> > > Everybody is talking about the Old Man, aka The
> > >Great Stone Face, and what could have, would
> > > have, should have happened to it, but nobody
> > >mentions the really great, true story of how it
> > >got there.
> > > Like most of the topographical features of New
> > >England, The Old Man is the result of glaciation
> > > during the last ice age.
> >
> > No no no Howard, you've got it all wrong. As any good resident or former resident of New Hampshire can tell you, it's a sign from God.
> >
> > In the days before literacy was prevalent, merchants would hang up signs with pictures of their wares on them. A cobbler would hang up a sign with a shoe on it to show that he made shoes. A blacksmith would hang up a horseshoe to show that he made horseshoes. Well, in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung up a sign to show that there he makes Men.
> >
> > -- Dave
>
> I've seen the face. I guess He made ugly men.
> Howard

Heh heh. I like to think of ole Stoneface having a solemn, and impassively dignified demeanor. At the right angle, his face has character. "Ugly men"? Why Howard -- do I detect a note of Southern jealousy toward this Northern geological excess? :-)

Well in a way, perhaps what you and Dave (quoting Daniel Webster's poem) say can both be true. Once the Old Man had been carved out of granite in NH, people appeared at the tailend of the glaciation period. That would make God's people in New England to be Amerindians, and later on, perhaps even the migrant red-haired descendents of Viking explorers.