“The breadth of the fall, as it runs in a semicircle, is reckoned to be about six arpents, or seven hundred feet. The island is in the middle of the fall, and from it to each side is almost the same breadth. The breadth of the island at its lower end is two thirds of an arpent, eighty feet, or thereabouts.
“Every day, when the sun shines, you see here from ten o’clock in the morning to two in the afternoon, below the fall, and under you, where you stand at the side of the fall, a glorious rainbow, and sometimes two, one within the other. I was so happy as to be at the fall on a fine clear day, and it was with great delight I viewed this rainbow, which had almost all the colours you see in a rainbow in the air. The more vapours, the brighter and clearer is the rainbow. I saw it on the east side of the fall in the bottom under the place where I stood, but above the water. When the wind carries the vapours from that place, the rainbow is gone, but appears again as soon as new vapours come. From the fall to the landing above it, where the canoes from Lake Erie put ashore, (or from the fall to the upper end of the carrying place,) is half a mile. Lower the canoes dare not come, lest they should be obliged to try the fate of the two Indians, and perhaps with less success.
“The French told me, they had often thrown whole great trees into the water above, to see them tumble down the fall. They went down with surprising swiftness, but could never be seen afterwards; whence it was thought there was a bottomless deep or abyss just under the fall. I am of opinion that there must be a vast deep here; for I think if they had watched very well, they might have found the trees at some distance below the fall. The rock of the fall consists of a grey limestone.”
So far is Kalm’s account; to which may be added, that the body of water precipitated from the fall has been estimated to be nearly seven hundred thousand tons per minute!
A recent traveller, Miss Wright, departing from the falls of the Gennesse river, for the purpose of seeing the Falls of Niagara, alighted in the evening at a little tavern in the village of Lewiston, about seven miles short of the place she was proceeding to. She heard the roar of the waters at that distance. Her description of the romantic scene is surprisingly interesting; viz:—
——In the night, when all was still, I heard the first rumbling of the cataract. Wakeful from over fatigue, rather than from any discomfort in the lodging, I rose more than once to listen to a sound which the dullest ears could not catch for the first time without emotion. Opening the window, the low, hoarse thunder distinctly broke the silence of the night; when, at intervals, it swelled more full and deep, you will believe, that I held my breath to listen; they were solemn moments.
This mighty cataract is no longer one of nature’s secret mysteries; thousands now make their pilgrimage to it, not through
“Lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and caves of death,”
but over a broad highway; none of the smoothest, it is true, but quite bereft of all difficulty or danger. This in time may somewhat lessen the awe with which this scene of grandeur is approached; and even now we were not sorry to have opened upon it by a road rather more savage and less frequented than that usually chosen.