As Kingston cherishes in her hall of fame the name of John Vanderlyn, artist, so Catskill points with pride to Thomas Cole, who, though of English birth, yet for many years, and indeed to the close of his life, lived and worked near that ])lace. He is best known by the Voyage of Life, which at the time of its exhibition was considered. |:)erhaps, the most remarkable painting produced in America. Cole had a deeply re\^erent spirit, evinced no less in the works of his brush than in the poems b}^ which he lo\'ed to express his strong appreciation of nature,

Slowly unfolding to the enraptured gaze Her thousand charms.

Here we may go aside for a short excursion into those enchanted hills where dwelt the old squaw who "made the new moons, and cut u]) the old ones into stars. " Her factory for making clouds is still in operation as she sends them off, "flake after flake, to float in the air and give light smnmer showers," or "black thunder-storms and drenching rains, to swell the streams and sweep everything away." In the days of William Kieft, Governor of New

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Amsterdam, he, in com]:)any with Adrian Vander Donck and others, met the chiefs of the Mohawks in conference and noticed the metahic histre of certain ])igments used by the savages in personal adornment. They procured some of this metal and Johannes de la Montague put it in a crucible. When assayed it produced gold, to the great delight of the Governor and his friends, who managed, upon the arrangement of peace, to send an exj^edition in search of the source of treasure. The result of the expedition was a bucketful of ore that yielded |)leasing results w^hen put to the crucible's test. The rest of the story may be told in Irving 's words :