Chapter 19

Stately and awful was the form of Tahawas, the old scarred warrior king of the mountains, and yet it owns pines that sing like the sea, brooks that warble like the robin, and flowers that scent the air like the orange-blossoms of Italy.

_Alfred B. Street._

* * *

Resuming our march through Indian Pass, under old Wall-Face Mountain, we reached a comfortable farmhouse at sunset, near North Elba, known by the name of Scott's. The next morning we visited John Brown's house and grave by the old rock, and read the beautiful inscription, "Bury me by the Old Rock, where I used to sit and read the word of God."

From this point we went to Lake Placid, engaged a lad to row us across the lake--some of our party had gone on before--and strapped our knapsacks for another mountain climb. We were fortunate in having a lovely day, and from its sparkling glacier-worn summit we could look back on all the mountains of our pleasant journey, and far away across Lake Champlain to Mount Mansfield and Camel's Hump of the Green Mountains, and farther still to the faint outlines of Mount Washington. We reached Wilmington that night, drove the next morning to Ausable Forks, and took the cars for Plattsburgh. The ten days' trip was finished, and at this late hour I heartily thank the Tahawas Club of Plattsburgh for taking me under their generous care and guidance. We took Phelps, our guide, back with us to Plattsburgh. When he reached the "Forks," and saw the cars for the first time in his life, he stooped down and, examining the track, said, "What tarnal little wheels." I suppose he concluded that if the ordinary cart had two large wheels, that real car wheels would resemble the Rings of Saturn. He saw much to amuse and interest him during his short stay in Plattsburgh, but after all he thought it was rather lonesome, and gladly returned to his lakes and mountains, where he slept in peace, with the occasional intrusion of a "Bar" or a "Painter." He knew the region about Tahawas as an engineer knows his engine, or as a Greek professor knows the pages of his lexicon. He had lived so closely with nature that he seemed to understand her gentlest whispers, and he had more genuine poetry in his soul than many a man who chains weak ideas in tangled metre.

* * *

Lake Avalanche with rocky wall And Henderson's dark-wooded shore, Your echoes linger still and call Unto my soul forevermore.

_Wallace Bruce_.

* * *

Since that first delightful trip I have visited the Adirondacks many times, and I hope this summer to repeat the excursion. To me Tahawas is the grand centre. It remains unchanged. In fact, the route I have here traced is the same to-day as then. Even the rude camps are located in the same places, with the exception that the trail has been shortened over Tahawas, and a camp established on Skylight. With good guides the route is not difficult for ladies in good health,--say sufficient health to endure half a day's shopping. Persons contemplating the mountain trip need blankets, a knapsack, and a rubber cloth or overcoat; food can be procured at the hotels or farm houses.

* * *

The old English ballads have all the sparkle, the energy and the rhythm of our mountain streams, but Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Bunyan are the crystal lakes from which flow the river, ay, the Hudson of our language.

_Wallace Bruce_.

* * *

In this hasty sketch I have had little space to indulge in picture-painting. I passed Bridal-Veil Fall without a reference. I was tempted to loiter on the banks of the Feld-spar and the bright Opalescent, but I passed by without even picking a pebble from the clear basins of its sparkling cascades. I passed the "tear of the clouds," four thousand feet above the tide--that fountain of the Hudson nearest to the sky, without being beguiled into poetry. I have not ventured upon a description of a sunrise view from the summit of Tahawas, of the magic effect of light above clouds that clothe the surrounding peaks in garments wrought, it seems, of softest wool, until mist and vapor dissolve in roseate colors, and the landscape lies before us like an open book, which many glad eyes have looked upon again and again. I have left it for your guides to tell you, by roaring camp-fires, long stories of adventure in trapping and hunting, of wondrous fishes that grow longer and heavier every season, although captured and broiled many and many a year ago--trout and pickerel literally pickled in fiction, served and re-served in the piquant sauce of mountain vocabulary. In brief, I have kept my imagination and enthusiasm under strict control. But, after all, the Adirondacks are a wonderland, and we, who dwell in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys, are happy in having this great park of Nature's making at our very doors.

It has charms alike for the hunter, the angler, the artist, the writer, and the scientist. Let us rejoice, therefore, that the State of New York is waking at last to the fact, that these northern mountains were intended by nature to be something more than lumber ranches, to be despoiled by the axe, and finally revert to the State for "taxes" in the shape of bare and desolate wastes. Nor can the most practical legislator charge those, who wish to preserve the Adirondack woods, with idle sentiment; as it is now an established scientific fact that the rainfall of a country is largely dependent upon its forest land. If the water supply of the north were cut off, to any perceptible degree, the Hudson, during the months of July and August, would be a mere sluice of salt water from New York to Albany; and the northern canals, dependent on this supply, would become empty and useless ditches. Our age is intensely practical, but we are fortunate in this, that so far as the preservation of the Adirondacks is concerned, utility, common sense, and the appreciation of the beautiful are inseparably blended.

* * *

Wild umbrage far around me clings To breezy knoll and hushed ravine, And o'er each rocky headland flings Its mantle of refreshing green.

_Henry T. Tuckerman_.

* * *

To those persons who do not desire long mountain jaunts, who simply need some quiet place for rest and recuperation, I would suggest this: Select some place near the base of these clustered mountains, like the tasty Adirondack Lodge at Clear Pond, only seven miles from the summit of Tahawas, or Beede's pleasant hotel, high and dry above Keene Flats, near to the Ausable Ponds, or some pleasant hotel or quiet farm-house in the more open country near Lake Placid and the Saranacs. But I prophesy that the spirit of adventure will come with increased strength, and men and women alike will be found wandering off on long excursions, sitting about great camp-fires, ay, listening like children to tales which have not gathered truth with age. If you have control of your time you will find no pleasanter months than July, August and September, and when you return to your firesides with new vigor to fight the battle of life, you will feel, I think, like thanking the writer for having advised you to go thither.

* * *

To shut up a glen or a waterfall for one man's exclusive enjoying; to fence out a genial eye from any corner of the earth which nature has lovingly touched; to lock up trees and glades shady paths and haunts along rivulets, would be an embezzlement by one man of God's gifts to all.

_N. P. Willis._

* * *

I have written in this article the Indian name, Tahawas, in the place of Mt. Marcy, and for this reason: There is no justice in robbing the Indian of his keen, poetic appreciation, by changing a name, which has in itself a definite meaning, for one that means nothing in its association with this mountain. We have stolen enough from this unfortunate race, to leave, at least, those names in our woodland vocabulary that chance to have a musical sound to our imported Saxon ears. The name Tahawas is not only beautiful in itself, but also poetic in its interpretation--signifying "I cleave the clouds." Coleridge, in his glorious hymn, "Before sunrise in the vale of Chamouni," addresses Mount Blanc:

"Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black-- An ebon mass. Methinks thou piercest it. _As with a wedge!_"

The name or meaning of Tahawas was never made known to the great English poet, who died sixty years ago. Is it not remarkable that the untutored Indian, and the keenist poetic mind which England has produced for a century, should have the same idea in the uplifted mountains? There is also another reason why we, as a State, should cherish the name Tahawas. While the Sierra Nevadas and the Alps slumbered beneath the waves of the ocean, before the Himalayas or the Andes had asserted their supremacy, scientists say, that the high peaks of the Adirondacks stood alone above the waves, "the cradle of the world's life;" and, as the clouds then encircled the vast waste of water, Tahawas then rose--"Cleaver" alike of the waters and the clouds.

* * *

Tahawas, rising stern and grand, "Cloud-sunderer" lift thy forehead high, Guard well thy sun-kissed mountain land Whose lakes seem borrowed from the sky.

_Wallace Bruce_.

* * *

GEOLOGY OF THE HUDSON.

In addition to various geological references scattered through these pages the following facts from an American Geological Railway Guide, by James Macfarlane, Ph.D., will be of interest.

"The State of New York is to the geologist what the Holy Land is to the Christian, and the works of her Palæontologist are the Old Testament Scriptures of the science. It is a Laurentian, Cambrian, Silurian and Devonian State, containing all the groups and all the formations of these long ages, beautifully developed in belts running nearly across the State in an east and west direction, lying undisturbed as originally laid down.

"The rock of New York Island is gneiss, except a portion of the north end, which is limestone. The south portion is covered with deep alluvial deposits, which in some places are more than 100 feet in depth. The natural outcroppings of the gneiss appeared on the surface about 16th Street, on the east side of the city, and run diagonally across to 31st Street on 10th Avenue. North of this, much of the surface was naked rock. It contains a large proportion of mica, a small proportion of quartz and still less feldspar, but generally an abundance of iron pyrites in very minute crystals, which, on exposure, are decomposed. In consequence of these ingredients it soon disintegrates on exposure, rendering it unfit for the purposes of building. The erection of a great city, for which this island furnishes a noble site, has very greatly changed its natural condition. The geological age of the New York gneiss is undoubtedly very old, not the Laurentian or oldest, nor the Huronian, but it belongs to the third or White Mountain series, named by Dr. Hunt the Montalban. It is the same range which is the basis rock of nearly all the great cities of the Atlantic coast. It crosses New Jersey where it is turned to clay, until it appears under Trenton, and it extends to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Richmond, Va., and probably Boston, Massachusetts, is founded on this same formation.

* * *

Oh, river! darkling river! what a voice Is that thou utterest while all else is still!

_William Cullen Bryant_.

* * *

"On the opposite side of the river may here be seen for many miles the Palisades, a long, rough mountain ridge close to the water's edge. Its upper half is a perpendicular precipice of bare rock of a columnar structure from 100 to 200 feet in height, the whole height of the mountain being generally from 400 to 600 feet, and the highest point in the range opposite Sing Sing 800 feet above the Hudson, and known as the High Torn. The width of the mountain is from a half mile to a mile and a half, the western slope being quite gentle. In length it extends from Bergen Point below Jersey City to Haverstraw, and then westward in all 48 miles, the middle portion being merely a low ridge. The lower half of the ridge on the river side is a sloping mound of detritus, of loose stones which has accumulated at the base of the cliff, from its weathered and wasted surface.

"Viewed from the railroad or from a steamboat on the river, this lofty mural precipice with its huge weathered masses of upright columns of bare rock, presenting a long, straight unbroken ridge overlooking the beautiful Hudson River, is certainly extremely picturesque. Thousands of travelers gaze at it daily without knowing what it is. This entire ridge consists of no other rock than trap traversing the Triassic formation in a huge vertical dike. The red sandstone formation of New Jersey is intersected by numerous dikes of this kind, but this is much the finest. The materials of this mountain have undoubtedly burst through a great rent or fissure in the strata, overflowing while in a melted or plastic condition the red sand-stone, not with the violence of a volcano, for the adjoining strata are but little disturbed in position, although often greatly altered by the heat, but forced up very slowly and gradually, and probably under pressure. Subsequent denudation has laid bare the part of the mountain now exposed along the river. The rock is columnar basalt, sometimes called greenstone, and is solid, not stratified like water-formed rocks, but cracked in cooling and of a crystalline structure. Here is a remarkable but not uncommon instance of a great geological blank. On the east side of this river the formations belong to the first or oldest series of Primary or Crystalline rocks, while on the west side they are all Triassic, the intermediate Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous formations being wanting. This state of things continues all along the Atlantic coast to Georgia, the Cretaceous or Jurassic taking the place of the Triassic farther south.

* * *

Like thine, O, be my course--nor turned aside, While listening to the soundings of a land, That like the ocean call invites me to its strand.

_Mrs. Seba Smith._

* * *

"Montrose to Cornwall. This celebrated passage of the Hudson through the Highlands, is a gorge nearly 20 miles long from 3 miles south of Peekskill to Fishkill, and is worn out of the Laurentian rocks far below mean tide water. The hills on its sides rise in some instances as much as 1,800 feet, and in many places the walls are very precipitous. The rock is gneiss, of a kind that is not easily disintegrated or eroded, nor is there any evidence of any convulsive movement. It is clearly a case of erosion, but not by the present river, which has no fall, for tide water extends 100 miles up the river beyond the Highlands. This therefore was probably a work mainly performed in some past period when the continent was at a higher level. Most likely it is a valley of great antiquity.

"Opposite Fishkill is Newburgh, which is in the great valley of Lower Silurian or Cambrian limestone and slate. North of that, on the west side of the river, the formations occur in their usual order, their outcrops running northeast and southwest. On the _N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R._, on the east side, the same valley crosses, and the slates from Fishkill to Rhinebeck are about the same place in the series; but being destitute of fossils and very much faulted, tilted and disturbed, their precise geology is uncertain. See the exposures in the cuts at Poughkeepsie. The high ground to the east is commonly called the Quebec group.

* * *

Amid thy forest solitudes one climbs O'er crags, that proudly tower above the deep, Along the verge of the cliff, and he can hear The low dash of the wave with startled ear.

_Fitz-Greene Halleck._

* * *

"A series of great dislocations with upthrows on the east side traverse eastern North America from Canada to Alabama. One of these great faults has been traced from near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, keeping mostly under the water up to Quebec just north of the fortress, thence by a gently curving line to Lake Champlain or through western Vermont across Washington County, N. Y., to near Albany. It crosses the river near Rhinebeck 15 miles north of Poughkeepsie and continues on southward into New Jersey and runs into another series of faults probably of a later date, which extends as far as Alabama. It brings up the rocks of the so called Quebec group on the east side of the fracture to the level of the Hudson River and Trenton.

"Catskill Mountains. For many miles on this railroad are beautiful views of the Catskill Mountains, 3,800 feet high, several miles distant on the opposite or west side of the river, and which furnish the name for the Catskill formation. The wide valley between them and the river is composed of Chemung, Hamilton, Lower Helderberg and Hudson River. The geology on the east or railroad side is entirely different.

"Albany. The clay beds at Albany are more than 100 feet thick, and between that city and Schenectady they are underlaid by a bed of sand that is in some places more than 50 feet thick. There is an old glacial clay and boulder drift below the gravel at Albany, but Professor Hall says it is not the estuary stratified clay."

* * *

There has that little stream of water been playing among the hills since He made the world, and none know how often the hand of God is seen in a wilderness but them that rove it for a man's life.

_James Fenimore Cooper._

* * *

THE HUDSON TIDE.

(_Condensed from article by permission of writer._)

The tide in the Hudson River is the continuation of the tide-wave, which comes up from the ocean through New York Bay, and is carried by its own momentum one hundred and sixty miles, growing, of course, constantly smaller, until it is finally stopped by the dam at Troy. The crest of this wave, or top high water, is ten hours going from New York to Troy. A steamer employing the same time (ten hours) for the journey, and starting at high water in New York, would carry a flood tide and highest water all the way, and have an up-river current of about three miles an hour helping her. On the other hand, the same steamer starting six hours later, or at low tide, would have dead low water and an ebb tide current of about three miles against her the entire way. The average rise and fall of the tides in New York is five and one-half feet, and in Troy, about two feet.

Flood tide may carry salt water, under the most favorable circumstances, so that it can be detected at Poughkeepsie; ordinarily the water is fresh at Newburgh.

To those who have not studied the tides the following will also be of interest.

The tides are the semi-diurnal oscillations of the ocean, caused by the attraction of the moon and sun.

The influence of the moon's attraction is the preponderating one in the tide rising force, while that of the sun is about two-fifths as much as that of the moon. The tides therefore follow the motion of the moon, and the average interval between the times of high water is the half length of the lunar day, or about twelve hours and twenty-five minutes.

* * *

Nor lives there one whose boyhood's days Of happiness were passed beneath that sun, That in his manhood-prime can calmly gaze Upon that Bay, or on that mountain stand, Nor feel the prouder of his native land.

_Fitz-Greene Halleck._

* * *

CONDENSED POINTS.

_As Seen on the Hudson River Day Line Steamers._

_Desbrosses Street Pier._ On leaving landing a charming view is obtained of New York Harbor with Bartholdi Statue to the south.

_Stevens Castle._ Above Jersey City docks on the west, crowning a commanding site.

_St. Michael's Monastery_, or Monastery of the Passionist Fathers, on west bank above Elysian Fields; distinguished by large dome and towers of the St. Paul (London) style of architecture. This dome is 300 feet high, and its summit is 515 feet above the Hudson.

_42d Street Pier._ Midway to the dwellers of Greater New York and convenient to all Elevated, Subway and Trolley Lines.

_Weehawken_, on the west bank, about opposite 50th Street. Near the river bank was the scene of the Hamilton and Burr duel, 1804.

_Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument_, 89th Street, New York. Dedicated May 30, 1902. Corner stone laid in 1900 by President Roosevelt when Governor.

_Columbia University._ Stately buildings on east bank.

_St. Luke's Hospital._ Beautiful dome in the distance southeast of college.

_The Cathedral of St. John the Divine_, now in construction, will be one of the finest structures in the world.

_General Grant's Tomb_ at Riverside Drive and 123d Street.

_129th Street Pier._ Above this landing is the Steel Viaduct of the Boulevard Drive.

* * *

The land that from the rule of kings In freeing us itself made free, Our old world sister to us brings Her sculptured dream of liberty.

_John G. Whittier._

* * *

_Carmansville_ (where Audubon, the ornithologist lived), a city suburb at 152d Street.

_Trinity Cemetery_, 152d Street, and above this Audubon Park.

_Old Fort Washington_ once crowned the hills on the east bank. Fort Lee was almost opposite on the southern point of the Palisades.

_Stewart Castle_, east bank, formerly owned by A. T. Stewart.

_University of City of New York_ with dome, in distance.

_Inwood._ Station on the Hudson River Railroad, above the heights. Place once known as Tubbie Hook.

_Palisades_, on west bank, extend fifteen miles from Fort Lee to Piermont, a sheer wall of trap rock from 300 to 500 feet high.

_Spuyten Duyvil_, on east bank northern boundary of Manhattan Island.

_Site of Fort Independence_, east bank, on height north of Spuyten Duyvil.

_Riverdale Station._ Station on the Hudson River Railroad above Spuyten Duyvil. Yonkers rising on the green slope to the north; and the Palisades blending in the far distance with green headlands of the Ramapo Range.

_Convent of Mount St. Vincent._ The gray, castle-like structure in front, was once the home of Edwin Forrest.

_Yonkers_, seventeen miles from Battery.

_Greystone_, on east bank, crowning hill, about one and a half miles north of Yonkers. Once property of Samuel J. Tilden.

_Hastings_, pleasant village on east bank.

_Indian Head_ (510 feet), opposite Hastings, highest point of Palisades.

_Dobb's Ferry_, on east bank, named after an old Swedish ferryman.

_Cottinet Place_, on east bank, built of stone brought from France. Easily distinguished by light shade through trees.

_George L. Schuyler's Residence_, near east bank. The late Col. James A. Hamilton's house almost east of Mr. Schuyler's. Stiner's place distinguished by its large dome.

* * *

From this brow of rock That overlooks the Hudson's western marge, I gaze upon the long array of groves, The piles and gulfs of verdure drinking in the grateful heat.

_William Cullen Bryant._

* * *

_Ardsley_, on east bank, just above Dobb's Ferry.

_Ardsley Club_ and Golf Links.

_Irvington_, 24 miles from New York, named after Washington Irving.

_Piermont_, on west bank, with pier almost one mile in length extending into river.

_Sunnyside_, home of Washington Irving, east bank, one-half mile north of Irvington Station, close to river bank and scarcely seen through the trees.

_Helen M. Gould's Residence_, east bank, prominent Abbey-like structure, known as "Lyndehurst."

_Tarrytown_, east bank, 26 miles from New York.

_Nyack_, west bank, opposite Tarrytown.

_J. D. Rockefeller's New Home_ on Kykuit or Kake-out Mt. back of Tarrytown.

_Tappan Zee_, reaching from Dobb's Ferry to Croton Point, is about three miles wide at Tarrytown.

_Sleepy Hollow_, east bank, north of Tarrytown; burial place of Washington Irving. The tall shaft visible from steamer, erected by the Delavan family, is near his grave.

_Kingsland Point_, east bank, above lighthouse.