THE STATUE OF LIBERTY
What a different picture the harbor presents to-day from the one Hudson saw over three hundred years ago! The quiet undisturbed waters of that time are now alive the year around with craft of every sort, from the giant ocean liner to the graceful sailboat. Vessels freighted with merchandise, tugs towing canal boats, ferries for Staten Island, barges loaded with coal, river steamers, excursion boats, and battleships from far and near, day and night, pass in an endless procession where the solitary Indian used to glide in his silent canoe.
When the Dutch bought Manhattan it was a beautiful wooded island inhabited by Indians who supplied their simple wants by hunting and fishing. What a change the island has undergone since that time! The Indians have disappeared with the forest. In their place live and struggle vast armies of human beings gathered together from all the corners of the earth. Where squaws used to pitch their wigwams, giant skyscrapers tower up toward the clouds. The stillness of the forest has been succeeded by the noise and bustle of a busy city. The lazy monotonous life of the savage has given way to a ceaseless activity and hurry.
The twenty-four dollars which bought the whole island—less than three hundred years ago—would not now buy a single square inch in the center of the city. The hunting and fishing ground of the red men has become the heart of the greatest city of the Western Hemisphere.
NEW YORK
FACTS TO REMEMBER
Population (1910), nearly 5,000,000 (4,766,883).
First city in population in the United States.
Second city in population in the world.
Divided into five sections, called boroughs.
Carries on more than half the foreign trade of the United States.