250 CROTON AQUEDUCT. [CHAP. XXXIX. 



thologist, at his delightful residence on the banks of the Hudson, 

 north of Bloomingdale. His son had just returned from Texas, 

 where he had been studying the natural history of that country, 

 especially the mammalia, and was disappointed at the few oppor 

 tunities he had enjoyed of seeing the wild land quadrupeds in a state 

 of activity, so as to observe their habits. I told him I had been 

 equally surprised at the apparent scarcity of this tribe in the 

 native forests of the United States. This whole class of animals, 

 he said, ought to be regarded as properly nocturnal ; for not 

 merely the feline tribe and the foxes, the weasels and bats, shun 

 the daylight, but many others feed partly by night, most of the 

 squirrels and bears, for example. The ruminants no doubt are 

 an exception, yet even the deer and the buffalo, like the wild 

 horse, travel chiefly in the night. 



From Mr. Audubon s I went to Highbridge, where the Croton 

 water is made to play for the amusement of visitors, and is thrown 

 up in a column to the height of 120 feet. 



I went also to see the reservoir, inclosing an area of no less 

 than thirty-six acres, from which the water is distributed to all 

 parts of New York. In this artificial lake all the river sediment 

 is deposited, the basin being divided into two parts, so that one 

 may be cleaned out while the other is in use. The tunnel or pipe 

 conveying the water for a distance of more than thirty miles, from 

 the source to the Harlem Hiver, is so large, that the chief engineer 

 and commissioners of the works were able to float down it in a 

 flat-bottomed boat when it was first opened, in July, 1842. 



While at New York, we were taken by our literary friend, 

 Mr. Cogswell, over the printing and publishing establishment of 

 the Harpers, the largest in America, and only surpassed, in the 

 scale of its operations, by two or three in Great Britain. They 

 give employment to three hundred men, manufacture their own 

 types and paper, and have a &quot; bookbindery&quot; under the same roof; 

 for, in order to get out, with the utmost dispatch, the reprints of 

 foreign works not entitled to copyright, they require to be inde 

 pendent of all aid from other traders. We were shown a fire 

 proof vault, in which stereotype plates, valued at 300,000 dollars, 

 are deposited. In one of the upper stories a long line of steam- 



