A RIVER VIEW. . 219 



tinent, in connection with the great changes wrought 

 by the huge glacier that crept down from the north 

 during what is called the ice period, is owing the 

 character and aspects of the Hudson as we see and 

 know them. The Mohawk valley was filled up by 

 the drift, and the pent-up waters of the Great Lakes 

 found an opening through what is now the St. Law- 

 rence. The trough of the Hudson was also partially 

 filled:, and has remained so to the present day. There 

 is, perhaps, no point in the river where the mud and 

 clay are not from two to three times as deep as the 

 water. 



That ancient and grander Hudson lies back of us 

 several hundred thousand years perhaps more, for 

 a million years are but as one tick of the time-piece of 

 the Lord ; yet even it was a juvenile compared with 

 some of the rocks and mountains the Hudson of to-day 

 mirrors. The Highlands date from the earliest geo- 

 logical age the primary; the river the old river 

 from the latest, the tertiary ; and what that differ- 

 ence means in terrestrial years hath not entered into 

 the mind of man to conceive. Yet how the venera- 

 ble mountains open their ranks for the stripling to 

 pass through. Of course the river did not force its 

 way through this barrier, but has doubtless found an 

 opening there of which it has availed itself, and 

 which it has enlarged. % 



1 In thinking of these things, one only has to allow 

 I time enough, and the most stupendous changes in the 

 \topography of the country are as easy and natural as 



