History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1. Frederic Shonnard

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СКАЧАТЬ 900 feet above half tide level.

      Of the streams of Westchester County the names of two, the Croton and the Bronx, have become widely familiar. The former river is the chief source of the water supply of New York City; the latter — which, by the way, also furnishes water to New York — has many historic and romantic associations, dear to New Yorkers as well as Westchester people, and its name has been adopted for one of the beautiful new parks of the city, and also for one of the five grand divisions which constitute the Greater New York.

      Some half dozen streams of noticeable size find their outlets in the Hudson. Peekskill Creek gathers its waters from the hills of the northwestern corner of the county, and flows into the Hudson just above the village of Peekskill. Furnace Brook is a small rivulet which empties into the river several miles farther south. Then comes the Croton, having its outlet in Croton Bay, as the northeastern portion of the Tappan Sea is called.

      The Croton has its sources in Dutchess County — these sources comprising three " branches " ( the East, Middle, and West), which unite in the southern part of Putnam County. In its course through Westchester County to its mouth, the Croton receives as tributaries the Muscoot, Titicus, Cross, and Kisco Rivers. The Muscoot is the outlet of the celebrated Lake Mahopac in Putnam County, and the Cross (also called the Peppenegheck ) of Lake Waccabuc, one of the largest of the Westchester lakes. The Croton watershed lies almost wholly in the State of New York, although draining a small area in Connecticut. It extends about thirty-three miles north and south and eleven miles east and west, and has an area of 339 square miles above the present Croton Dam, to which about twenty square miles will be added when the great new dam, now in process of construction, is completed. This watershed embraces thirty-one lakes and ponds in Westchester and Putnam Counties, many of which have been utilized as natural storage basins in connection with the New York City water supply by cutting down their outlets and building dams across. Besides Croton Lake, there are two very large reservoirs in our county incidental to the Croton system — the Titicus Reservoir near Purdy's and the Amawalk Reservoir. The Croton Lake is by far the most extensive sheet of water in the county. It is formed by a dam about five miles east of the mouth of the Croton, and has an ordinary length of some three and one-half miles. When the new dam is finished the length of the lake will be in excess of eleven miles. From the lake two aqueducts, the "Old " and the "New," lead to the city. The former is thirty-eight and the latter thirty-three miles long, the distance in each case being measured to the receiving reservoir. It is the old aqueduct which crosses the Harlem River over High Bridge; the new is carried underneath the stream.

      South of the Croton River the next Hudson tributary of interest is the Sing Sing Kill, which finds its mouth through a romantic ravine crossed by the notable Aqueduct Bridge. Next comes the Pocantico River, entering the Hudson at Tarrytown. The last feeder of the Hudson from Westchester County, and the last received by it before discharging its waters into the sea, is the Sawmill (or Nepperhan ) River, at Yonkers. To this stream is due the credit for the creation of a very considerable portion of the manufacturing industries of the county, and consequently, also, to a great extent, that for the building up of the City of Yonkers.

      Into the Spuyten Duyvil Creek empties Tibbet's Brook, a small runlet which rises in the Town of Yonkers and flows south, passing through Van Cortlandt Lake ( artificial ).

      The most noteworthy of the streams emptying into the Sound is the Bronx River, whose outlet is between Hunt's Point and Cornell's Neck. The Bronx lies wholly within Westchester County, having its headwaters in the hills of the towns of Mount Pleasant and New Castle. It traverses and partially drains the middle section of the county. This river, with other waters which have been artificially connected with it, affords to New York City a water supply of its own, quite independent of the Croton system-a fact, perhaps, not generally understood. It is dammed at Kensico Station, making a storage reservoir of 250 acres. A similar dam has been thrown across the Byram River, and another across the outlet of Little Bye Pond. By the damming of Little Rye Pond that body of water, with Rye Pond, has been converted into a single lake, having an area of 280 acres. The three parts of this system — the Bronx, Byram, and Rye Pond reservoirs — are, as already stated, connected artificially, and the water is delivered into a receiving reservoir at Williams's Bridge through the so-called Bronx River pipe line, a conduit of forty-eight-inch cast-iron pipe. The portion of the Bronx watershed drained for this purpose has an area of thirteen and one-third square miles.

      East of the mouth of the Bronx River on the Sound are the outlets of Westchester and Eastchester Creeks — tidal streams — emptying, respectively, into Westchester and Eastchester Bays. The Hutchinson River rises in Scarsdale and flows into Eastchester Bay. The Mamaroneck River has its source near White Plains and Harrison, finding its outlet in Mamaroneck Harbor. The Byram River, which enters the Sound above Portchester, and at its mouth separates our county from Connecticut, drains parts of North Castle and Rye. Blind Brook empties at Milton, after draining portions of Harrison and Rye. Most of the streams flowing into the Sound afford, by the reflux of the tide, an intermitting hydraulic power.

      The Mianus River, rising in North Castle, and Stamford Mill River, rising in Poundridge, find their way to the Sound through Connecticut. Some minor streams in the northern section of the county flow into Putnam County.

      The lakes of Westchester, like the hills and streams, boast no features of exceptional interest, but are strictly in keeping with the quiet beauty of the general landscape. The largest, as already mentioned, is Croton Lake, entirely artificial; and we have also seen that several of the natural lakes have been utilized for purposes of water supply. Lake Waccabuc, in the Town of Lewisboro, has, since 1870, been connected with the Croton system. It covers over two hundred acres, and is very deep and pure. In the Town of Poundridge several ponds have been artificially joined to one another, forming a handsome body of water, called Trinity Lake, a mile and a quarter long, which supplies the City of Stamford, Conn. A dam twenty feet high has been erected across its outlet. Other lakes of local importance and interest are Peach Lake, on the Putnam County border; Mohegan and Mohansic lakes, in Yorktown; Valhalla Lake (through which the Bronx River flows), between Mount Pleasant and North Castle; Rye Lake, near the Connecticut line; Byram Lake, in Bedford and North Castle, the feeder of the Byram River, and Cross Pond (100 acres) in Poundridge.

      The rocks of Westchester County consist mainly of gneiss and micaschist of many dissimilar varieties, and white crystalline limestone with thin interlying beds of serpentine, all of ancient origin and entirely devoid of fossils. Professor Ralph S. Tarr, of Cornell University, in a recent series of papers 1 on the geology of New York State, embodying the latest investigations and conclusions on the subject, assigns to the southern angle of the State, including Westchester County, the name of the " Gneissic Highland Province." This province, he says, is of complex structure, and one in which, in its main and most typical part, the rocks are very much folded and disturbed metamorphic strata of ancient date. " These rocks", he continues, " are really an extension of the highlands of New Jersey, which reach across the southern angle of New York, extend northeastward, and enter Connecticut. Besides these Archean gneisses there is some sandstone and a black diabase or trap, which form the Palisades, besides extensive layers of limestone, gneiss, and schist, which extend across the region occupied by the City of New York. This whole series of strata is intricately associated. Except at the very seashore line, the province is a moderate highland, with rather rough topography and with hills rising in some places to an elevation of 1,000 or 1,200 feet above the sea level. Where there is limestone or sandstone in this area, there is usually a lowland, while highlands occur where the hard gneiss comes to the surface not immediately at the seashore. This is extremely well illustrated in Rockland County, where the gneissic Ramapo Mountains are faced at their southeastern base by a lowland, a somewhat rolling plain, which, however, is bounded on its eastern margin by another highland where the trap of the Palisades rises close by the Hudson River."

      In the opinion of Professor Tarr, this region, with the large Adirondack area, at the beginning of the Paleozoic were mountainous lands facing the sea, which stretched away to the westward, and beneath which all the rest of the site of New York СКАЧАТЬ