Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/637

 channel, the South and Swash, is used by coasting vessels drawing about 20 ft. The harbour is divided into three parts: the Lower Bay, the Upper Bay and the North and East rivers. The Lower Bay (about 88 sq. m.) of which Raritan Bay on the S.W., Sandy Hook Bay on the S.E., and Gravesend Bay on the N.E. form parts, and to which the channels mentioned afford entrance from the ocean, has Staten Island to the W. and N., Brooklyn to the N. and E., and the New Jersey shore to the S. and W. The Upper Bay has an area of 14 sq. m., is the immediate embouchure of the North and the East river, is connected with the Lower Bay by the Narrows (minimum width 1 m.) and with Newark Bay to the W. by Kill Van Kull, immediately N. of Staten Island, and, except for these four narrow water-ways, is enclosed by land. The North river (maximum depth, 60 ft.) is here about 1 m. wide and the East river (maximum depth more than 100 ft.; in Hell Gate channel about 200 ft.) is about m. wide and, from the Battery to Throg’s Neck and Willett’s Point, where Long Island Sound proper begins, about 20 m. long. The north-east entrance to the harbour, from Long Island Sound by the East river, used principally by New England coasting vessels (especially coal barges), was made navigable for vessels of 25–27 ft. draft by the Federal government, which in 1870–1876 and in 1885 widened and deepened the formerly dangerous narrows and removed the reefs of Hell Gate, between Manhattan Island (E. 88th Street), Blackwell’s Island, Astoria (on the Long Island shore), and Ward’s Island. The third great entry and commercial feeder to the harbour is the North river, by which the great inland water-borne traffic of the Hudson river and the Erie Canal is brought to the port of New York. On the North river are the piers of the transatlantic steamship companies, part of them on the New Jersey side at (q.v.). The coastwise trade with New England, especially through Long Island Sound, is largely from the East river, to which a part of the Hudson river traffic makes its way by the Harlem river. The Harlem is a place of anchorage for small craft.

The narrow approaches to the harbour from the ocean and from Long Island Sound make its fortification easy. On Sandy Hook, less than 8 m. from the nearest points of Rockaway Beach and Coney Island on the other side of the entrance, is Fort Hancock, established as a military reservation (1366 acres) in 1892; it received its present name in 1895, and has an artillery garrison. Between the lower and upper bays, on the Narrows, are Fort Wadsworth (1827; named in honour of General James S. Wadsworth (1807–1864), killed in the battle of the Wilderness), on the Staten Island side, a reservation of 230 acres, including Fort Tompkins, on higher ground than Fort Wadsworth proper, and, across the Narrows, on the Long Island shore, Fort Hamilton (1831), with a reservation of 167 acres. Older fortifications are Fort Lafayette (1807; called Fort Diamond until 1823), between Forts Hamilton and Wadsworth on an artificial island, now used to store ordnance and supplies, and Fort Columbus (1806), South Battery (1812) and Castle Williams (built in 1811 by Jonathan Williams (1750–1815), who planned all the earlier fortifications of New York harbour; it is now a military prison), all on Governor’s Island, where are important barracks and the New York arsenal of the Ordnance Department. The north-eastern approach to the harbour, at the entrance to Long Island Sound, is protected by fortifications, Fort Totten, at Willett’s Point (1862), and directly across from this battery by Fort Schuyler (1826; post established 1856) with a reservation of 52 acres on Throg’s Neck.

Geology.—Manhattan Island (13 m. long; maximum width at 14th Street—2 m.; average width about 2 m.) is a “group of gneissoid islands separated by low levels slightly elevated above tide and filled with drift and alluvium” (L. D. Gale in W. W. Mather’s Geology of New York, 1843), with a steep west wall from Manhattanville (125th Street W. of 8th Avenue) S. beyond 81st Street, and a much steeper east wall. Upon its first occupation by the Dutch the island was rough and rocky with brooks, ponds, marshes and several

swamps. Superficially the island may be divided into: an area of drift, S. of 21st Street on the East river, of 13th street on Broadway and of 31st Street on the North river; a second, narrow area of drift running from Hell Gate N.W. to Manhattanville in a line parallel to the Harlem; a limestone (Inwood limestone) area on the Harlem from its mouth to the sharp turn in its course; a second and smaller limestone area on the Spuyten Duyvil in the north-westernmost part of the island; and the remainder areas of gneiss, the larger part being in two great “islands,” one between the line of E. 21st Street, 13th Street and W. 31st Street, already mentioned, and a line from Hell Gate to Manhattanville, and the other nearly joining the first at Manhattanville and covering all the narrow N.W. part of Manhattan Island except the second limestone area on the Spuyten Duyvil. These two gneiss areas have a southerly tilt; they are named respectively Washington and Morningside Heights. In all these areas, except the limestone, the underlying rock is what is styled Manhattan schist (see U.S. Geologic Atlas, N.Y. City, folio No. 83). The waterfront of Manhattan does not correspond in direction with limestone belts, but is probably due to lines of fracture (see W. H. Hobbs, in Bulletin, Geological Society of America, xvi. 151-182).

The Borough of the Bronx is made of high N.E. and S.W. ridges, sloping E. to the lower shores of Long Island Sound; and the Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens form part of the great terminal moraine. Low serpentine hills (300-380 ft.), with a N.E. and S.W. trend, occupy the central part of the northern end of Staten Island; W. of this is Jura-Trias formation, crossed in its centre by a narrow strip of igneous dike rock; the E. and S. part of the island is Cretaceous. Yellow gravel is one of the many evidences of glacial drift; but the S.E. part of the island was not encroached upon by the moraine.

Climate.—A combination of marine and continental influences produces a humid climate subject to sudden changes of temperature. The temperature, however, rises above 90° F. only six days in a year on the average; it rarely falls below zero; and in a period of thirty-eight years, from 1871 to 1908, extremes ranged between 100°, in September 1881, and −6°, in February 1899. The mean winter temperature (December, January and February) is 32°; the mean summer temperature (June, July and August) is 72°; and the mean annual temperature is 52°. The average monthly rainfall ranges from 3·2 in. in May to 4·5 in. in July and in August, and the mean annual precipitation is 44·8 in. The average annual fall of snow amounts to 37 in., of which 11·5 in. falls in February, 8·7 in. in January and 8·2 in. in March. The average number of hours of sunshine ranges from 150 in November to 271 in June. The prevailing winds are N.W., except in June when they are S.W.

Streets.—In the downtown portion of Manhattan Island, a strip about 2 m. long, some streets follow the irregular water-fronts and others cross these; and on the west side this irregularity extends farther N., in the former Greenwich village (W. and N.W. of Washington Square), where West 4th Street, running N.W., crosses West 12th Street, running S.W. north of Houston Street, then North Street, the northernmost limit of the occupied city; in 1807 a commission laid out the island into streets, which were numbered from S. to N. and were called East and West, as they were E. or W. of Broadway, below 8th Street, and of Fifth Avenue, above 8th, and into avenues, which were numbered from E. to W., Twelfth Avenue being on the North river waterfront. East of First Avenue in a bulge of the Island S. of 23rd Street four additional avenues were named A, B, C, and D, Avenue A being one block E. of First Avenue. Afterwards Madison Avenue was laid out midway between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, N. from 23rd Street, and Lexington Avenue, midway between Third and Fourth Avenues, N. from 21st Street. The most important of the avenues is Broadway, an unfortunately narrow street in the busy downtown part of its course. From Bowling Green, immediately N. of the Battery, it goes in a straight line (E. of N.) for about 2 m. to 10th Street; then bears off to the W. It is called the Boulevard from 78th Street to 162nd Street in its course between Amsterdam Avenue and West End (or Eleventh) Avenue (to 104th Street), and then as a continuation of West End Avenue; and thence to the Yonkers city line is called Kingsbridge Road. The monotonous regularity of the rectangular street plan of Manhattan above 14th Street is partly redeemed by this westward trend of Broadway, the only