The Great Bore
A Souvenir Of The Hoosac Tunnel

23 tain can be seen across the fields to the right a huge pile of rocks; a little way beyond it is the western portal of the tunnel, and some 500 feet up the hill, in a direct line with the tunnel’s entrance, is the west shaft, now filled. During the active days of the tunnel’s construction the west shaft was a village of itself. About the shaft clustered the rough but sufficiently comfortable huts of the miners; in a building over its mouth—and its annexes—were the blacksmith shop, the machine shop and the en- gines which generated the power to work the com- pressors and hoist the rock; not far distant were the brick-yards of Mr. Holbrook, and a little to the south stood the buildings where Professor Mowbray manufactured his nitro-glycerine. With a steady, gradual climb of half or three- quarters of an hour more, the western crest is reached. The view from its summit, once seen, will not soon be forgotten. Away down below, at a point where the Stamford, Williamstown and Hoosac valleys merge into each other, as if to leave man an open spot wherein to catch his breath among all the grandeur of this mountain scenery, nestles Berk- shire’s largest town, North Adams. To the north the little farming village of Stamford, in Vermont, spreads itself out on the broad meadows of the val- ley, to the west the spires of Williamstown tower