On the way we passed the confluence of Lake Delia with the Adirondack branch of the Hudson, reached M'Intyre's Inn (Tahawus House, at the foot of Sandford Lake) toward noon, and at two o'clock were at the little deserted village at the Adirondack Iron Works, between Sandford and Henderson Lakes. "We passed near the margin of the former a large portion of the way. It is a beautiful body of water, nine miles long, with several little islands. From the road along its

INDFORD LAKE.

shores we had a fine view of the three great mountain peaks just mentioned, and of the Wall-face Mountain at the Indian Pass. At the house of Mr. Hunter, the only inhabitant of the deserted village, we dined, and then prepared to ascend the Great Tahawus, or Sky-piercer.

The little deserted village of Adirondack, or M'Intyre, nestled in a rocky valley upon the Upper Hudson, at the foot of the principal mountain barrier which rises between its sources and those of the Au Sable, and in the bosom of an almost unbroken forest, appeared cheerful to us weary wanderers, although smoke was to be seen from only a solitary

24 THE HUDSON.

chimney. The hamlet -- consisting of sixteen dwelling-houses, furnaces, and other edifices, and a building with a cupola, used for a school and public worship -- was the offspring of enterprise and capital, which many years before had combined to develop the mineral wealth of that region. That wealth was still there, and almost untouched-- for enterprise and capital, compelled to contend with geographical and topographical impediments, have abandoned their unprofitable application of labour, and left the rich iron ores, apparently exhaustless in quantity, to be quan-ied and transformed in the not far-off future.