For the afternoon, then--for the interval of time was to be occupied--a guide was summoned, to show half-a-dozen of us the wonders of Tuckerman's Ravine, a _cul-de-sac_ between two great buttresses of Mount Washington, that prop it up towards the South and West. The sides of this ravine are very precipitous the head of it being formed of layers of rock, at an angle of about ninety-five degrees, over which a cascade precipitates itself, fed by the springs and melted snows above. In the bed of this hollow, to which the descent is sufficiently sharp to gratify the keenest amateur pedestrian, the accumulated snow of the winter, blown over from the impending heights, lies packed in such enormous masses that it seldom entirely disappears until the latter part of August. At the period of my visit, on Friday, the 29th of July, a huge portion thereof remained, and the famous "Snow-Arch" was not only visible but practicable. This natural curiosity is a cave channelled out from the vast snow bank as a passage for the descending waters, the roof of which, gradually melting away, leaves height and space for walking along this gallery as it were in the very bed of the torrent. You enter perforce, be it observed, where the stream emerges. The length was certainly not less than two hundred feet, the breadth of the tunnel perhaps forty or fifty. Of the thickness of the roof I cannot speak, not having essayed it; but the little knot of adventurers trusted that it would not cave-in whilst they were groping their difficult way, one after the other, wet-footed and in semi-obscurity, up-stream, from end to end of the arched way. The object of the exploration it would be difficult to define. It certainly was not scientific; it offered no rare beauties; it might have been very well imagined, without the trouble and subsequent risk--but it was an adventure, and it had its charm. Day-light appeared as we neared the waterfall--luckily not very full--which, as I have already said, comes down the head of the ravine and is the origin of the "Arch" itself. What next? The snow had separated bodily from the face of the rocks to the width of two or three feet, as you see ice fields in a thaw detach themselves from the land whereto they have been joined. We could therefore emerge, and clamber up the abrupt face of the rocks, though the first start was not inviting, inasmuch as we had to hoist ourselves up by unequal pressure upon soft snow on one side and hard rock on the other. The alternative was a return. This would have been inglorious; up we went. It was a rough business. The guide had been over the ground once before, this season--so he said, at least--but he "harked back" occasionally, as though not quite certain of his way. It seemed impossible to diverge either to the right or left, and so gain the comparatively easier slope. We were doomed to mount, in the hope of finding successive steps, inasmuch as a retracing of those taken was not for a moment to be