to meet friends, or only hoping to see new faces, quite cover the wharf at times, especially at evening.

From the Cornwall Landing an interesting view of the upper entrance to the Highlands, between the Storm King and Breakneck Hill, may be obtained. In our sketch, the former is seen on the right, the latter on the left. The river is here deep and narrow. The rocky shores, composed principally of granite and gneiss, embedding loose nodules and fixed veins

of magnetic iron ore, rise from 1,000 to almost 1,600 feet above the river, and are scantily clothed with stunted trees. The range extends in a north-eastern and south-western direction across the Hudson, in the counties of Duchess and Putnam, Orange and Rockland, and connects with the Alleghanies. Geologists say that it is unequivocally a primitive chain, and in the early ages of the world must have opposed a barrier to the passage of the waters, and caused a vast lake which covered the

present Valley of the Hudson, extending to, if not over, Lake Champlain, eastward to the Taghkanick Mountain, in Columbia County, and the Highlands along the western borders of Massachusetts, and westward to the Kayaderosseras Mountain, near Lake George, alluded to in our description of the Upper Hudson. Such, they say, must have been in former ages the "Ancient Lake of the Upper Valley of the Hudson," indicated by the levels and surveys of the present day, and by an examination of the geological structure and alluvial formations of this valley. The Indians called the range eastward of the Hudson, including the Fishkill Mountains, Matteawan, or the Country of Good Fur. They gave the same name to the stream that flows into the Hudson, on the south side of Denning's Point, which the Dutch called Vis Kill, or Fish Creek, and now known as the Fish Kill.

Toward the evening of the same hot day in August (1860), when I rode from Newburgh to Idlewild and the Highland Terrace, I went in a skiff around to the shaded nooks of the western shore below the Storm King, and viewed the mountains in all their grandeur from their bases. The Storm King, seen from the middle of the river abreast its eastern centre, is almost semicircular in form, and gave to the minds of the utilitarian Dutch skippers who navigated the Hudson early, the idea of a huge lump of butter, and they named it Boter Berg, or Butter Hill. It had borne that name until recently, when Mr. Willis successfully appealed to the good taste of the public by giving it the more appropriate and poetic title of Storm King. The appeal was met with a sensible response, and the directors of the Hudson River Railway Company recognised its fitness by naming a station at Breakneck Hill (when will a better name for this be given?), opposite the Boter Berg, "Storm King Station." The features of the mountain have been somewhat changed. For many years past vast masses of stone have been quarried from its south-eastern face; until now the scene from its foot has the appearance given in the sketch.

Serrated Breakneck opposite has also been much quarried, and through its narrow base, upon the brink of the river, a tunnel for the railway has been pierced. Several years ago a powder blast, made by the quarriers high up on the southern declivity of the mountain, destroyed an object interesting to voyagers upon the river. From abreast the Storm King a

huge mass of rock was seen projected against the eastern sky in the perfect form of a human face, the branches of a tree forming an excellent representation of thick curly beard upon the chin. It was called the

Turk's Head. By many it was mistaken for "Anthony's Nose," the huge promontory so called at the southern entrance to the Highlands a few miles below. Its demolition caused many expressions of regret, for

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it was regarded as a great curiosity, and an interesting feature in the Highland scenery on the river.

Just below the Storm King, at the foot of a magnificent valley composed of wooded slopes that come down from the high hills two or three miles westward, is the cottage of Mr. Lambertson, a resident of New York, who has chosen that isolated spot for a summer retreat. He has only one neighbour, who lives in another cottage beneath willow trees at the base of the Cro' Nest. This group of hills forms the southern boundary of their wild domain, and the Storm King the northern. In the slopes of

the grand valley between these hills wild ravines are furrowed, and form channels for clear mountain streams, and every rood of that wilderness of several hundred acres is covered with timber. When in full foliage in summer it has the appearance, in every light, of green velvet. I have seen it in the morning and at evening, at meridian and in the light of the full moon, and on all occasions it had the same soft aspect in contrast with the rugged forms of Cro' Nest and the Storm King. That valley is always a delightful object to the eye, and should be sought for by the tourist. The last time I passed it was at sunset. I was on the swift

steamer Thomas Powell, and at that hour the deep green of the foreground was fading higher up into a mingled colour of olive and pink, and softening into delicate purple, while the rocky summit of the Storm King cast over the whole the reflected effulgence of a brilliant evening sunlight. In this isolated spot among the mountains, Joseph Rodman Drake, whilst rambling alone many years ago, wrote con amore his beautiful poem,

"The Culprit Fay," in which he thus summoned the fairies to a dance:

"Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite!

Elf of eve and starry fay!

Ye that love the moon's soft light,

Hither, hither, wend your way.

Twine ye in a jocund ring;

Sing and trip it merrily;

Hand to hand, and wing to wing,

Round the wild witch-hazel tree."

Whilst at the landing-place at Mr. Lambertson's, one of those black