Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE SMILEY BROTHERS, LOVERS OF HOSPITALITY IN THE State of New York, running approximately parallel to the Catskill range of mountains, is a long and narrow range with elevations varying from six hundred feet to twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the valleys on either side. This is known as the Sha- wangunk Mountain, locally pronounced Shon- gurn. At a point in this range, about fifteen miles from the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, is a spot of peculiar romantic beauty. A cliff here rises about one hundred feet above the mountain edge and at the foot of this cliff is a small lake perhaps half a mile long and an eighth of a mile wide, which bears the Indian name of Mohonk (Lake of the Sky). At this point the mountain is composed of enormous rocks piled on each other in great confusion, as though some grotesque Thor had thrown them up in sheer joyous exhibition of his strength, leaving them to lie there as they had fallen. It is reported that adventurous boys, in times past, have made their way down through the crevices of these rocks from the summit to the valley below. A geological friend of mine said to a local resident, acting as his guide: "I wonder by what great upheaval Nature produced this wonderful rock pile." The guide rebuked his ignorance: "What!" said he, "have you never read how at the crucifixion the earth did quake1 and the rocks were rent?" He regarded the earthquake at the crucifixion as a world-wide phenomenon as some scholars in past times regarded the deluge as a world-enveloping flood. In 1869 there stood on the shore of this lake and under the shadow of this cliff a cabaret with a bar-room, a dance hall, and ten bedrooms with bunks for beds, and straw mattresses and one quilt each for bedding. When a visitor demanded dinner, the Irish boy would catch a ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.