From Bailey’s Beach begins the beautiful Ocean or Ten Mile Drive, which skirts the coast of the peninsula to the south of the town for about ten miles, commanding magnificent views.
The locality of Newport has many natural curiosities, including the Hanging Rocks, Spouting Cave, and the Glen, or “Purgatory,” already referred to. Newport is the seat of the United States Naval War College, United States Training Station, Torpedo Station, Naval Hospital, Newport Hospital, and Hazard Memorial School.
The manufactures are flour, cotton goods, copper, brass, oil, etc.
Newport was settled in 1638 by eighteen adherents of Roger Williams, and was an important commercial town prior to the Revolutionary war, which effected its ruin and transferred its trade to New York. During the war it was occupied for three years by the British, and for a while by the French under Rochambeau. It was the birthplace of Commodore Perry and William Ellery Channing, and for a while the place of residence of Bishop Berkeley, the English philosopher.
New York City, N. Y. [The “Empire City”; also “Gotham”; named from the State which was named in honor of James, Duke of York, afterwards James II.]
It is the largest and most important city on the American continent, the second wealthiest on the globe, and, next to London, the most populous in the world. Situated on New York Bay at the confluence of the Hudson and East Rivers, about twelve miles from the Atlantic Ocean, it consists of the boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond, which have a joint area of three hundred and twenty-six square miles. Its extreme length, north and south, is thirty-five miles, its extreme width nineteen miles.
Manhattan, or New York proper, consists mainly of Manhattan Island, a long and narrow tongue of land bounded by the Hudson or North River on the west and the East River (part of Long Island Sound) on the east and separated from the mainland on the north and northeast by the narrow Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek; but also includes several small islands in New York Bay and the East River.
Manhattan Island is thirteen and one-half miles long, with an average breadth of one and three-fifths miles, and with the exception of a small, wild, and rocky portion, which is utilized for ornamental purposes, the entire island is laid out in avenues and streets. It includes several greens and parks, and its area has been considerably extended by filling in on the two river-sides.
The strikingly beautiful landlocked harbor of New York includes the lower bay, the upper bay, the East River, and the North, or Hudson River. Ocean steamships enter it from the sea by Sandy [608] Hook through the Narrows, and coasting ships from the north through Long Island Sound. The North River averages a mile wide; the East River is not so wide, but both are deep enough for the largest ships, and furnish many miles of wharfage. The Harlem River, at the north end of Manhattan Island, connects the two great rivers.
The bar at Sandy Hook, eighteen miles south of the city, which divides the Atlantic Ocean from the outer or lower bay, is crossed by two ship-channels, from twenty-one to thirty-two feet deep at ebb-tide. The lower bay covers eighty-eight square miles. The Narrows, through which all large ships pass on their way to the inner harbor, is a strait between Long Island and Staten Island, about a mile in width, and like other approaches is defended by forts. New York’s harbor or inner bay covers about fourteen square miles; it is one of the amplest, safest, and most picturesque on the globe, open all the year round.