Wallace Bruce.

* * *

  Alps of the Hudson, whose bold summits rise
  Into the upper ether of the skies,
  Cleaving with calm content
  The cloudless crystal of the firmament.

  Joel Benton.

* * *

The Catskills were called by the Indians On-ti-o-ras, or mountains of the sky, as they sometimes seem like clouds along the horizon.  This range of mountains was supposed by the Indians to have been originally a monster who devoured all the children of the red men, until the great spirit touched him when he was going down to the salt lake to bathe, and here he remains.  “Two little lakes upon the summit were regarded the eyes of the monster, and these are open all the summer; but in the winter they are covered with a thick crust or heavy film; but whether sleeping or waking tears always trickle down his cheeks.  In these mountains, according to Indian belief, was kept the great treasury of storm and sunshine, presided over by an old squaw spirit who dwelt on the highest peak of the mountains.  She kept day and night shut up in her wigwam, letting out only one at a time.  She manufactured new moons every month, cutting up the old ones into stars,” and, like the old AEolus of mythology, shut the winds up in the caverns of the hills:—­

Where Manitou once lived and reigned,
  Great Spirit of a race gone by,
And Ontiora lies enchained
  With face uplifted to the sky.

The Catskill Mountains are now something more than a realm of romance and poetry or a mountain range of beauty along our western horizon, for, from this time forth the old squaw spirit will be kept busy with her “Treasury of Tear Clouds,” as the water supply of New York is to come from these mountain sources.

=The Catskill Water Supply.=—­The cost of this great undertaking is estimated at $162,000,000.  Four creeks:  The Esopus, Rondout, Schoharie and Catskill will constitute the main source of supply.  The total area of the entire watershed is over nine hundred square miles, and the supply will exceed 800,000,000 gallons daily.  The work projected will bring to the city 500,000,000 gallons per day.

The Ashoken Reservoir, 12 miles long and two miles wide, will hold 120,000,000,000 gallons.  The Catskill Aqueduct supply from Ashoken Reservoir will deliver the water without pumping to Hill View Reservoir in Yonkers high enough for gravity distribution.  It will take from ten to fifteen years to complete the work, which is begun none too early, as the population of Greater New York will be over 5,000,000 in 1915, and its water consumption 1,000,000,000 gallons.  In 1930 the population will be 7,000,000 and will call for a consumption of 100,000,000,000 gallons daily.  We are indeed “ancients of the earth and in the morning of our times.”  From the far limits of the gathering grounds some of the water will flow 130 miles to reach the city hall, and 20 miles further to the southern extremity of Staten Island.