mere RIVERSIDE PARK has been called "the aggrandiseme nt of a road." In a sense that is true and yet the aggrandisement of such a road in such a way suggests the embellishment of a book by extra illustration, till the original volume appreciates in value beyond computation. From 7 2d Street to 130th Street, between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues -- the latter near the river level -- Riverside Drive winds over hill and dale for three miles. There are few roads in the world that can compare with it. Every turn is a revelation of natural beauty and every hillock is crowned with some historic association.

This is not a single road, but a "cluster of ample ways" for pleasure riding and driving, with numberless nooks " that a bee might choose to dream in," and sudden revelations of the river at points where natural advantages have been seized with consummate art. x\cross to Fort Lee, along the sheer wall of the Pali- sades, or down past the busy shipping to w^here Bartholdi's statue lifts her unwearied ann, the outlook

140 The Hudson River

is a panoramic displa}^ of exquisite charm. There is nothing that seems trivial in all the prospect: in all that comes within the range of the eye the " large benignities" ofsky and river conspire to delight it. The changing hues of colour, the evanescent shadows playing across the distant hills, the long lanes of winddrift vanishing in perspective, present not one picture, but a never-ending succession of them. Near the southern end of Riverside Drive used to be a place of resort known as Elm Park. Mr. Benson J. Lossing describes it as a camp-ground for recruits during the Civil War, " once the seat of the Apthorpe family." The Apthorpe mansion stood at the corner of 9 1 st Street and Columbus Avenue.