INTRODUCTORY. 
I 19 
lost to sight. The sandy and rocky surface of its course seems grad- 
ually becoming encroached upon by a sparse growth of small shrubs 
and plants from the mountain vegetation on either side, and with this 
was growing scattered clumps of a wood-rush (. Litzula parviflora 
Desv.) not before, I think, reported from as far south. Here was 
found the only exposed ground met with at a high altitude, most of 
the mountains being well wooded, and lacking those more imposing 
features which are conferred by bold and rugged outlines and barren 
summits. 
The mountains grouped about the Slide separate two very different 
water-sheds, and there are many streams of proximate sources, whose 
waters reach the Atlantic through no less separated outlets than Dela- 
ware and New York Bays. From a recent paper “ On the Physical 
Geography and Hypsometry of the Catskill Mountain Region,” by 
Arnold Guyot,* the following, relating to this subject and to Slide 
Mountain, may be transcribed 
“ The Slide Mountain, the culminating point of the Southern, and 
the highest of all the Catskills, is in many respects quite remarkable. 
It terminates abruptly on the northeast towards the deep valley of 
Woodland . . . From its broad triangular top it sends a ridge 
towards the southeast, which divides the waters of the Esopus from 
those of the Rondout, and terminates in the Lone Mountain 3670 
feet, by which it is almost connected with the Wittemberg chain. 
Another high ridge descends towards the south and nearly reaches 
the high group of Table Mountain 3865 feet, and Peak-o’-Mouse 
f Peak-o’-Moose] 3875 feet, which separates the head-waters of the 
Rondout from those of the East branch of the Navesink. It thus be- 
comes the main hydrographic centre of the region, sending its waters 
to the northwest by the Esopus; northeast to the same by the Wood- 
land Creek; south by the Rondout to the Hudson; southwest by the 
Navesink to the Delaware.” 
Though an exploration of other peaks adjoining the Slide Mountain 
would have been of the highest interest, circumstances did not admit 
of its accomplishment, and, excepting that of the Slide Mountain itself, 
no summits much over 3,000 feet altitude were visited. The greater 
* American Journal of Science, XIX, 114, 429-451, June, 1880. 
