The station at Scarborough is an isolated building, an outpost for the village that lies eastward over the hill. In the distance one sees a massive group of low, marble buildings, the melancholy residence of convicts, -- it is the State prison at Sing Sing. It is natural, but unfortunate, that the fair fame of one of the most attractive of Hudson River towns should for years have been damaged by such an ogre squatting at its very gates. Nor is it surprising that there has been a resolute and recently successful effort to change the name of the village from Sing Sing to Ossining. Ossining is a corruption of Ossin-sing, an Indian name, which, according to Schoolcraft, signified "singing stones." The brook which 289 ran through the jilace was "Sint vSink," and the village, according to the old maps. " Sink Sink."

290 The Hudson River

The land here rises ahiiost abruptly from the river, reaching with the first half mile an altitude of three hundred feet above tide level. The plateau above is the residence portion of the place and very attractive. Long ago, when New York was still a British possession and Sing Sing a ])art of the mammoth estate that owned the sway of the Philipse family, silver and copper were sought in the neighbourhood. A mine was worked where the prison now stands, the shaft having been within a few yards of the north wall. Not far away, at the mouth of the kill that finds its wa}- to the Hudson, through a deep gore, from the plateau above, the smelting furnace was erected. There the ore was reduced, the precious metal being shipped to England. The Revolution put a stop to the operations of the mine, which seems never to ha\'e been reopened. At the time of its abandonment, the length of the works is said to have reached one hundred and twenty feet.