Fascinating, if not beautiful in general outline, wonderful in detail and often exquisite in colour, the great mass of weather-beaten rock seems to rise out of the very bosom of the river. Deep at its base runs the swift current of the channel and in its crowning belt of trees the clouds drift. Here and there in the wall are deep rifts cut by little torrents that have been industriously mining their way for centuries past. Taking advantage of these ravines, companies of trees swarm u]3 the sloi)es with flaunting banners of green that in the autumn change to royal hues of Tyrian splendour. The Palisades are seen to best advantage w^hen the sun strikes them in the morning or the long shadows clothe them with tender mysterious tints at nightfall.
In one respect our enjoyment of this feature of the river is greater to-day than in former years, because of the abatement, by law, of an abuse. Notice what Professor Archibald Geikie, the celebrated Scotch geologist, wrote thirt)^ years ago: Hardly is the traveller out of New York than he notices tliat every natural rock, islet, or surface of any kind that will hold paint is disfigured with advertisements in huge letters. Tlie ice- worn bosses of gneiss which, rising out of the Hudson, would in themselves be such attractive ol)jects in the landscape, are rendered hideous by being the groundwork on which some kind of tobacco, or tooth wash, or stove polish, is recommended to the notice of the multitude.