the Hudson from near Haverstraw almost to Hoboken, a distance of about thirty-five miles. Between Piermont and Hoboken, these rocks present, for a considerable distance, an uninterrupted, rude, columnar front, from 300 to 500 feet in height. They form a mural escarpment, columnar in appearance, yet not actually so in form. They have a steep slope of debris, which has been crumbling from the cliffs above, during long centuries, by the action of frost and the elements. The ridge is narrow, being in some places not more than three-fourths of a mile in width. It is really an enormous projecting trap-dyke. On the top and among the debris, in many places, is a thin growth of trees. On the western and southern sides of the range, the slope is gentle, and composed generally of rich soil covered with trees. Below Tappan it descends to a rich valley, through which a railway now passes.

Yiewed from the river this range presents a forbidding aspect ; and little does the traveller dream of a fertile, smiling country at the back of this savage front. Several little valleys break through the range, and give glimpses of the hidden landscape beauties behind the great wall. In the bottoms of these the trap-dyke appears; so the valleys are only depressions in the range, not fractures.

Several bluff's in the range exceed 400 feet in height. The most elevated of all is one nearly opposite Sing-Sing, which juts into the river like an enormous buttress, and is a prominent object from every point on the Hudson between New York and the Highlands. It rises 660 feet above tide-water. The Dutch named it Verdrietigh-Hoeclc -- Grievous or Yexations Point or Angle -- because in navigating the river they were apt to meet suddenly, off this point, adverse and sometimes cross winds, that gave them much vexation.