* * *

The Hudson has often been styled "The Rhine of America." There is,
however, little of similarity and much of contrast. The Rhine from
Dusseldorf to Manheim is only twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet
in breadth. The Hudson from New York to Albany averages more than five
thousand feet from bank to bank. At Tappan Zee the Hudson is ten times
as wide as the Rhine at any point above Cologne. At Bonn the Rhine is
barely one-third of a mile, whereas the Hudson at Haverstraw Bay is
over four miles in width. The average breadth of the Hudson from New
York to Poughkeepsie is almost eight thousand feet.

The mountains of the Rhine also lack the imposing character of
the Highlands. The far-famed Drachenfels, the Landskron, and the
Stenzleburg are only seven hundred and fifty feet above the river;
the Alteberg eight hundred, the Rosenau nine hundred, and the great
Oelberg thirteen hundred and sixty-two. According to the latest United
States Geological Survey the entire group of mountains at the northern
gate of the Highlands is from fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred and
twenty-five feet in height, not to speak of the Catskills from three
thousand to almost four thousand feet in altitude.

It is not the fault of the Rhine with its nine hundred miles of
rapid flow that it looks tame compared with the Hudson. Even the
Mississippi, draining a valley three thousand miles in extent, looks
insignificant at St. Louis or New Orleans contrasted with the Hudson
at Tarrytown. The Hudson is in fact a vast estuary of the sea; the
tide rises two feet at Albany and six inches at Troy. A professor of
the Berlin University says: "You lack our castles but the Hudson is