Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/82

 club, trotting matches on the ice-bound lake, and snow-bound streets rolled to marble smoothness for gay and luxurious sleigh-riding; in summer, its brilliancy is often compared with that of Paris. In the loss of the old-time social exclusiveness it has gained in cosmopolitan character and in the rich variety of its life and amusements.

In considering the story of Saratoga, we cannot confine our attention to the town of Saratoga Springs, with its sharply defined boundaries and rectangular lines of political division which mark the limit of the voters for supervisor at the annual town-meeting. But if we include the county in our narrative, then, indeed, may we recall the vision which presents the individuality of the name Saratoga. For Saratoga County is outlined by a great eastward and southern sweep of the Hudson River for seventy miles from its narrow gorge at Luzerne, where the wild savage chief of colonial days leaped across the mighty river to escape his pursuing foe, down over the precipitous Palmer's Falls, and over the cavern-haunted Glen's Falls, and onward to old Fort Edward, where its waters turn shortly to the south and pursue their troubled way along the