A drop of water at Albany, therefore, will
be nearly three weeks in reaching New York, though it will get pretty
well pickled some days earlier. Some rivers by their volume and
impetuosity penetrate the sea, but here the sea is the aggressor, and
sometimes meets the mountain water nearly half way. This fact was
illustrated a couple of years ago, when the basin of the Hudson was
visited by one of the most severe droughts ever known in this part of
the State. In the early winter after the river was frozen over above
Poughkeepsie, it was discovered that immense numbers of fish were
retreating up stream before the slow encroachment of salt water. There
was a general exodus of the finny tribes from the whole lower part of
the river; it was like the spring and fall migration of the birds, or
the fleeing of the population of a district before some approaching
danger: vast swarms of cat-fish, white and yellow perch and striped
bass were _en route_ for the fresh water farther north. When the
people along shore made the discovery, they turned out as they do in
the rural districts when the pigeons appear, and, with small gill-nets
let down through holes in the ice, captured them in fabulous numbers.
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