NIAGARA FALLS.
“It is the New York Rhine,” said Mr. Beal, smiling. “The river [!-- illustration --] [!-- blank page --] St. Lawrence is, by right of analogy, the American Rhine, and so deserves to be called.”
“Which is the larger river?” asked Charlie.
“The larger?”
“Yes, the longer?”
“It does not seem possible that an American schoolboy could seriously ask such a question! I am sometimes astonished, however, at the ignorance that older people of intelligence show in regard to our river of which all Americans should be proud.
“Ours is the Greater Rhine. The German Rhine is less than a thousand miles long; our Rhine is nearly twenty-five hundred miles long: the German Rhine can at almost any point be easily spanned with bridges; our Rhine defies bridges, except in its narrowest boundaries. The great inland seas of Superior, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Erie require a width of miles for their pathway to the ocean. The Rhine falls cannot be compared with Niagara, nor the scattered islands of the old river with the Lake of a Thousand Islands of the new. Quebec is as beautiful as Coblentz, and Montreal is in its situation one of the loveliest cities of the world.
“The tributaries of the old Rhine are small; those of the new are almost as large as the old Rhine itself,—the gloomy Saguenay, and the sparkling Ottawa.