* * *
Tell me, where'er thy silver bark be steering,
Bright Dian floating by fair Persian lands,
Tell if thou visited, thou heavenly rover,
A lovelier stream than this the wide world over.
_Charles Fenno Hoffman._
* * *
=Poughkeepsie to Kingston.=
Leaving the Poughkeepsie dock the steamer approaches the Poughkeepsie
Bridge which, from Blue Point and miles below, has seemed to the
traveler like a delicate bit of lace-work athwart the landscape,
or like an old-fashioned "valance" which used to hang from Dutch
bedsteads in the Hudson River farm houses. This great cantilever
structure was begun in 1873, but abandoned for several years. The work
was resumed in 1886 just in time to save the charter, and was finished
by the Union Bridge Company in less than three years. The bridge is
12,608 feet in length (or about two miles and a half), the track being
212 feet above the water with 165 feet clear above the tide in the
centre span. The breadth of the river at this point is 3,094 feet. The
bridge originally cost over three million dollars and much more has
been annually spent in necessary improvements.
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