Chancellor Livingston was sent Minister to France, and when he returned he brought over merino sheep, introducing them into this country. His great honor as a man of science comes from his connection with Fulton's steamboat experiments. He met Fulton in Paris, and was closely connected with the first steamboat on the Hudson, which in fact could not have been built without his aid. By the help of Livingston's money, Fulton in 1807 built this steamboat in New York, naming her the "Clermont" in his honor. The experiment was publicly derided as "Fulton's Folly," but he persevered and succeeded. The "Clermont" was one hundred feet long, twelve feet beam and seven feet depth. In September, 1807, she made the first successful experimental trip from New York to Albany in thirty-six hours, charging the passengers $7.50 fare. She afterwards made regular trips, and on October 5, 1807, the _Albany Gazette_ announced: "Mr. Fulton's new steamboat left New York on the 2d, at ten o'clock A.M., against a strong tide, very rough water, and a violent gale from the north. She made a headway against the most sanguine expectations and without being rocked by the waves." Chancellor Livingston in Jefferson's Administration negotiated the cession of Louisiana by France to the United States, and ripe with honors, he died at Clermont in 1813. THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. Opposite these great estates, the Catskill Mountains rise in all their glory, spreading across the western horizon at a distance of eight to ten miles from the Hudson River. They stretch for about fifteen miles, and the range covers some five hundred square miles. The most prominent peaks in the view are Round Top and the High Peak, rising thirty-seven hundred and thirty-eight hundred feet, and in front of them, on lower elevations, are the summer hotels that have such superb views over the Hudson River valley. The town of Catskill on the river--a flourishing settlement of five thousand people--is the usual point of entrance, and from it a railway extends back to the bases of the mountains. An inclined plane railway over a mile long then ascends the face of the range, sixteen hundred feet high, to the hotels. This "Otis Elevating Railway," which accomplishes its journey in about ten minutes, is said to be the greatest inclined road in the world. The Indians knew these grand peaks as the Onti Ora, or "Mountains of the Sky," thus named because in some conditions of the atmosphere they appear like a heavy cumulus cloud hanging above the horizon. The weird Indian tradition was that among these mountains was held the treasury of storms and sunshine for the Hudson, presided over by the spirit of an old Indian squaw who dwelt within the range. She kept the day and the night imprisoned, letting out one at a time, and made new moons every month and hung them up in the sky, for they first appeared among these mountains, and then she cut up the old moons into stars. The