WATKIN’S CASCADE FROZEN.
Passing through Glen Alpha, where the awful sublimity of a tremendous chasm oppresses the visitor on first view, we caught sight of Twin Falls, where the waters pour down in two great sluices and become wedded in a swirling pool that pours out the overflow through a cañon whose walls have been scarified by the teeth of centuries. Below the falls is Whirlpool Gorge, an amphitheater that is striated and terraced into forms so variable as to please every conceit and yet arouse amazement. The stream dashes into this capricious auditorium at a maddening pace, but encounters resistance in the curving walls, and is thus thrown into a rapid, whirling movement like a maelstrom; and this rotary action of the waters has worn the half-encircling walls into many singular, though usually symmetrical shapes.
Climbing out of Whirlpool Gorge and moving southward a short distance along a railed ledge, we come in sight of Peek-a-boo Falls, a beautiful sheet of water plunging over a precipice fifty feet high, and scattering its spray along the walls that confine its descent, for the chasm is very narrow here, and charming for its sylvan weirdness. The cliffs are very pictures in stone, rising in tiers and carved into fantastic forms, while the overhanging trees, graceful ferns and velvety mosses make the place a bower in which fairies might delight to dwell.
GIANT’S GORGE, IN CHATEAUGAY CHASM.
WHIRLPOOL GORGE, WATKINS GLEN.