Proceeding southwardly through the Notch, we find its precipitous walls gradually recede and break up into gently-sloping summits, which, at the distance of five miles, terminate the defile, and debouch into a wide valley, whose great descent proves the great elevation of the defile we are now threading. For two miles we keep in view the Profile Mountain, whose eastern front resembles the Hudson River _Palisades_ on a gigantic scale. Nothing can be more imposing than the front it presents--half of it a sheer precipice of bare granite, seamed, ribbed, and riven in every fantastic shape, resting on a sloping mass of broken rock, amid which flourish sturdy rows of evergreens, in spite of the showers of granite from the crumbling crags above--and which foretell the destruction that will inevitably overtake the lineaments of the "Old Man" long before "mighty oceans cease to roar." The annexed sketch will convey some idea of this stupendous front of the Profile Mountain, and also of the best general view of the Notch. which last, unfortunately, does not from any point present its features in sufficient concentration to do justice to their magnitude in detail. We are now separated from the Profile Mountain by the _Pemigewasset_--a beautiful brook flowing from the lake at the feet of the "Old Man," whose tripping Indian name, though of unknown meaning, in sound, well describes its course of cascades, with which it follows us through the whole length of the defile--now dancing along our path, and now plunging again into the "listening woods," where it "singeth a quiet tune." Four miles from the Notch, it suddenly rushes out to the very edge of our road, and after foaming over several rocky ledges, collects its torn waters, and in a solid jet piercing a narrow fissure of granite, flings itself over into a deep pool, whose extraordinary shape and structure have constituted it the most charming curiosity of these mountains, under the name of _The Basin_. This singular pool is about twenty feet wide, and is inclosed in a circular basin of granite, one half of which rising to a height of fifteen feet, projects over the imprisoned waters. Undoubtedly the way in which the solid jet of the cascade strikes the side of the basin, giving a strong whirling motion to the pool, has gradually excavated the rock in its present regular, mason-like shape. Graceful birches bend over and embower this exquisite pool, that never fails to elicit bursts of delight from visitors first gazing upon its transparent water of the most brilliant emerald, shading off into an intense blue-black, where the cascade strikes its surface. Its greatest depth is about fifteen feet ordinarily, but nearly all the bed of the pool is distinctly visible through its indescribable emerald purity, although its surface is constantly agitated with tiny wavelets. Nature never fashioned such a darling nook as this exquisite Basin, in which Diana might have bathed,