Excerpt from The Illustration Of The Catskill Mountains: Sketched From Nature, A Special Guide Deservedly do the Americans call their treasure the American Switzerland. And above all, this perfect gem'of Nature's beauty is situated in the immediate neighborhood of the great metropolis. It seems as if the gods, in their inscrutable Wisdom, had or dained that this great city should grow up in the vicinity of the Catskills, that it might have withi1ieasy reach, a place of recreation unsurpassed in the splendor of its scenery. The mountains are not only a source of pleasure to the city inhabitants, but of something far more valuable, which money cannot buy, and that is a sound and healthy condition of mind and body. We shall not dwell upon the beneficial effects of a mountainous climate upon the constitution. Our judgment is of but little value, compared with the protes sioual opinion of such renowned physicians as Doctors Hammond, Loomis, Sayre, etc., Who have repeatedly borne testimony to the indisputable fact that a season spent in the mountainous regions, in the midst of all that is beautiful. Splendid and invigorating, can not be otherwise than beneficial. On all sides our eyes behold divine and awe-inspiring beauty and we turn with a grateful heart to i-iim, the Supreme Architect of the Universe. In submitting this work to the public, we believe we are rendering them a service which ought to secure us their good - will. We furnish the reader a safe guide - book upon which he can implicitly rely. It is not published solely for the purpose of advertising, but, on the contrary, to give the public an idea of the beautiful and romantic country so near at hand. The illustrations furnished are faa'jthful pictures from Nature, taken on the spot. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.