interested in the value of the stone that underlay the
wooded slopes than in Ruskin's theory of its purifying effect upon the
inhabitants--had already obtained a footing here, when, under the able
leadership of Charles Francis Adams, the whole region was taken over by
the State in 1894.

As you pass through the Reservation--and if you are taking even the most
cursory glimpse of Milton you must include some portion of this
park--you will pass the open space where in the early days, when Milton
country life was modeled upon English country life more closely than
now, Malcolm Forbes raced upon his private track the horses he himself
had bred. The race-track with its judges' stands is still there, but
there are no more horse-races, although the Forbes family still holds a
conspicuous place in all the social as well as the philanthropic
enterprises of the countryside. You may see, too, a solitary figure
with a scientist's stoop, or a tutor with a group of boys, making a
first-hand study of a region which is full of interest to the geologist.

Circling thus around the base of the Great Blue Hill and irresistibly
drawn closer and closer to it as by a magnet, one is impelled to make
the ascent to the top--an easy ascent with its destination clearly
marked by the Rotch Meteorological Observatory erected in 1884 by the
late A. Lawrence Rotch of Milton, who bequeathed funds for its
maintenance. It is now connected with Harvard University.

Once at the top the eye is overwhelmed by a circuit of more than a
hundred and fifty miles! It is almost too immense at first--almost as
barren as an empty expanse of rolling green sea. But as the eye grows
accustomed to the stretching distances, objects both near and far begin
to appear. And soon, if the day is clear, buildings may be identified in
more than one hundred and twenty-five villages. We are six hundred and
thirty-five feet above the sea, on the highest coastland from
Agamenticus, near York, Maine, to the Rio Grande, and the panorama thus
unrolled is truly magnificent. Facing northerly we can easily
distinguish Cambridge, Somerville, and Malden, and far beyond the hills
of Andover and Georgetown. A little to the east, Boston with its gilded
dome; then the harbor with its islands, headlands, and fortifications.
Beyond that are distinctly visible various points on the North Shore, as
far as Eastern Point Lighthouse in Gloucester. Forty miles to the
northeast appear the twin lighthou