NOTES. A. Benjamin Moore, D. D. Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New-York, an alumnus of our College, graduated Batchelor of Arts in 1768, and Master in 1771; held the office of President of the College ad interim, in 1775; was appointed on the revival of the institution, in 1784, Professor of Rhetoric and Logic, which appointment he held until 1787; and was chosen President in the year 1801, which office he laid down in 1811. Dewitt Clinton entered the Junior Class in 1784, and graduated Batchelor in 1786; Bishop Moore was therefore the only Professor in that department during the undergraduate course of the former. B. Before that part of our state which lies west of the Genessee river was explored, it might well have been doubted, whether lake Erie were accessible by an artificial navigation, except through the gorge worn by the Niagara river. The great mountain ridges of our country run in four continuous chains, nearly parallel to each other, through the States of North Carolina and Virginia. The easternmost of these, a primitive range, continues separate, and crosses the states of Pennsylvania and New-Jersey to New-York, where it is pierced at a great depth by the Hudson, forming what are called the Highlands of that river. The other three ridges become intermingled in the State of Pennsylvania, and assume the form rather of a vast table land with deep vallies, and a few isolated peaks, than of distinct mountain chains. The Susquehannah alone pierces this elevated region, but is so much embarrassed by rocks and rapids as to be unfit for the purposes of navigation. This high table land terminates to the northeast in the Shawangunk and Kaatskill mountains. The first finishes what is called in Pennsylvania the Blue Ridge; the second turns suddenly to the westward, and is seen from the heights near Albany, extending in a succession of lofty peaks as far as the eye can reach. But one important spur is set off by them to the north, which is pierced by the Mohawk at the Little Falls of that river. Thus by the deep tide channel of the Hudson, a natural navigable passage is opened through the most formidable, if not the highest of our mountain ridges, while the only remaining barrier between the ocean and lake Ontario is pierced by the valley of the Mohawk, and thus gives room for an artificial navigation. But a person, who knows only the valley of the Hudson, and has seen the Kaatskill range turning suddenly westward, might, on inspecting the map, be led at first to infer that the Falls of Niagara were caused by the continuation of this line of mountains. But this is not the fact. The great Allegany range is not seen to the westward of lake Canandaigua, and lake Erie occupies a shallow basin in a great table land, through the edges of which its waters have worn their way; and thus the Niagara river offers the rare spectacle of a fall far from any mountain range. Other, but far smaller streams, fall from this table land in the same manner; and as a river which pursues, for a long time, a level nearly the same with several of them, turns towards the southwest, and runs into the Niagara above the falls, it was not difficult to infer that there was more than one practicable pass, wherein locks might be established, to permit a navigation to pass eastward without entering into lake Ontario, or being compelled to enter the chasm worn by the Niagara. Such on on examination turned out to be the case; and two practicable routes were actually reported by the engineers, of which that by Lockport was preferred. C. Gouverneur Morris was also one of those alumni in whom Columbia College takes a just and honourable pride. The classmate of Benjamin Moore, John Stevens, Peter Van Shaick, and Gulian Verplanck, he was the cotemporary at College of Richard Harrison, John Jay, Egbert Benson, Robert L. Livingston, and Henry Rutgers, and even in such a constellation of useful talent and brilliant genius, shone with no common splendour. My remarks, it will therefore be at once seen, were made with no view of derogating from his great and acknowledged merit, as a scholar, an orator, a statesman, and diplomatist. He has in truth so much of honour, really and fairly merited, that his fame can afford to part with the claims that have been urged for him, in relation to the canal policy of our state, without losing any of its splendour. At the time of his education, Science had not yet taken its just and proper standing by the side of Literature in Columbia College; it cannot therefore derogate from his character, that he should have treated questions of internal improvement, in strains of classic and almost poetic eloquence, rather than in the cool method of philosophic discussion. D. As it appears that this part of my discourse was misunderstood by some of my auditors, some explanation may perhaps be necessary. It certainly was not intended by me to arrogate for Dr. Kemp honour other than that which any able teacher may claim in the subsequent honours of his pupils. The policy of opening a direct navigable communication to lake Erie was spoken of by him as early as 1805, when I attended his lectures on Geography, and probably before that date. But this was accompanied by a strong expression of doubt whether the face of the country would admit of it. When he assured himself that his doubt was ill-founded, he communicated the fact, at the moment, to no other person but myself, who had the good fortune to be his travelling companion. It was no doubt communicated to his class in 1811, but before that time the report of the commissioners was made public, and his conviction, however agreeable to himself, had no influence upon the subsequent operations. No communication ever took place on the subject with Dewitt Clinton; for it unfortunately happened that these two men, who mutually esteemed each other, had become estranged by the conflicts of party. For Dr. Kemp, although he had, from personal attachment to Gov. George Clinton, moved with the Republican party up to 1799, became, in consequence of early impressions in favour of the policy of maintaining a respectable military and naval force, and from other predilections, that might now perhaps be called aristocratic, a decided Federalist. E. Robert Troup, Esq. who at one period in the history of the canal policy of the state, was second in the character of his useful services to Clinton alone, having been the main instrument in awakening the minds of the people of the Western District of the state, to the importance of the work. For an account of his valuable labours see the Appendix to Hosack's Memoir. F. The fact that the Atelier of Rubens was a great workshop, in which pictures were fabricated under his direction, receiving frequently no more of their mechanical execution from his own hand, than the mere finish, is too well known to need illustration. The picture which is here referred to was painted for the Duke of Olivares, prime minister of Philip IV. of Spain, and was originally placed in the Church of a Carmelite Convent, built by him at Locches, near Madrid. During the occupation of Spain by the French it was removed to Paris, and placed beside the other pictures of Rubens, painted for Catharine of Medicis, in the Gallery of the Luxembourg. Its merit, however, far eclipses any of these, and of all pictures I have ever seen, it is calculated to give the highest opinion of the skill and science of the painter. |