e Titanic forces of nature have left it. The third
wonder is at Staffa, in Scotland, where the rocks have been thrown
into such a position as to justify the name of Fingal's Cave, which
they bear, and which was bestowed on them in the olden times before
Scottish history began to be written. It is singular how many of the
names which dignify, or designate, favorite spots of the Giant's
Causeway have been duplicated in the Palisades. Among the Hudson rocks
are several 'Lady's Chairs,' 'Lover's Leaps,' 'Devil's Toothpicks,'
'Devil's Pulpits,' and, in many spots on the water's edge, especially
those most openly exposed to the weather, we see exactly the same
conformations which excite admiration and wonder in the Irish rocks."
* * *
Where the mighty cliffs look upward in their glory and their glow
I see a wondrous river in its beauty southward flow.
_Thomas C. Harbaugh._
* * *
Under the base of these cliffs William Cullen Bryant one Sabbath
morning wrote his beautiful lines:
"Cool shades and dews are round my way,
And silence of the early day;
Mid the dark rocks that watch his bed,
Glitters the mighty Hudson spread,
Unrippled, save by drops that fall
From shrubs that fringe his mountain wall;
And o'er the clear, still water swells
The music of the Sabbath bells.
All, save this little nook of land,
Circled with trees, on which I stand;
All, save that line of hills which lie
Suspended in the mimic sky--
Seems a blue void, above, below,
Through which the white clouds come and go;
And from the green world's farthest steep
I gaze into the airy deep."
* * *
A mellow sunset was settling upon the hills and
waters and a thousand flashes played over the distant
city as its spires and prominent objects caught its glow.
_N. P. Willis._
* * *
There are many strange stories connected with the Palisades, and
one narrator says: "remarkable disappearances have occurred in the
vicinity that have never been explained. On a conical-shaped rock near
Clinton Point a young man and a young woman were seen standing some
half a century ago. Several of their friends, who were back some
thirty feet from the face of the cliff, saw them distinctly, and
called out to them not to approach too near the edge. The young couple
laughingly sent some answer back, and a moment later vanished as by
magic. Their friends rushed to the edge of the cli
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