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.

In this particular a great change for the better has taken place along the river. The advertising fiend is

198 The Hudson River

no longer permitted to disfigure natural scenery with his profane brush. But the advertising man was not the only vandal, nor the last. The Palisades range in height from two hundred and fifty or less up to five hundred feet. The latter elevation is near the northern extremity, opposite Hastings. Taylorsville, just above Fort Lee. is two hundred and sixty feet above the tide. Opposite Spuyten Duyvil is the pleasant residence village of Englewood, across from Riverdale is the projection known as Clinton Point, and opposite Ludlow is Huyler's Landing. The place where Hudson is said to have anchored on the 13th September, 1609, is nearly due west from Dudley's Grove, at theuj^per end of Yonkers. One of the mutilated landmarks that used to be the pride of those who lived near the banks of the lower Hudson was the jutting shoulder of rock known as Indian Head, nearly the highest point of the Palisades. It was one of those peculiarly striking features in nature that persistently claim and invariably receive the consideration due to eminence. No one seeing the rugged beauty of Indian Head could forget it or refuse to credit any remarkable or romantic legend that chanced to attach itself there.