Wall-face, on the west side, is a perpendicular precipice 800 to 1,000 feet high, and Mt. Mclntyre rises over 3,000 feet. The gorge is seldom traversed, even adventurous tourists are repelled by its ruggedness. ^ By Colvin's survey Mount Marcy has an elevation of 5,344.411 feet "above mean-tide level in the Hudson." It is the highest mountain in the State. Put four Butter Hills on the top of each other and the elevation would be only a few hundred feet higher.

l86 INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

Falls the stream sweeps, in tortuous course with a wealth of rapids, eastward among the lofty hills of the Luzerne^ range of mountains, and at Glen's Falls descends about sixty feet, passing over a precipice, in cataract, in flood seasons, about nine hundred .feet long, and then separates into three channels by rocks piled in confusion. In times of low water there is, on the south side of the gorge, a perpendicular descent of about forty feet. Below, the channels unite and in one deep stream flow on gently between the grained clifiFs of fine black marble, which rises in some places from thirty to seventy feet. At the foot of the fall the current is divided by a small island which is said to bear on its flat rock surface a petrifaction having the appearance of a big snake, which may have been regarded by the Mohawks with awe as the personification of the

spirit of evil, according to the Huron legend, "Onniare jotohatienn tiotkon. The demon takes the figure of a snake." (Bruyas.) Under the rock is a cave over which the serpent lies as a keeper, extending from one channel to the other and which, as well as the snake, comes down to us embalmed in Cooper's "Last of the Mohegans," though some visitors with clear heads have failed to discover the snake.