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Fig. 1.

Taconics" (2624 feet) lying in the eastern ridge, is the highest peak and one of the highest elevations in Massachusetts, while Bear Mountain (2355 feet) is the highest point of land in the state of Connecticut. The main summit plain is situated to the northward of the center of the mass and has an average altitude of about 1700 feet. Corresponding with the elliptical outline of the mountain, this plain is compressed at the north and south, so that its length is about three miles and its breadth two miles. Encircling it is a line of peaks ranging from 1900 to 2600 feet in height. This encircling wall of peaks is buttressed by other peaks both to the northward and southward, the southern side being strengthened by a parallel belt across the mountain, composed of Mts. Bear, Gridley, Frissell and Monument. Southward of this belt of hills the elevated plateau recurs, but without the rampart of peaks which characterize it in the northern and more central area.

The Salisbury-Sheffield valley on the east and the Copake Hillsdale valley on the west of the mass, constitute a floor having an average altitude of 700 feet, from which Mt. Washington rises abruptly, the mean slope-angle being about 20°. The southern boundary of the mountain is the nearly east and west valley