The surplus water supplies a navigable feeder to the Champlain Canal, that connects Lake Champlain with the Hudson. There are also several mills for slabbing the fine black marble of that locality for the construction of chimneypieces, and for other uses. These various mills mar the natural beauty of the scene, but their uncouth and irregular forms give picturesqueness to the view. The bridge crosses just at the foot of the falls. It rests upon abutments of strong masonry at each end, and a pier in the middle, whicli

is seated upon the caverned rock, just mentioned, which was once in the bed of the stream. The channel on the soutliern side has been closed by an abutment, and one of the chambers of the cavern, made memorable by Cooper, is completely shut. When we Avere there, huge logs nearly filled the upper entrance to it. BcloAV the bridge the shores are black marble, beautifully stratified, perpendicular, and, in some places, seventy feet in

* Not loiifT after our visit here menticned, a greater pirtion of tlie village was clfstr.iyecl by fire, but it was soon rebuilt.

THE HUDSON. 71

lieiglit. Between these walls the water runs with a swift current for nearly a mile, and finally, at Sandy Hill, three miles below, is broken into rapids.

At Sandy Hill the Hudson makes a magnificent sweep, in a curve, when changing its course from an easterly to a southerly direction ; and a little below that village it is broken into wild cascades, which have been named Baker's Palls. Sandy Hill, like the borough of Glen's Falls, stands upon a high plain, and is a very beautiful village, of about thirteen hundred inhabitants. In its centre is a shaded green, which tradition points to as the spot where a tragedy was enacted more than a century ago, some incidents of which remind us of the romantic but truthful story of Captain Smith and Pocahontas, in Virginia.