-1830] WRITINGS OF JOSEPH HENRY. 33 



The Mohawk rises west of Oneida lake, flows south about 

 twenty miles, and then suddenly turns to the southeast at 

 Rome, where it falls on the bottom of what has been called 

 the upper valley of the ^lohawk. At this place, in high 

 floods, the waters of the river divide : one part passing 

 down the channel to the Hudson, and the other through 

 Wood creek into Oneida lake, and thence to Lake Ontario. 

 From Rome to the foot of Little Falls, a distance of 37 miles, 

 the river descends 97 feet. Here the river descends through 

 a narrow pass to the lower valley of the Mohawk, and offers 

 incontestible evidence of having forcibly broken its way 

 through the primitive rocks : the ledges on each side bear 

 striking marks of the action of water at a height of more 

 than 40 feet above the present level of the stream. The 

 whole fall of the river, from Rome to its mouth, as may be 

 seen by table No. 5, is 425 feet, in a distance of 116 miles; 

 78 feet of this descent is passed by the cataract of the Co- 

 hoes, one mile above its junction with the Hudson. 



The two most remote branches of the Hudson proper, have 

 their sources in the marshy regions of Hamilton and Essex 

 counties. These united with each other, and the Sacandaga 

 river, form a stream of considerable magnitude, which is 

 first precipitated over a ledge of rocks called the Great falls, 

 and afterwards down Glen's falls into the deep valley of the 

 Hudson and Champlain basin. The length of what may be 

 called the upper Hudson, from its extreme source to this 

 place, is about 120 miles ; and from here to its junction with 

 the Mohawk is 40 miles, with a fall of 147 feet. 



The Hudson, after its reception of the Mohawk, from its 

 peculiar character, has been defined by some geographers as 

 a long narrow bay. The periodical rising of the tides to the 

 height of two feet at Albany — the great volume of water, 

 and the gentleness of the current, which, under ordinary 

 circumstances, is reversed by the ascending tide, are indeed 

 the several characters of a bay ; but it nevertheless possesses 

 all the distinctive properties of a river, and when swelled 

 by the spring floods, pours a rapid and immense torrent to 

 the ocean. The oscillation of the tide in this river, is an 

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