he attempted he failed, and yet he achieved great results
that were not contemplated in his schemes. He started two immense
industries, the Spitzbergen whale fisheries and the Hudson Bay
fur trade; and he brought the Dutch to Manhattan Island. No
realization of his dreams could have approached the astonishing
reality which would have greeted him could he have looked through
the coming centuries and caught a glimpse of what the voyager now
beholds in sailing up the bay of New York." The Dutch called the
Hudson the North River (a name which is still used) in
contra-distinction to the Delaware which they called the South
River.

The lower Hudson is really a fiord--a river valley into which ocean
water has been admitted by the sinking of the land, transforming a large
part of the valley into an inlet, and thus opening it to commerce as far
as Troy (about 150 M.), up to which point the river is tidal and,
therefore, partly salt. The Hudson extends above Troy for 150 M.
farther, but navigation is interrupted by shallows and swift currents.
Below Troy the fall is only five feet in a distance of 145 M. This
lower, navigable portion of the Hudson was the only feasible route
through the Atlantic highlands, and in consequence it has been one of
the most significant factors in the development of the United States.
New York City likewise owes its phenomenal development largely to this
great highway of commerce.

The invention and successful operation of the steamboat, the first line
of which was established on the Hudson by Fulton in 1807, gave early
impetus to the importance of N.Y.C., and the building of the Hudson
River R.R., one of the first successful railways, now a part of the New
York Central Lines, and the opening of the Erie Canal (1825) connecting
the Hudson with the Great Lakes and the far interior, were among other
contributory factors in the city's growth.

15 M. YONKERS, Pop. 100,226. (Train 51 passes 8:56a; No. 3, 9:15a; No.
41, 1:29p; No. 25, 3:11p; No. 19, 5:59p. Eastbound No. 6 passes 8:52a;
No. 26, 9:12a; No. 16, 3:31p, No. 22, 4:56p.)

When the Dutch founded New Netherlands, the present site of Yonkers was
occupied by an Indian village, known as Nappeckamack, or "town of the
rapid water," and a great rock near the mouth of the Nepperhan creek (to
the north of the station) was long a place of Indian Worship.

In the early days, the Hudson River Valley from Manha