It rises in the heart of Essex County, and flowing southward into Warren county, receiving in its course the waters of Paradox and Scarron, or Schroon Lake, and a large group of ponds, forms a confluence, near Warrensburg, with the main waters of the Hudson, that come down from the Adirondack region. The name of Schroon for this branch is fixed in the popular mind, appears in books and on maps, and is heard upon every lip. It is a corruption of Scarron, the name given to the lake by French officers, who were stationed at Fort St. Frederick, on Crown Point, at the middle of the last century. In their rambles iij the wilderness on the western shore of Lake Champlain, they discovered a beautiful lake, and named it in gallant homage to the memory of the widow of the poet Scarron, who, as Madame de Maintenon, became the queen of Louis XIV. of France. The name was afterwards applied to the river, and tlie

THE HUDSON.

modern corrupt orthography and pronunciation were unknown hefore the present century, at the beginning of which settlements were first commenced in that region. In the face of legal documents, common speech, and maps, we may rightfully call it Scarron ; for the antiquity and respectability of an error arc not valid excuses for perpetuating it.

From Root's we rode down the valley to the pleasant little village on the western shore of Scarron Lake. We turned aside to visit the beautiful Paradox Lake, nestled among wooded hills a short distance from the river. It is separated from Scarron Lake by a low alluvial drift, and is so nearly