A RIVER VIEW 199 



five hundred feet deep. According to the sound- 

 ings of the coast survey, this ancient bed of the 

 Hudson is distinctly marked upon the ocean floor 

 to the point indicated. 



To the gradual subsidence of this part of the 

 continent, 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. Lawrence. 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 com- 

 pared with some of the rocks and mountains the 

 Hudson of to-day mirrors. The Highlands date 

 from the earliest geological age, — the primary ; the 

 river — the old river — from the latest, the ter- 

 tiary; and what that diff'erence means in terrestrial 

 years hath not entered into the mind of man to 

 conceive. Yet how the venerable 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 



