to
the east or west, emptying into Hudson River or the East River channel.
Such was the " Minetta water,"' running into Bollus Pond at Dowling
Street, also the ditch that connected a little pond in Manhattan
Square with the present large lake in Central Park and escaped thence
to the East River, also the stream that fed Harlem Lane, about 130th
Street on the west side, and the larger creek and streamlets at its
heads, running into Hell Gate at 92th Street.
Reverting
now from this somewhat reminiscent and historical survey of these
surface characters, which reveal the original topography of the more
altered areas of the island, and are more naturally pertinent to its
lower sections, we will look northward and decipher the constructional
lines north of 59th Street, without regard to its geology, only aiming
at a general sketch of its relief. The process of grading and
leveling and creating the orderly adjustments of a city has reduced
the exceptional elevations, and only in the yet northern portions, or
in the natural contours of Central Park, are the uneven surfaces
preserved, while in Central Park they are greatly masked.
The
bosses of rock west of the park (Fig. 3), north of 59th Street, have
been largely removed, but sections showing their former height are here
and there preserved, and the rock faces within the Central Park wall,
along 8th Avenue, exhibit their nature. Besides a succession of barren
folds of rock, holding pockets of debris, there were deep basins and
valley-like pits between them, as late as 1880, holding the hovels and
huts of a Bohemian domiciliary and of gardeners and squatters.
The
east side of the city was more thoroughly reduced to order before the
west side, and showed only in isolated squares the bluffs of rock
standing vertically over the streets cut through them, as between 3d
and 5th Avenues above 90th Street. A base leveling, as it were, has
been instituted, and except for the unavoidable undulations of the
surface, its superficial characters, of course, have disappeared. On
the west side, in the region of Claremont, now 116th Street to
