=Port Kent=, the connecting point for the progressive village of Keeseville.

=Ausable Chasm=, is only three miles from the station of Port Kent.  It is many years since we visited the Chasm, but its pictures are still stamped upon our mind clearly and definitely—­the ledge at Birmingham Falls, the Flume, the Devil’s Pulpit, and the boat ride on the swift current.  Indeed, the entire rock-rift, almost two miles in length, left an impression never to be effaced.  The one thing especially peculiar, on account of the trend of the rock-layers was the illusion that we were floating up stream, and that the river compressed in these narrow limits, had “got tired” of finding its way out, until it thought that the easiest way was to run up hill and get out at the top.

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  Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell
  Of this wild stream and its rocky dell.

  William Cullen Bryant.

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=Bluff Point.=—­On a commanding site 200 feet above the lake some three miles south of Plattsburgh, stands the superb “Hotel Champlain” commanding a view far-reaching and magnificent, from the Green Mountains on the east to the Adirondacks on the west.  The hotel grounds comprise the same number of acres as the islands of Lake George, 365.  The hotel is 400 feet long.  We condense the following description from the “Delaware and Hudson Guide-book,” which we can heartily endorse from many personal visits: 

“Resolute has been the struggle here with nature, where rocks, tangled forest and matted roots crowned the chosen spot; but upon the broad, smooth plateau finally created the Hotel Champlain has been placed, and all the surrounding forest, its solitudes still untamed, has been converted into a superb park, threaded with drives and bridle paths.  At the foot of the gradual western slope of the ridge the handsome station of Bluff Point has been located beside the main line of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad, the chief highway of pleasure and commercial travel between New York, Saratoga, Lake George, the Adirondacks and Canada.

“From the station where the coaches of the hotel await expected guests, a winding pike, the very perfection of a road, leads up the hill.  From the carriage, as it rises to the crest, a wondrous outlook to the westward is opened to view.  Nearly a thousand square miles of valley, lake and mountain are within range of the eye or included in the area encircled by visible peaks.  As the porch of the hotel is reached, the view, enhanced by the fine foreground, is indeed beautiful, but still finer is the grandeur of the scene from the arches of the tall central dome of the house.

“To the southward we see Whiteface, showing, late in spring and early in autumn, its coronet of almost perpetual snow; and in a grand circle still more southward we see in succession McIntyre, Marcy (both over 5,000 feet high), Haystack, Dix, the Gothic peaks, Hurricane and the Giant.  This noble sisterhood of mountains rises from the very heart of the wilderness, and yet the guests at the Hotel Champlain may reach any portion of their environment within a few hours.”