a sight of both river and falls until the visitor approaches within a few feet of the stream. But the entire region so abounds with lakes, mountains, gorges, waterfalls and cataracts that to describe all its attractions would be wearisome iteration, for there is an unavoidable sameness in the pen-pictures of scenery, however variable in character. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: THE HUDSON NARROWS, NEAR PEEKSKILL.—In the whole world we do not believe there is another river which shows such a diversity of splendid scenery as the Hudson. There is hardly a point or bend in the river that does not present a view worthy of an artist’s enthusiasm. Commencing high up near its source in the Adirondack Mountains, where it is broken into many beautiful rapids and waterfalls, and continuing on down past Troy, Albany, the Catskills, famous in legend, poem and story, to the celebrated Highlands, there is a constant succession of splendid and ever-varying scenery, unsurpassed by any other water-course in the world. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: SURPRISE FALLS AND GILL BROOK, IN THE ADIRONDACKS.] [Illustration: BRIDGE OVER GLEN’S FALLS, NEW YORK.]