Perhaps the most remarkable curiosity
of this kind in New England is the well-known Basin on the
Pemigewasset, one of the head-waters of this river, twenty by
thirty feet in extent and proportionably deep, with a smooth and
rounded brim, and filled with a cold, pellucid, and greenish
water. At Amoskeag the river is divided into many separate
torrents and trickling rills by the rocks, and its volume is so
much reduced by the drain of the canals that it does not fill its
bed. There are many pot-holes here on a rocky island which the
river washes over in high freshets. As at Shelburne Falls, where
I first observed them, they are from one foot to four or five in
diameter, and as many in depth, perfectly round and regular, with
smooth and gracefully curved brims, like goblets. Their origin
is apparent to the most careless observer. A stone which the
current has washed down, meeting with obstacles, revolves as on a
pivot where it lies, gradually sinking in the course of centuries
deeper and deeper into the rock, and in new freshets receiving
the aid of fresh stones, which are drawn into this trap and
doomed to revolve there for an indefinite period, doing
Sisyphus-like penance for stony sins, until they either wear out,
or wear through the bottom of their prison, or else are released
by some revolution of nature.
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