The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

CATARACTS AND CASCADES

It has often been remarked that no one is insensible to the beauty of flowing water. When it glides quietly on in a stream, its character is that of gentleness, and it suggests only the ideas of calm and tranquil beauty. But when it expands to a greater width, and its floods are poured forth in an impetuous tide, then it assumes the aspect of grandeur, and wakens in the beholder the emotions of sublimity.

The beauty of running water has, indeed, long been celebrated, and the river has often suggested an image illustrative of human life. Even Pliny, who wrote some two thousand years ago, likens a river to the progress of man. “Its beginnings,” he says, “are insignificant, and its infancy is frivolous; it plays among the flowers of a meadow, it waters a garden, or turns a mill. Gathering strength in its growth, it becomes wild and impetuous. Impatient of the restraint it meets with in the hollows of the mountains, it is restless and fretful, quick in its turnings, and unsteady in its course. Now it is a roaring cataract, tearing up and overturning whatever opposes its progress, and it shoots headlong down a rock; then it becomes a gloomy, sullen pool, buried in the bottom of a glen. Recovering breath by repose, it again dashes along, till, tired of uproar and mischief, it quits all that it has swept along, and leaves the opening of the valley strewed with the rejected waste. Now, quitting its retirement, it comes abroad into the world, journeying with more prudence and discretion through cultivated fields, yielding to circumstances, and winding round what would trouble it to overwhelm or remove. It passes through the populous cities, and all the busy haunts of man, tenders its services on every side, and becomes the support and ornament of the country. Increased by numerous alliances, and advanced in its course, it becomes grave and stately in its motions, loves peace and quiet, and in majestic silence rolls on its mighty waters, till it is laid to rest in the vast abyss.”

FALLS OF NIAGARA.

Cataracts or falls are formed by the descent of rivers over rocks, from a higher to a lower level. That of Niagara, is situated on the river Niagara, between Canada and the United States, which takes its rise in the eastern extremity of Lake Erie, and, after flowing for thirty-five miles, empties itself into Lake Ontario. Its breadth is nine hundred feet, and its depth very considerable; but its current is so exceedingly strong and irregular, and its channel so frequently interspersed with rocks, that it is navigable for small boats only. Proceeding lower, the stream widens, and the rocks gradually recede from the view, and the current though strong, is smooth and regular. At Fort Chippewa, however, situated one league above the cataracts, the scene is again changed, and the river so agitated, that a boat would be inevitably dashed in pieces, were it permitted to pass Fort Niagara, situated on its bank. So impetuously do the waves break among the rocks, that the mere sight of them, from the adjacent shore, is sufficient to strike terror in the spectator. As it approaches the falls, the stream rushes along, with redoubled fury, until it reaches the edge of the stupendous precipice, when it tumbles suddenly to the bottom, without meeting with any obstruction in its descent. Precisely at this place, the river strikes off to the right, and the line of cataracts winds obliquely across, instead of extending, in the shortest direction, from the one bank to the other. It ought to be observed, that the water does not precipitate itself down the vast abyss in one entire sheet, but, being separated by islands, forms three distinct, collateral falls.

One of these is called the great or Horseshoe fall, from the similarity of its form to that of a horseshoe. It is situated on the north-west extremity of the river, and is most deserving of the attention of the spectator, as probably seven-eighths of the water passes over it, and as its grandeur is evidently superior to that of the adjacent cataracts, although its hight may be somewhat less. As the extent of this fall can be ascertained by the eye only, it is impossible precisely to describe its limits; but its circumference is generally computed at eighteen hundred feet, somewhat more than one-third of a mile. Beyond the intervening island, the width of which may be equal to one thousand and fifty feet, is the second fall, about fifteen feet wide; and at the distance of ninety feet, occupied by the second island, is the third fall, the dimensions of which may be reckoned equal to those of the large island; so that the entire extent of the precipice, including the intermediate islands, is four thousand and five feet; a computation which certainly does not exceed the truth. The quantity of water precipitated from the falls is prodigious, and it has been estimated, amounts to six hundred and seventy thousand, two hundred and fifty tuns per minute.

From the eminence entitled the Table rock, the spectator has a fine prospect of the terrific rapids above the falls, and of the surrounding shores, embellished with lofty woods. He there sees to advantage the adjacent Horseshoe fall, and the dread abyss, into which he may look perpendicularly from the edge of the rock, if his courage be equal to his curiosity. The immensity of the various objects which here present themselves to the view, infallibly overwhelms a stranger with astonishment, and several minutes must elapse before he can possibly collect himself sufficiently to form any just conception of the awful and magnificent scene before him, which requires that all its component parts should be separately examined, and which affords so truly surprising an exhibition, that persons who have resided in its vicinity for several years, and who have been constantly habituated to its sublimity, ingenuously acknowledge, at their last visit, that they were never able before to discover its peculiar grandeur.

From a cliff nearly opposite to one extremity of the third fall, the falls are seen in a very interesting point of view: the scenery there, it is true, is less magnificent, but is infinitely more beautiful than from any other station. For several miles beneath the precipice the river is bounded, on either side, by steep and lofty cliffs, composed of earth and rocks, which in most parts are perpendicular. The descent to the bottom of the falls was formerly accomplished by two ladders, formed of long pine trees, with notches on their sides, on which the traveler rested his feet, and passed down amidst a variety of huge misshapen rocks and pendant trees, seeming to threaten him with instantaneous destruction. The breadth of the river in this part is about two furlongs; and toward the right, on the opposite side, the third fall appears in a very advantageous point of view. About one-half of the Horse-shoe fall is concealed by the projecting cliff, but its partial prospect is extremely fine. The bottom of the former of these falls is skirted with a beautiful white foam, which ascends from the rock in thick volumes, but does not rise into the air like a cloud of smoke, as is the case with that of the latter fall, although its spray is so considerable, as to descend like a shower of rain, near the second ladder, on the opposite side of the river. On its brink, and along the strand, to the great fall, are to be constantly seen shattered trees and bodies of animals, which have been carried away by the extreme violence of the current.

The color of the water of the cataracts, as it descends perpendicularly on the rocks, is occasionally a dark green, and sometimes a foaming, brilliant white, displaying a thousand elegant variations, according to the state of the atmosphere, the hight of the sun, or the force of the wind. A portion of the spray, resulting from the falls, frequently towers above the hight, and literally mingles with the clouds: while the remainder, broken in its descent by fragments of rocks, is in continual agitation. The noise, irregularity, and rapid descent of the stream, continue about eight miles further; and the river is not sufficiently calm to admit of navigation, till it reaches Queenstown, on the west side of the river, and nine miles from the falls.

A late tourist has given us a more recent and fresh view of this wonderful cataract, which will aid us more fully to understand its various aspects as taken from different points of observation. “From the bank just below the ‘Clifton House,’ he says, “is perhaps the finest panoramic view of the falls. The general outline bears a resemblance to the shape of a human ear; the great Horseshoe fall [which is represented on the right hand of the cut below] constituting the upper lobe, while Goat island and the American fall [as seen on the left] represent the remaining portion. The river, whose general course has been east and west, makes a sharp turn to the right just at the point where the fall now is. Its breadth is here contracted from three-fourths of a mile to less than one-fourth. The Horseshoe fall only occupies the head of the chasm, while the American cataract falls over its side; so that this fall and a part of the Horseshoe lie directly parallel with the Canada shore, and its whole extent can be taken in at a single glance. It is this oneness of aspect which renders the prospect from this side so much the more impressive for a first view of Niagara. It gives a strong, sharp outline which may afterward be filled up at leisure.