Part 8 (1/2)
As the basaltic trap-rock is one of the oldest geological formations, we might still appropriately style the Palisades ”a chip of the old block.” They separate the valley of the Hudson from the valley of the Hackensack. The Hackensack rises in Rockland Lake opposite Sing Sing, within two or three hundred yards of the Hudson, and the rivers flow thirty miles side by side. Some geologists think that originally they were one river, but they are now separated from each other by a wall more substantial than even the 2,000 mile structure of the ”Heathen Chinee.”
It might also be interesting to note Prof. Newberry's idea that in pre-glacial times this part of the continent was several hundred feet higher than at present, and that the Hudson was a very rapid stream and much larger than now, draining as it did the Great Lakes: that the St. Lawrence found its way through the Hudson Channel following pretty nearly the line of the present Mohawk, and the great river emptied into the Atlantic some 80 miles south of Staten Island. This idea is confirmed by the soundings of the coast survey which discover the ancient page of the Hudson as here indicated on the floor of the sea far out where the ocean is 500 feet in depth. A speculation of what a voyager a few million years ago would have then seen might, however, as Hamlet observes, be ”to consider somewhat too curiously” for ordinary up-to-date tourists. But even, granting all this to be true, the Palisades were already old, thrown up long ages before, between a rift in the earth's surface, where it cooled in columnar form.
The rocky mould which held it, being of softer material, finally disintegrated and crumbled away, leaving the cliff with its peculiar perpendicular formation.
A recent writer has said: ”The Palisades are among the wonders of the world. Only three other places equal them in importance, but each of the four is different from the others, and the Palisades are unique.
The Giant's Causeway on the north coast of Ireland, and the cliffs at Kawaddy in India, are thought by many to have been the result of the same upheaval of nature as the Palisades; but the Hudson rocks seem to have preserved their entirety--to have come up in a body, as it were--while the Giant's Causeway owes its celebrity to the ruined state in which the t.i.tanic forces of nature have left it. The third wonder is at Staffa, in Scotland, where the rocks have been thrown into such a position as to justify the name of Fingal's Cave, which they bear, and which was bestowed on them in the olden times before Scottish history began to be written. It is singular how many of the names which dignify, or designate, favorite spots of the Giant's Causeway have been duplicated in the Palisades. Among the Hudson rocks are several 'Lady's Chairs,' 'Lover's Leaps,' 'Devil's Toothpicks,'
'Devil's Pulpits,' and, in many spots on the water's edge, especially those most openly exposed to the weather, we see exactly the same conformations which excite admiration and wonder in the Irish rocks.”
Where the mighty cliffs look upward in their glory and their glow I see a wondrous river in its beauty southward flow.
_Thomas C. Harbaugh._
Under the base of these cliffs William Cullen Bryant one Sabbath morning wrote his beautiful lines:
”Cool shades and dews are round my way, And silence of the early day; Mid the dark rocks that watch his bed, Glitters the mighty Hudson spread, Unrippled, save by drops that fall From shrubs that fringe his mountain wall; And o'er the clear, still water swells The music of the Sabbath bells.
All, save this little nook of land, Circled with trees, on which I stand; All, save that line of hills which lie Suspended in the mimic sky-- Seems a blue void, above, below, Through which the white clouds come and go; And from the green world's farthest steep I gaze into the airy deep.”
A mellow sunset was settling upon the hills and waters and a thousand flashes played over the distant city as its spires and prominent objects caught its glow.
_N. P. Willis._
There are many strange stories connected with the Palisades, and one narrator says: ”remarkable disappearances have occurred in the vicinity that have never been explained. On a conical-shaped rock near Clinton Point a young man and a young woman were seen standing some half a century ago. Several of their friends, who were back some thirty feet from the face of the cliff, saw them distinctly, and called out to them not to approach too near the edge. The young couple laughingly sent some answer back, and a moment later vanished as by magic. Their friends rushed to the edge of the cliff but saw no trace of them. They noticed at once that the tide was out, and at the base three or four boatmen were sauntering about as though nothing had happened (forgetting even, as Bryant did, that a vertical line from the top of the cliff on account of the crumbling debris of ages makes it impossible for even the strongest arm to hurl a stone from the summit to the margin of the river). A diligent search was inst.i.tuted.
Friends and boatmen joined in the search, but from that day to this they have never been heard from, no trace of them has been found, and the mystery of their disappearance is as complete now as it was five minutes after they vanished--a more tragical termination than the story of the old pilot on a Lake George steamer, who, surrounded one morning by a group of tourist-questioners, pointed to Roger Slide Mountain, and said: ”A couple went up there and never came back again.” ”What do you suppose, captain,” said a fair-haired, anxious listener, ”ever became of them?” ”Can't tell,” said the captain, ”some folks said they went down on the other side.””
The old Palisade Mountain House, a few miles above Fort Lee, had a commanding location, but was burned in 1884 and never rebuilt.
Pleasant villas are here and there springing up along this rocky balcony of the lower Hudson, and probably the entire summit will some day abound in castles and luxuriant homes. It is in fact within the limit of possibility that this may in the future present the finest residential street in the world, with a natural macadamized boulevard midway between the Hudson and the sky.
What love yon cliffs and steeps could tell If vocal made by Fancy's spell!
_Robert C. Sands._
It grieves one to see the gray rocks torn away for building material, but, as fast as man destroys, nature kindly heals the wound; or to keep the Palisade figure more complete, she recaptures the scarred and broken battlements, unfolding along the steep escarpment her waving standards of green. It sometimes seems as if one can almost see her selecting the easiest point of attack, marshalling her forces, running her parallels with Boadicea-like skill, and carrying her streaming banners, more real than Macbeth's ”Birnam-Wood” to crowning rampart and lofty parapet.
The New York side from the Battery to Inwood, the northern end of Manhattan Island, is already ”well peopled.” Until recently the land about Fort Was.h.i.+ngton has been held in considerable tracts and the very names of these suburban points suggest alt.i.tude and outlook--Highbridgeville, Fordham Heights, Morris Heights, University Heights, Kingsbridge Heights, Mount Hope, &c. The growth of the city all the way to Jerome and Van Cortlandt's Park during the last few years has been marvelous. It has literally stepped over the Harlem to find room in the picturesque county of Westchester.
=The Island of Manhattan.=--As we approach the northern limit of Manhattan we feel that in the preservation of the beautiful name ”Manhattan,” distinctive of New York's chief borough, Irving's dream has been happily realized. The meaning of this Indian word has been the subject of much discussion. It is, however, simply the name of a tribe. As the old historian De Laet says, ”On the east side, on the main land dwell the Manhattoes,” and again from the ”Doc.u.mentary History of New York.” ”It is so called from the people which inhabited the main land on the east side of the river.”