height. From the Jersey shore, nearly opposite, the wall of the Palisades rises, one of the strange and imposing features with which nature sometimes surprises the geologist and puzzles the artist. Digitized by Microsoft® From Spuyten Duyvil to Yonkers 197 Fascinating, if not beautiful in general outline, wonderful in detail and often exquisite in colour, the great mass of weather-beaten rock seems to rise out of the very bosom of the river. Deep at its base runs the swift current of the channel and in its crowning belt of trees the clouds drift. Here and there in the wall are deep rifts cut by little torrents that have been industriously mining their way for centuries past. Taking advantage of these ravines, companies of trees swarm up the slopes with flaunting banners of green that in the autumn change to royal hues of Tyrian splendour. ■ The Palisades are seen to best advantage when the sun strikes them in the morning or the long shadows clothe them with tender mysterious tints at nightfall. In one respect our enjoyment of this feature of the river is greater to-day than in former years, because of the abatement, by law, of an abuse. Notice what Professor Archibald Geikie, the celebrated Scotch geologist, wrote thirty years ago : Hardly is the traveller out of New York than he notices that every natural rock, islet, or surface of any kind that will hold paint is disfigured with advertisements in huge letters. The ice-worn bosses of gneiss which, rising out of the Hudson, would in themselves be such attractive objects in the landscape, are rendered hideous by being the groundwork on which some kind of tobacco, or tooth wash, or stove polish, is recommended to the notice of the multitude. In this particular a great change for the better has taken place along the river. The advertising fiend is Digitized by Microsoft® 198 The Hudson River no longer permitted to disfigure natural scenery with his profane brush. But the advertising man was not the only vandal, nor the last. The Palisades range in height from two hundred and fifty or less up to \five hundred feet. The latter elevation is near the northern extremity, opposite Hastings. Taylorsville, just above Fort Lee, is two hundred and sixty feet above the tide. ^■'^CDpposite Spuyten Duyvil is the pleasant residence village of Englewood, across from Riverdale is the pro- jection known as Clinton Point, and opposite Ludlow is Huyler's Landing. The place where Hudson is said to have anchored on the 13th September, 1609, is nearly due west from Dudley's Grove, at the upper end of Yonkers. One of the mutilated landmarks that used to be the' pride of those who lived near the banks of the lower Hudson was the jutting shoulder of rock known as Indian Head, nearly the highest point of the Palisades. It was one of those peculiarly striking features in nature that persistently claim and invariably receive the con- sideration due to eminence. No one seeing the rugged beauty of Indian Head could forget it or refuse to credit any remarkable or romantic legend that chanced to at- tach itself there. It took its place, without question, in every sketch or photograph of that part of the river as naturally as King Edward would assume in England the chief place at any official function at which he chanced to be present. There is a divine right apper- Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® '%. Digitized by Microsoft® From Spuyten Duyvil to Yonkers 201 taining to headlands and other remarkable landscape features, as to kings. But one day a contractor saw something more in Indian Head than any poet or artist had ever seen. He discerned a fortune in it, — a. fortune in gravel. Now to crush a headland — especially a headland with associations and legends belonging to it, — into fine frag- ments, for road-beds, may seem to a certain class of sentimental people to be rather dreadful. It did seem dreadful; but it took the people who really cared so long to wake up to the dreadfulness of what was being done, and so much longer to discover a way to stop it, that before they could do anything Indian Head was gravel. However, the people succeeded, though apparently with some difficulty, in saving the rest of the Palisades. The blasting and crushing processes which were at once an offence to the ear, the eye, and the aesthetic sensibilities of all good people, were finally interfered with effectually and the stone-crushers removed to other fields. Years ago that craggy point was a favourite lookout station for the red men. For how many hundreds of years they had used it, no one can ever know, but if the story related to the author