It is shown to the best advantage in the Cave of the Winds, which, during the past thirty years, by this wind-and-water-blast process, has been enlarged to four times its former size. Some day the layer of rock at the top of that cave will fall; the edge of the Luna Island Fall will be thus moved back a number of feet; the Cave of the Winds will become merely a narrow space between the outward-curving fall of water and the perpendicular rock; and the wind-and-water-blast will continue its erosive work on that rocky face;—and in the course of years will again produce a distinct cave.
The other scientific question—which the future will answer—is, How fast does this Niagara concrete form? With that 400 feet length of cliff on the Canadian shore—which was formerly covered by the end of the Horse-shoe Fall—exposed to the air and to observation (the outer end of those crevices in its face being now free from any such deposit); with the extensive excavations on the debris slope for the Power House below the bank, exposing new surfaces, where little such deposit now appears; with other probable excavations in connection with the power development, exposing similar surfaces at other points along the Gorge; it will be possible to approximately determine the yearly amount of accumulation and deposit of this ancient Niagara product. For that deposit will go on as ceaselessly as it has been going on, ever since the time—possibly many thousands of years ago—when the waters of a great lake (which was formed by the melting of the ice sheet) covered all this region; finally breaking over its northern barrier at the Lewiston escarpment, where, seven miles from its present location, Niagara was born.
STILL A TRADE CENTER
Le Sieur Gendron, of whom we know nothing more than is contained in the printed letters, noted before, passed away many a year ago; but at this late date, some two and a half centuries after his death, a lover of Niagara, in his search for and his collecting of early books that in any way refer to its famous Cataract, secured a copy of De Rocoles' "America, the Third Part of the World," 1660, which contains the first publication of Docteur Gendron's interesting letters from, and about, the Huron Country, in Canada. Therein he found this remarkable reference to the Waterfall,—which was quoted verbatim from the good Docteur's "hasty letter," by the State Historian of King Louis of France,—and is thereby enabled to add an hitherto unknown link (which turns out to be the second) in the chain of the earliest references to Niagara Falls; and so, both in History and in Medicine, to assign to good Docteur Gendron, a place (next alongside of the great Founder of Quebec) in Niagara's Temple of Fame. For the Sieur Gendron probably wrote from actual knowledge; he had probably, through some Huron emissary, secured some of those "Erie Stones," that "Petrified Spray of the Falls" in trade, at Niagara; he had doubtless tried the healing qualities thereof on some of his Savage Patients—and let us hope that this Niagara Remedy proved efficacious, and justified its wide-spread reputation. At any rate, in recording its uses, and its distribution by "Trade," and by probably himself using it in his Practice—limited then to the Huron Indians; and the few Frenchmen (perhaps a score or more) who then made their headquarters at the Home of the Jesuit Mission to the Hurons,—he showed, even as many a good Physician of later days has done, that he was a believer in, and user of, every one of Nature's Remedies, as furnished by her to man, and in their simplest forms; and if that Niagara product benefited his savage patients (mainly because they had faith that it would do so) surely the good Docteur earned his professional fee—which he probably had to take in trade—that is, in furs.
Niagara, meaning thereby the Niagara Frontier, or, more properly, that portion thereof which extended from Lake Ontario to about two miles above the Falls (which included Fort Niagara, and the whole of the famous Portage around the Cataract) even in Aboriginal days, before the first Fort Niagara was built, when the Indians applied the word Onguiaahra to the same territory, by reason of its accessibility, its central location, its Portage and its "Erie Stones," was widely known as a "Center of Trade." When the French became the masters of this region its main importance lay in its portage; and the same is true of it under British rule; and also under United States ownership, down to 1826, when the Erie Canal was completed.
And during all those three periods it was indeed a Trade Center. For over it passed on their westward way, all the soldiers, French, British, and American, who built or won, and garrisoned every fort and trading post in the West. All the cannon, equipments, arms, ammunition, clothing of all kinds, tools, most of the food (all of it save the fish they caught, the game they shot, and the few vegetables they raised) which sustained life in the poorly-fed garrisons in those far off posts on the upper Lakes; most of the necessities, everyone of the luxuries,—every pound of coffee, of tea, of sugar, of tobacco, of salt, of flour, of dried and salted meats, every bit of medicine, every gallon of rum;—all those and many other articles had to go to them, annually, by "way of Niagara." There was no other feasible way of transporting goods to the West. In fact there was no other way, save by the Ottawa and through the Georgian Bay; and on the Ottawa, there were forty-two portages, whereas via Niagara there was but the one. And under both French and British rule, Niagara was a great Center of Trade, in furs, and an enormous trade it was. Both the military and the commercial trade of half a Continent flowed by its doors; and both, going eastward and westward, required unloading and transporting over its seven miles of portage.
At one time, in 1764, when provisions were being forwarded to the West for the use there of Gen. Bradstreet's Army, it is recorded that over 5,000 barrels of provisions alone lay at Fort Schlosser, the upper terminus of Niagara's portage, awaiting shipment to the West. By Niagara also went—had to go, for besides being the only feasible route, it was the only safe way, for it had military protection,—all the traders, with their boat loads of cheap merchandize; men who spent months at a time in journeying among the tribes in the Northwest, trading their wares for valuable furs; all of which peltries, in turn, they had to bring east "by Niagara."
With the opening of the Erie Canal, in 1826, all that portaging business at Niagara disappeared; and Niagara, that is the territory immediately adjoining the Cataract, became a famous Watering Place; which character it has ever since retained, and always will retain.
In the early days of that scenic glory it still preserved a tinge of its ancient aspect, as "An Aboriginal Center of Trade." For many years Indian bead-work was one of the main attractions offered in the Bazaars there. And the elder generation of visitors will recall the familiar sight of aged Indian Squaws, and dusky Indian Maidens, who daily, during the season of travel, sat at various points along the route of the tourist—on the steep banks of the road leading up the hill to Goat Island, beneath the trees, close to the rapids, on Luna Island, alongside the path leading down the bank on Goat Island to old Terrapin Tower, and at various points around the Ferry House, and what is now Prospect Park—offering for sale, crude bead work, pincushions, mocassins, etc.
Often a pappoose, strapped to the board which formed the back of its picturesque but doubtless uncomfortable cradle, gazed stolidly at the pale faced visitor, as the cradle leant up against the foot of a tree, or swung suspended from some low-hanging branch. The "Braves" at home then made the toy canoes, the bows and arrows, the quivers, the war clubs and tomahawks, which the squaws also disposed of to tourists as souvenirs of Niagara.