It was not until 1823 that the first summer hotel was built in the Catskills, a rude little structure standing where is now the Mountain House, near the summit of the inclined plane railway. The highest peak of the range is Slide Mountain, in the western Catskills, at the head of the Big Indian Valley, rising forty-two hundred and five feet. A large portion of this mountain, including the crest, is a New York State reservation, and from its top six States are in view. These Catskill peaks are built up of huge and jagged piles of crags and broken stone, through which the torrents have carved the "Cloves." The stratified rocks are easily split into layers, and they furnish the towns along the Hudson with much of the flagging used for footwalks. Enormous boulders, some as big as a house, are liberally strewn about, where they were dropped by the great glacier. Among the grandest of the gorges, which the torrents have cleft, is the Kaaterskill Clove, its stream, after various windings, finally flowing eastward towards the Hudson. As the name Kaatskill comes from the cat, so the Kaaterskill is regarded as derived from an animal of most complete feline development, the "gentleman cat." The steep borders of this Kaaterskill Clove, a wonderful canyon, down in the bottom of which ice and snow remain during the summer, furnish many points of remarkable outlook, giving a startling realization of the vast scale of these mountains. The stream bubbles far below, heard but not seen, and the mountain peaks above are occasionally obscured by passing clouds. Adjoining this canyon is an immense gorge carved out of the hills, into which pours the majestic Kaaterskill Falls, plunging down an abyss of two hundred and sixty feet in two leaps, respectively of one hundred and eighty and eighty feet. The stream is dammed above the cataract, so that in times of drouth the water may be retained and the falls thus be exhibited at intervals by turning on the water, as is the case with various cataracts in Switzerland. Few waterfalls have had more praises sung than this ribbon of spray, which was a favorite both of Cooper and Bryant. An inscription on the rock at the foot preserves the memory of a faithful dog, who once jumped down to follow a stone, because he thought it his master's bidding.