HUDSON RIVER 



2860 



HUDSON RIVER 



that the nearness of the north magnetic pole 

 makes mariners' compasses unreliable. Even 

 from the earliest days, however, sailing ships 

 have 1 made their way into the bay and out 

 again, and now their old routes are being taken 

 by great steamships. The shores of the bay 

 are not inviting to settlers, and are not likely 

 to be productive. On the west they are low 

 and level; on the east they rise in rocky bluffs. 

 Minerals are known to exist both east and 

 west of the bay, and there is some timber, but 

 most of it is too small to be commercially 

 valuable. James Bay (which see) is in the 

 same latitude as the cities of the Canadian 

 prairies, and the lands south and west of it 

 are thought to be suitable for dairy farming. 

 About thirty rivers empty into Hudson Bay, 

 the most important, the Nelson and the 

 Churchill (both of which see), forming excel- 

 lent harbors at their mouths. 



The Hudson Bay Railway. The fact that 

 Port Nelson, on Hudson Bay, is as near to 

 Europe as Montreal, and a thousand miles closer 

 to the grain-growing and cattle-raising prairies 

 of the west, has led the Canadian government 

 to construct a railroad to it from The Pass (Le 

 Pas), Manitoba, where connection is made 

 with the Canadian Northern Railway. Hudson 

 Bay itself is never frozen, but, except from 

 three to five months of the summer, ice blocks 

 Hudson Strait and closes the bay. Neverthe- 

 less, it is believed that the grain and cattle 

 shipped to Europe in these few months when 

 navigation is open will render profitable the 

 424 miles of railway, which approached com- 

 pletion in 1917. 



Other railroads to Hudson Bay are planned, 

 among them the extension of the Timiskaming 

 & Northern Ontario (the Ontario government 

 railway) from Cochrane to James Bay, a dis- 

 tance of about 150 miles. Provision has also 

 been made to give the Ontario government a 

 strip of land five miles wide through Manitoba 

 to Port Nelson, so that the railway may event- 

 ually be continued to that point. C.H.H. 



HUDSON RIVER, frequently called the 

 "Rhine of America," is one of the most impor- 

 tant rivers in the United States, because of its 

 beauty, historic interest and commercial value. 

 It is, however, only 300 miles in length, and 

 lies entirely within one state, but that state is 

 New York, and the city which lies at the mouth 

 of the river has become the great metropolis 

 of the western hemisphere. 



In the wildest part of the Adirondacks, 4,322 

 feet above sea level, lies a little lake with the 



romantic name of Tear-of-the-Clouds, and in 

 this the dashing mountain stream which is the 

 Hudson in its earlier stages takes its rise. It 

 flows almost straight south, keeping near the 

 eastern boundary of New York state, and emp- 

 ties into the Atlantic at New York City. In 

 its upper course it is a small stream with a 



AT THE MOUTH OF THE HUDSON 



Reference (a) indicates the lower twenty miles 

 of the course of the river; (b) is Upper New 

 York Bay; (c) the island of Manhattan, once the 

 entire territory of New York City; (d) East 

 River; (e) Brooklyn, now a part of the greater 

 city; (/) Hoboken, the terminus of most of the 

 Atlantic passenger steamers; (g) Jersey City; 

 (h) Newark; (i) Lower New York Bay. 



rapid fall, and numerous small cities line its 

 banks to make use of the water power. Emerg- 

 ing from the mountains, it flows through a 

 region of no particular beauty until it enters 

 the picturesque Highlands, about sixty miles 

 below Albany. For sixteen miles its rather nar- 

 row valley winds between high and rocky shores 

 of great beauty, and it is the fancied resem- 

 blance of these to the castled banks of the 

 Rhine that has given the river its popular name. 

 Farther on in its course not much above the 

 mouth occur the Palisades, great perpendicu- 

 lar rock masses which constitute one of the 

 chief natural beauties of the country. 



Meanwhile, streams have been flowing into 

 it, and one of these, the Mohawk, which emp- 

 ties into it just above Troy, carries a greater 

 volume of water than the Hudson itself. But 



