Our space will allow nothing more than an outline description of it. It is a vessel

452 THE HUDSON.

seven hundred feet long (length of the Great Eastern), covered with plates of iron so as to be absolutely bomb and round shot proof. It is to be moved by steam engines of sufficient power to give it a momentum that will cause it to cut a man-of-war in two, when it strikes it at the waists. It will mount a battery of sixteen heavy rifled cannon in bombproof casemates, and two heavy columbiads for throwing shells will be on deck, one forward and one aft. The smoke-pipe is constructed in sliding sections, like a telescope, for obvious purposes; and the huge vessel may be sunk so that its decks alone will be above the water. It is to be rated at six thousand tons. The war was productive of a variety of iron-clad vessels far more effective than this promises to be, and it is probable that it will never be completed.

Opposite the lower part of the city of New York, and separated from Hoboken by a bay and marsh, is Jersey City, on a point at the mouth of the Hudson, known in early times as Paulus's or Pauw's Hook, it having been originally obtained from the Indians by Michael Pauw. This was an important strategic point in the revolution. Here the British established a military post after taking possession of the city of JSTew York in 1776, and held it until August, 1779, when the active Major Henry Lee, mentioned in Andre's satire of "The Cow Chase," with his legion, surprised the garrison, killed a number, and captured the fort, just before the dawn. Now a flourishing city -- a suburb of New York -- covers that point.