A RIVER VIEW. 217 



drifting with the current, progresses southward no 

 more than eight miles in twenty-four hours. The 

 ebb tide will carry it about twelve miles, and the flood 

 set it back from seven to nine. A drop of water at 

 Albany, therefore, will be nearly three weeks in 

 reaching New York, though it will get pretty well 

 pickled some days earlier. 



Some rivers by their volume and impetuosity pen- 

 etrate the sea, but here the sea is the aggressor, and 

 sometimes meets the mountain water nearly half-way. 



This fact was illustrated a few years ago, when the 

 basin of the Hudson was visited by one of the most 

 severe droughts ever known in this part of the State. 

 In the early winter, after the river was frozen over 

 above Poughkeepsie, it was discovered that immense 

 numbers, of fish were retreating up stream before the 

 slow encroachment of the salt water. There was a 

 general exodus of the finny tribes from the whole 

 lower part of the river ; it was like the spring and 

 fall migration of the birds, or the fleeing of the pop- 

 ulation of a district before some approaching danger : 

 vast swarms of cat-fish, white and yellow perch, and 

 striped bass were en route for the fresh water farther 

 north. When the people along shore made the dis- 

 covery, they turned out as they do in the rural dis- 

 tricts when the pigeons appear, and, with small gill- 

 nets let down through holes in the ice, captured them 

 in fabulous numbers. On the heels of the retreating 

 perch and cat-fish came the denizens of the salt water, 

 and codfish were taken ninety miles above New York. 



