Where the Ammonoosuc, now become so small, curves around from the east towards the south at the western portal of the Notch, is Fabyan's, and here are located some of the great hotels of the district, right in front of Mount Washington. Between Fabyan's and Crawford's, four miles southward, the Presidential Range is the eastern border of the Notch and is passed in grand review. The headspring of the Ammonoosuc is on the slope of the mountain alongside Crawford's, where the floor of the valley is at its highest elevation, nineteen hundred feet above the sea and three hundred and thirty feet above Fabyan's. Higher than this the massive walls of the Notch rise some two thousand feet farther, and then slope backward up to the mountain summits, which are much higher, but invisible from the bottom of the valley. In front of Crawford's, where there is a rather broader space, one looks southward at the little oval lake which is the source of Saco River. Just beyond is the "Gate of the Notch," where the rocky projections of the huge mountains on either hand come out and almost close the passage, leaving an opening of only a few feet width for the diminutive Saco, here a mere rill, to start on its career, soon becoming a vigorous mountain torrent, leaping and bounding down the canyon. Upon the left hand of the stream the rocks have been cut out to give the wagon-road room, and on the right hand the railroad has hewn its route through the granite, the three being closely compressed between the high cliffs towering above. The Elephant's Head, formed of dark rocks, with trunk and eye well fashioned, looks down upon this "Gate," and just beyond, another cliff presents the semblance of an Indian papoose clinging to its mother's back. The little Saco soon cuts the Notch deeply down, such is its steep descent, so that in a short distance it becomes a vast ravine. Thus, with the railway high up on a gallery upon the mountain side, and the road deep down by the Saco, the ravine is cleft between Mounts Webster and Willard, the latter, as the chasm bends, falling sharply off, a tremendous precipice of steep and bare rock, when Mount Willey appears beyond. Thus the Notch deepens and broadens, becoming an enormous chasm, with the rapid river down in the bottom, constantly increasing in volume. The Saco is said to have been thus named by the Indians because of the mass of water it brings down, the word meaning "pouring out."