On inquiring why Goat Island is thus named you will perhaps be told that it was once owned by a man who pastured several animals on it; among them a goat, which perished during a severe winter. Any one visiting the Falls during the winter, when a cold wind sweeps across the island, can readily see how they "got this man's goat."
The earliest description of the Falls is that by Father Hennepin, a Franciscan monk, who with LaSalle visited it in 1678 and published this account of it: "Betwixt Lake Ontario and Erie there is a vast and prodigious column of water which falls down after a manner surprising and astonishing, inasmuch that the universe does not afford a parallel. 'Tis true—Italy and Switzerland boast of some such things; but we may well say that they are sorry patterns when compared to this of which we speak. At the foot of the horrible descent, we meet with the Niagara river, which is not above a quarter of a league broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above the descent that it violently hurries down the wild beasts, while endeavoring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able to withstand the force of the current, which invariably casts them headlong about six hundred feet high.
"This wonderful downfall is composed of two cross streams of water, and two falls with an aisle sloping along the middle of it. The waters which fall from this horrible precipice do foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise more terrible than that of thunder." One can easily see that the imaginative and excitable Frenchman is under the spell of the great cataract.
But let us return to the island and follow the path that winds among the trees until Stedman's Bluff is gained. Your reverie is broken by the news that you are near this point. You go hurriedly now and your speed is accelerated by hearing the noise of the falls.
"Crowds of people fill the cool woodland paths; dark evergreens and aged beech trees form a leafy screen on which the sunlight falls, making a trembling, shifting mosaic as the branches open and close in the passing breeze." The air is filled with melody and redolent with the breath of the pine that is mingled with various wild flowers. Here one is impressed with the awe he feels while treading the dim aisles of some vast cathedral. Your attention is diverted for a brief time by a species of flower unknown to you. You pause long enough to recognize it, then hurry on scarce noting the livid green of the waters going to their fate, swiftly and with unbounded freedom, as if glad to escape some pursuing demon of the watery underworld. One almost feels sad as he watches the waters dash in utter helplessness over the awful precipice.
Following the shore line from this point you come to a spiral stairway that leads to the little wooden bridges that connect the various rocks. Many visitors still go in front of that superb sheet of water called, "The Bridal Veil." But owing to an accident resulting in the death of three people, they no longer permit visitors to enter the Cave of the Winds. A huge rock whose estimated weight is many tons fell from above, crushing the luckless victims. Even though you do not go behind the falls this trip is full of fascinating interest. The Cave of the Winds is situated between Luna and Goat Islands, at the foot of the rock. At the present site of the Falls the edge of the cataract is formed by a stratum of hard limestone reaching to a depth of about eighty feet; and by the action of the spray the softer shaly strata below have been hollowed out so as to form this cave. It is about one hundred feet wide, one hundred and sixty feet high, and about one hundred feet across.
You will perhaps go from here to a very commanding point known as Porter's Bluff. Here, when the wind is favorable, you are away from the drenching spray of the Falls. Here, too, the American Falls are seen in all their grandeur. They shoot free from the upper edge of the cliff, owing to the velocity they have acquired in descending from the rapids above. As this vast mass of water strikes the rocks below, loud, thunder-like detonations are heard not unlike the reverberating tones of the breakers of the ocean. There is a mellowness in the sound that is soothing rather than a deafening roar as some seem to think.
At one point in the American Falls the water strikes a projecting shelf of rock a short distance below the upper ledge and is pulverized yet finer, making it gush out in silvery plumes, which are worn to lustrous threads of marble whiteness. They form long gauzy streamers as fine as sifted snow, giving to it the name of "Bridal Veil." No bride ever wore a veil of such delicate and exquisite texture unless it was some water sprite, fit creature to be adorned with such gauzy and wind-woven drapery. Only the fairy looms of Nature can produce lace-like gossamer films of such intricate and varied designs.
>From this point the colors of the American Falls are superb. How remarkably soft and fine they are! The pearl-grey, snow-white, lavender and green masses seem to mingle together, blending imperceptibly from one to the other, making a novel and beautiful effect that surpasses the rarest dreams of the most gifted decorative painter. The extreme beauty of delicate and striking variety of coloring, like evening skies and sunset seas, baffle any attempt at description. When the morning sunbeams stream through the mist of the Falls their exquisite tones of purple and gray and the marvelous fineness of the American Falls come to one like a revelation.
One can never forget his morning visit to the American Falls when the sunlight comes from the required angles, heightening the beauty of the whole wild mass of waters, sifting in ravishing splendor through the clouds of drifting spray. What an artist Nature is! One has seen nothing in the delicate colored wing of night moths, in the purple bloom of the ocean, the color of autumn woods or clouds of fair Italian skies, that could rival this "evanescent bow" in exquisite fineness. A huge mass of lovely colors, like an arch of glory, rises from the boiling spray near you, while a breeze causes the larger mass to waver from color to color and mingle with the trees on the Canadian shore. A secondary bow with softer colors is visible like a long remembered dream you have had with which you associate some real event of life.