Passing the Rotch estate on the left, with its ornamental pagoda, near which the line leads off to the right to Readville, the car leaves the fine residences, with their windmills scattered among the trees, and goes through another shaded section to Canton Avenue, the westerly entrance to the Blue Hill reservation, containing 4,857 acres and stretching away for miles on the left. At the base of the Great Blue Hill it is worth while to pause in the journey and make the climb to this peak, which comÂmands such a magnificent view. The Great Blue Hill is 635 feet above sea level, and the road to the summit passes the Casino buildings and then leads off through a beautiful grove known as the Wolcott Pines, winding to the right up the hill through a growth of oaks and birches to come out upon the summit. Here is the Rotch Observatory, world-famous for its meteorological experiments made with kites, and from the bald summit on which it stands the eye roams over the wilderness to the eastward, the great city on the north, the seeming plains of southern and southwestern Massachusetts on the south, and with the opalescent sea shining in the far distance over the reservation takes in a range of scenery almost unsurpassed, all of which is described in an illustrated booklet for sale at the Casino building, entitled " Great Blue Hill and the Reservation."
A little beyond the Administration Road, after skirting the reservation for some distance, the traveler comes to Blue Hill Street, which leads off to Hoosic-Whisick Lake, or Houghton's Pond, with its picnic ground, half a mile from which is Ponkapoag Pond.
