LETTER XIII.

RIVER NIAGARA-BLACK ROCK-WESTERN BANK OF THE RIVERGRAND ISLAND-CHIPPAWA-GOAT ISLAND-GREAT RAPIDFIRST VIEW OF THE FALLS-EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE-RECENT DISRUPTION OF THE BANK-TABLE ROCK-LADDER-BOTTOM OF THE PRECIPICE-RAINBOW-VIEW BY MOONLIGHT-DIF

FERENT POINTS OF SIGHT-MEASUREMENT OF THE FALLSTHEORIES OF GEOLOGISTS-WHIRLPOOL-QUEENSTON.

Niagara, October, 1818.

THE Falls of Niagara1 have been so frequently described, and the whole vocabulary of sublimity so completely exhausted in the service, that it seems doubtful whether it would not be better to pass them by in silence, and refer you for an account of them to the narratives of former travellers. I am more desirous to sketch a correct picture of the moral, than of the physical characteristics of America, and yet it would perhaps be improper that the latter should be altogether excluded. I have given you an account of many objects much less celebrated and

1 Said to be an Iroquois word, signifying the thunder of waters. The Indians pronounce it Niagara, but Americans and Canadians universally Niágăra; the latter accentuation is sanctioned by the author of Letters of the Fudge Family,' who proposes in one of

them

" 'stead of pistol or dagger, a

Desperate leap down the falls of Niagara."

important than these tremendous cataracts, and having visited them twice, consistency perhaps requires that they should occupy a page or two in my narrative. I ask your indulgence therefore to what follows, and if I cannot be poetical I shall try at least to be correct.

The Niagara, though called a river, would be more accurately described as a natural canal, through which the waters of lake Erie2 pass northward into lake Ontario. The level of lake Ontario is greatly lower than that of lake Erie; I do not know that the difference has ever been accurately ascertained, but it has been estimated at 450 feet. I am inclined to think however that this is very considerably above the truth, and should suppose 350 to be a nearer approximation.3 Of this descent, rather more than 200 feet are accomplished at the great falls, nearly midway between the two lakes, and the remainder in the gradual declivity of the channel above and below them.

The traveller crosses from the American to the Canadian side at Black Rock, two miles below Buffalo. The channel is here about a mile in width, and the water issues from lake Erie in a very deep and impetuous current; the ferry-boat describes a very considerable curve before reaching the Canadian shore.

2 Pronounced Eery.

This may now be correctly ascertained from the levels of the great western canal.

CLOUDS OF SPRAY.

33

It was on a beautiful morning that I last left Buffalo; the sky was clear and the air perfectly serene. Not a single cloud was seen upon the broad expanse, except in the northwest, on the very verge of the horizon, where two little fleecy specks appeared and disappeared at intervals; sometimes rising separately, and sometimes mingling their vapours. These were clouds of spray rising above the falls; perfectly conspicuous to the naked eye at a distance of twenty miles.1

The western bank of the Niagara has been settled for a considerable period; the land is of excellent quality, and a great part of it cleared and cultivated. It will no doubt be a long time, ere the whole landscape assume that unpicturesque commonplace, which is produced by ploughing and harrowing, levelling and enclosing; many an axe must be raised, and many a lofty pine-tree measure its length upon the ground, ere waving grain displace all the shaggy forests which stretch around. Time however, that silent but most innovating of reformers, is working wondrous changes on this western world; and his operations are nowhere so apparent as on the banks of navigable streams. few years, perhaps, the noise of the cataracts may be drowned in the busy hum of men ; and the smoke

In a

Weld says that he saw the clouds of spray from the falls, while sailing on lake Erie, at a distance of 54 miles. From the appearance which they presented at a distance of 20 miles, I am inclined to think this not at all improbable.

of clustering towns, or more crowded cities, obscure on the horizon the clouds of spray, which at present tower without a rival.

Passing along the bank you soon reach Grand Island, embraced in the forking of the river. Each arm of the stream is more than a mile in width; the western channel is the boundary between the British and American possessions, and this island, nearly seven miles long and containing between twenty and thirty thousand acres, is of course left within the territory of New York. It is of an irregular lozenge shape, and as yet thickly covered with pines and cedars.

Passing Grand Island, and Navy Island a smaller one which succeeds it, the stream becomes about two miles and a half wide, and you reach Chippawa creek, village, and fort, between two and three miles above the falls. Here terminates the navigation of the upper part of the Niagara, for the rapidity of the stream soon increases so considerably, that vessels cannot with safety venture farther. The change becomes very soon obvious on the surface of the water. Neither waves however, nor any violent agitation is visible for some time; you see only

"The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below."

Dimples and indented lines, with here and there a little eddying whirl, run along near the shore; betokening at once the depth of the channel, the vast body of water, and the accelerated impetus with