In this vicinity is the famous hidden sand-bar, called Overslagh by the Dutch, so formidable to the navigators of this part of the river, not because of any actual danger, but of tedious detentions caused by running aground. Some improvements have been made. In former years the sight of from twenty to fifty sail of river craft, fast aground on the Overslagh at low tide, was not rare, and the amount of profanity uttered by the vexed sailors was sufficient to demoralise the whole district. This bar is formed by the sand brought in by the Norman's Kill and other streams, and large sums have been expended in damming, dredging, and

THE HUDSON.

dyking, without entire success. As early as 1790, the State legislature authorised the proprietors of Mills and Papskni Islands to erect a dam or dyke between them, so as to throw all the water into the main channel, and thus increase its velocity sufficient to carry away the accumulating sand. It abated, but did not cure the difficulty. This bar is a perpetual contradiction to the frequent boast, that the navigation of the Hudson is unobstructed along its entire tide-watercourse. The Overslagh is the only exception, however.

About four miles below Castleton, is the village of Schodack, a deriva-

^v#i'. i-''"^'

tive from the Mohegan word is-cho-da, ** a meadow, or fire-plain." This was anciently the seat of the council fire of the Mohcgans upon the Hudson. They extended their villages along the eastern bank of the stream, as high as Lanslngburgh, and their hunting grounds occupied the entire counties of Columbia and Rensselaer. As the white settlements crowded there, the Mohegans retired eastwardly to the valley 'of the Housatonnuc, in Massachusetts, where their descendants, known as the Stockbridge Indians, were for a long time religiously instructed by the