The noble Hudson River, which we have ascended to Glen's Falls, flows
out of the great Adirondack wilderness of Northern New York, the
headwaters draining its extensive southern declivity. Among these
virgin Adirondack woods and mountains, near the Long Lake, is the
remote source of the western branch of the Hudson, the "Hendrick
Spring." Surrounded by forest and swamp, this cool and shallow pool,
about five feet in diameter, fringed by delicate ferns, and overhung
with vines and shrubbery, is the beginning of the great river, and
named in honor of its discoverer and first explorer:
"Far up in the dim mountain glade,
Wrapped in the myst'ry of its shade,
On a cold rock, a dewdrop fell,
And slumbered in its stony shell,
Till brewed within its rocky bed,
There trickled out a silver thread,
A little, shy, lost waterling,
That marks the cradled mountain spring."
The Hendrick Spring is within a half-mile of Long Lake and upon the
same summit, the latter discharging its waters northward into the St.
Lawrence. The little stream from this source gathers force, and flows
through a chain of brooks and ponds to the lovely Catlin Lake. High
peaks environ them, and their swelling waters make much of the river
on coming to the confluence with the northern branch of the Hudson at
the outlet of Harris Lake. Here there blooms, all about, the splendid
cardinal plant, its showy flower glowing like a flame.
The most elevated fountain head of the Hudson is upon the northern
branch. Within the inmost recesses of the mountain wilderness, in a
ravine between two of the highest peaks, the river has its spring
nearest the sky, known as "The Tear of the Clouds," a lofty pool,
adjacent to one of the noted Adirondack portages, the Indian Pass, at
about forty-three hundred feet elevation above the sea. From this pool
the water flows out through the Feldspar Brook into the Opalescent
River, which does not go far before it tumbles down the picturesque
cascade of the Hanging Spear, leaping fifty feet into a narrow abyss
between perpendicular walls, and emerging among a mass of huge
boulders. All these rocks, like the greater part of the Aganus-chion,
or Black Mountains, as the Indians often called the Adirondacks, are
composed largely of the labradorite or opalescent feldspar, which
fills the stream-bed with beautiful pebbles of blue or green or gold,
many of them having all the colors. Thus glittering with the splendors
of its rich coloring under the sunlight, the Opalescent River falls
into Sandford Lake. A visitor to the Indian Pass says the explorers
entered the rocky gorge between the steep slopes of Mount McIntyre and
the cliffs of Wallface Mountain to the westward. Clambering high above
the bottom of the canyon, they could see the famous Indian Pass
between these mountains in all its wild grandeur. Before them rose a
perpendicular cliff nearly twelve hundred feet from base to summit,
its face being apparently as raw as if only just cleft. Above sloped
Mount McIntyre, still more lofty than the cliff of Wallface, and in
the gorge between lay piles of rocks, grand in dimensions and awful in
aspect, as if hurled there by some terrible convulsion. Through these
came the little stream going to the Hudson, bubbling along from its
source close by a fountain of the Ausable. In spring freshets their
waters commingle, part finding their way to the ocean at New York and
part at Newfoundland.
Still another spring of clear cold water is a source of the Hudson,
sending down the mountain side a vigorous rivulet, falling into the
Opalescent. This fountain bubbles from a mass of loose rocks, some
weighing a thousand tons apiece, about a hundred feet from the summit
of the noble Mount Marcy, which the Indians called Tahawus, the
"Sky-piercer." From these sources among the Adirondacks flows the
most important river of New York, uniting the waters of myriads of
lakes and springs to form the noble stream which is picturesque and
attractive throughout the whole of its course of three hundred miles
to the sea. The main branches of the upper Hudson unite almost under
the shadow of Tahawus, and flowing a tortuous course, it receives the
outlet of Schroon Lake, the largest in the Adirondacks, covering about
twenty square miles, the junction-point being but a short distance
west of Lake George. Then flowing southward and turning eastward, it
emerges from the mountain wilderness, and in about a hundred miles
reaches its great cataract at Glen's Falls. Sweeping around the grand
bend below, and tumbling down Baker's Falls, past Fort Edward and the
rapids of Fort Miller, it receives the largest tributary from the
eastward, the Battenkill, a rapid shallow stream flowing from the
Green Mountains of Vermont. Thence its course is southward, every mile
from the wilderness to the sea being replete with historic and scenic
attractions:
"Queen of all lovely rivers, lustrous queen
Of flowing waters in our sweet new lands,
Rippling through sunlight to the ocean sands,
Within a smiling valley, and between
Romantic shores of silvery summer green;
Memorial of wild days and savage bands,
Singing the patient deeds of patriot hands,
Crooning of golden glorious years foreseen."