g6 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



features. The place where the disturbance occurred, he states, 

 was a nearly vertical bank of clay and gravel 237 feet high. " The 

 upper part of the cliff probably cracked, and the land spring . . . 

 filled the fissure, rendered the clay slippery and acting by its great 

 hydrostatic pressure, burst off the cliff, which tumbled in huge 

 fragments, sliding along as a mass of ruins, carrying everything 

 before it. The avalanche, after reaching level ground, slid onwards 

 about 800 feet, crossed one street, and stopped at the second, 

 crushing three houses and two barns and destroyed the lives of 

 several persons, who were buried beneath the materials. The 

 avalanche was accompanied by torrents of mud and water, rushing 

 with a roaring noise over the fallen ruins. The fragments of 

 the cliff form a very uneven surface of small irregular hills; the 

 masses of clay are in huge fragments, with their layers placed at 

 every angle of inclination and in every direction, and cover a 

 surface about equivalent to 200 yards in length by 100 in breadth, 

 and from 10 to 40 feet deep. By a moderate estimate 200,000 

 tons of earth were thus transported to a distance of 200 yards." 

 The local details which Mather includes in his description point 

 to the site of the slide as being on the west slope of Prospect Park 

 in the southern part of the City. The occurrence apparently 

 belonged rather to the mass slides than to the flow type, the mud 

 and water being an accompaniment of the earth fall. 



The next important slide was in 1843 (February 17th) and seems 

 to have been the most destructive of all that are a matter of record. 

 The only descriptions available, apparently, are to be found in the 

 contemporary items of the local press which give few details as to 

 the nature of the disturbance. It is said to have comprised a section 

 of Mt Ida east of Fifth street and to have passed down Washington 

 street to Hill street which it crossed. It moved about 500 feet on 

 the level beyond the base of the hill. Many houses were demol- 

 ished; and 15 people were killed, either entombed within their 

 homes, or overwhelmed in the streets while attempting to flee the 

 onrushing mass. The work of rescue and of recovering the dead 

 went on for a whole week. In 1859 St Peters College, which was 

 in course of construction near the base of Mt Ida at the head of 

 Washington street, was destroyed by an earth slide. The Troy 

 Times of March i8th states that the disaster occurred about 8 p. m., 

 March 17th, the mass of earth advancing with little noise until it 

 reached the near wall of the college which checked its progress 

 momentarily, but gathering new energy it burst through with a 

 rush and heavy report and demolished the edifice. The presence of 



