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50               GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY
Street, and then turned at right angles for a way of egress into Pearl Street. The lane running into Pearl Street was on the present line of Hanover Street. The whole lane was then called Slaughter House Lane, subsequently shortened into Sloat Street Lane, afterwards Sloat Street."
Broadway carried the pedestrian to a high hill with more or less abrupt descents near the present City Hall Park, which was succeeded at Chatham Square by another commanding eminence, from which started the broad thoroughfare up the Bowery.
The Swamp is thus described in the records of the Secre­tary of State's office at Albany: " Said swamp is filled con­stantly with standing water, for which there is no natural vent, and being covered with bushes and small trees, is by the stagnation and rottenness of it become exceedingly dangerous and of fatal consequence to all the inhabitants of the north part of the city bordering the same, they being subject to very many diseases and distempers, which by all physicians and by long experience are imputed to these unwholesome vapors oc­casioned thereby, and, as the said swamp is upon a level with the waters of Hudson's and South Rivers, no person has ever yet attempted to clear the same."
We learn from an early record some soundings which are of real interest; they were taken in the harbor of the city: " Depth of water in harbor from Long Island to Staten Island, 4, 4, 4, 4 1/2; 6, 11, 12, 13, 12, 9, 6, 6, 5, fathoms right under the shore of Staten Island; a second line three-quarters of a mile farther south where the river is narrowest (pre­sumably the Narrows), 5, 6, 14, 15, under the shore, falling then off to 6, 2, 1 1/2, with a bar on Long Island side."
Facts gleaned from Valentine's records about the islands in the harbor are also of considerable topographic and of his­toric interest: Ellis or Gibbet Island (now the site of the Emigrant Station) was formerly known as Oyster Island, and was famous for the abundance of good oysters to be obtained on its shores. It was at one time nicknamed Bucking Island.