second time in bloom,) Clintonia and Linnaea Borealis, which last a
lumberer called _moxon_, creeping snowberry, painted trillium,
large-flowered bell-wort, etc. I fancied that the aster radula,
diplopappus umbellatus, solidago lanceolatus, red trumpetweed, and
many others which were conspicuously in bloom on the shore of the
lake and on the carry, had a peculiarly wild and primitive look there.
The spruce and fir trees crowded to the track on each side to
welcome us, the arbor-vitae with its changing leaves prompted us to
make haste, and the sight of the canoe-birch gave us spirits to do so.
Sometimes an evergreen just fallen lay across the track with its
rich burden of cones, looking, still, fuller of life than our trees
in the most favorable positions. You did not expect to find such
_spruce_ trees in the wild woods, but they evidently attend to
their toilets each morning even there. Through such a front-yard did
we enter that wilderness.

There was a very slight rise above the lake,--the country appearing
like, and perhaps being, partly a swamp,--and at length a gradual
descent to the Penobscot, which I was surprised to find here a large
stream, from twelve to fifteen rods wide, flowing from west to east,
or at right angles with the lake, and not more than two and a half
miles from it. The distance is nearly twice too great on the Map of
the Public Lands, and on Colton's Map of Maine, and Russell Stream
is placed too far down. Jackson makes Moosehead Lake to be nine
hundred and sixty feet above high water in Portland harbor. It is
higher than Chesuncook, for the lumberers consider the Penobscot,
where we struck it, twenty-five feet lower than Moosehead,--though
eight miles above it is said to be the highest, so that the water
can be made to flow either way, and the river falls a good deal
between here and Chesuncook. The carry-man called this about one