the Jefferson Market
fire-alarm bell-tower, Overdale said it was a shot tower, erected in
revolutionary times. They then arrived at the real Crystal Palace, which
Overdale declared answered to the descriptions he had read of Fulton
Market. The submarine armor which was on exhibition, he explained was a
flying machine. The statue of the Amazon was noted down in Wagstaff's
book, upon the authority of Overdale, as a cast-iron black foot squaw,
on a prairie mustang. The fountain was announced to be a patent
frog-pond. After writing down an accurate description of the
fire-engines and hose-carts (the first of which Overdale supposed to be
perpetual self-acting locomotives, and the second a newly-invented
threshing machine), Wagstaff proposed they should leave. The Croton
Reservoir, Overdale stated was the gas-works. They then ascended the
Latting Observatory, which their intelligent informant assured them was
Trinity Church. From the altitude they here attained, they were favored
with a view of a large extent of country. Overdale called the attention
of his companions to the High Bridge over the Harlem river, of which
they had an excellent view. He said that it was one of the few gigantic
relics of the architecture of the Norsemen, whom he stated populated
this country ten centuries before Columbus sculled over here in a
scow-boat. This was the same bridge, he further remarked, which Edgar A.
Hood, a historian, and an intimate friend of Nicholas Galileo, a poet of
the sixteenth century, had spoken of as "bridge of size." Mr. Overdale
stated that the squadron of pleasure-yachts anchored at Hoboken were a
number of clam-sloops, which had probably been abandoned by their
owners, because they were old and unseaworthy. Jersey City, he was
inclined to believe, from its general description and situation, was the
Sixth Ward, which he further stated was in the centre of the Five
Points. The Penitentiary on Blackwell's Island, of which they had an
excellent view, he informed them was the City Hall--the regular resort
of the Common Scoundrels of the city. When they left the Observatory
they strayed over into Avenue D, which, upon the word of the intelligent
Overdale, Wagstaff described in his book as the Bowery. After mistaking
the Dry Dock for the Battery, and a Williamsburg ferry boat for a
Collins steamer, they continued to wander about, making divers mistakes,
all of which were faithfully noted down as facts in Wagstaff's notebook.