POLLIPELL'S ISLAND. 157 



They say that in summer it abounds in flowers of every de- 

 scription. Alack, alack, dear lady reader, how, with thee " fair 

 spirit, for a minister," (and a small carpet bag,) we would like 

 to step aboard of that enchanted island, and float away to 

 some clime where those flowers would bloom forever ! Shall 

 we not unite in quarrelling with the man by whose agency it 

 was bound as now to common earth ? That fairy islet ! Earth- 

 bound by human expediency, how many a bright and floating 

 creation in the world of thought does it typify ! 



The fate of this captured and manacled islet, which has de- 

 tained us too long from more serious disquisition, is, however, 

 common to the whole class of beautiful monstrosities to which 

 it belongs. For these floating bogs, or submerged rafts, (such 

 being generally the original formation of these amphibious acres 

 of verdure,) seem always sooner or later to get stranded on 

 some shoal, where if unmolested by violent storms they will 

 after a season or two become permanent fixtures. Sometimes 

 indeed they get wedged among rocks, over which they gradu- 

 ally extend their vegetation and which thus incorporated with 

 themselves as it were, give them the aspect of having been 

 anchored there since Time began. Two such islands, formed 

 probably in this way originally, are said to have crowned a reef 

 and a shoal in the bay of New York, which are still visible 

 at low water : and tradition, which gives five as the origi- 

 nal number of islets in that beautiful harbor, yet preserves a 

 vague memory of the storm by which two of those were broken 

 up, swept away, and obliterated. The immense quantity of drift 

 wood for which the Hudson was once noted, with the position 



