'Old-worn-down' New England

On the rocks at  the summit of Mt. Monadnock, in southern New Hampshire in high summer.

On the rocks at  the summit of Mt. Monadnock, in southern New Hampshire in high summer.

''New England has had a long history, not only in relation to the nation of which she is part, but also in relation to the history of the planet. The folded and faulted rocks that form her bony structure are so ancient that their exact history has not yet been fully deciphered; but most of us know them at least vaguely as examples of 'old-worn-down mountains' in the contrast to the 'young-rugged-mountains' of the West. The marks of the last wave of glacial ice, on the other hand, are clear and fresh, and lie about us everywhere. Once one learns to see them, the glacier seems a very real and tangible thing, and twelve thousand years since the ice disappeared become as the twinkling of an eye.''

--- From The Changing Face of New England, by Betty Flanders Thomson