SOUTH ROCK.
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aid of a glass, the sails of the vessels in the port of Hartford, and the movements in the streets, are distinctly visible.
The prospect from the South Rock, in the vicinity of the farm-house, though of less extent, is one of extreme beauty, and presents, as in a vivid, glowing picture, the grouping of the objects more immediately beneath you,—lake, copse, villa, cultivated lawn, and crowning tower.
Professor Silliman, in his eloquent description of this remarkable region, says: "The peculiarities of the beautiful and grand scenery of Monte-Video, make it, with its surrounding objects, quite without a parallel in America, and probably with few in the world.
"To advert again, briefly, to a few of its leading peculiarities. It stands upon the very top of one of the highest of the green-stone ridges of Connecticut, at an elevation of more than one thousand two hundred feet above the sea, and of nearly seven hundred above the contiguous valley. The villa is almost upon the brow of the precipice, and a traveller in the Farmington valley sees it, a solitary edifice, and in a place apparently both comfortless and inaccessible, standing upon the giddy summit, ready, he would almost imagine, to be swept away by the first blast from the mountain. The beautiful crystal lake is on the top of the same lofty green-stone ridge, and within a few yards of the house; it pours its superfluous waters in a limpid stream down the mountain's side, and affords