Incidents--Fall of Table Rock--Remarkable phenomenon in the
river--Driving and lumbering on the Rapids--Points of the compass
at the Falls--A first view of the Falls commonly
disappointing--Lunar bow--Golden spray--Gull Island and the
gulls--The highest water ever known at the Falls--The Hermit of the
Falls.
Of incidents, curious, comic, and tragic, connected with the locality
the catalogue is long, but we must make our recital of them brief.
We have before referred to Professor Kalm's notice of the fall of a
portion of Table Rock previous to 1750. Authentic accounts of like
events are the following: In 1818 a mass one hundred and sixty feet long
by thirty wide; in 1828 and '29 two smaller masses; also in 1828 there
went down in the center of the Horseshoe a huge mass, of which the top
area was estimated at half an acre. If this estimate was correct, it
would show an abrasion equivalent to nearly one foot from the whole
surface of the Canadian Fall. In April, 1843, a mass of rock and earth
about thirty-five feet long and six feet wide fell from the middle of
Goat Island. In 1847, just north of the Biddle Stairs, there was a slide
of bowlders, earth, and gravel, with a small portion of the bed-rock,
the whole mass being about forty feet long and ten feet wide. About
every third return of spring has increased the abrasion at these two
points. At the first-named point more than twenty feet in width has
disappeared, with the whole of the road crossing the island. From the
latter point, near the Biddle Stairs, which was a favorite one for
viewing the Horseshoe Fall, the seats provided for visitors and the
trees which shaded them have fallen.
[Illustration: FALL OF TABLE ROCK]
On the 25th of June, 1850, occurred the great downfall which reduced
Table Rock to a narrow bench along the bank. The portion which fell was
one immense solid rock two hundred feet long, sixty feet wide, and one
hundred feet deep where it separated from the bank. The noise of the
crash was heard like muffled thunder for miles around. Fortunately it
fell at noonday, when but few people were out, and no lives were lost.
The driver of an omnibus, who had taken off his horses for their midday
feed, and was washing his vehicle, felt the preliminary cracking and
escaped, the vehicle itself being plunged into the gulf below.
In 1850, a canal-boat that became detached from a raft, went down the
Canadian Rapids, turned broadside across the river before reaching the
Falls, struck amidships against a rock projecting up from the bottom and
lodged. It remained there more than a year, and when it went down took
with it a piece of the rock apparently about ten feet wide and forty
feet long. At the foot of Goat Island some smaller masses have fallen,
and three extensive earth-slides have occurred.
In the spring of 1852 a triangular mass, the vertex of which was just
beyond or south of the Terrapin Tower, while its altitude of more than
forty feet lay along the shore of the south corner of Goat Island, fell
in the night with the usual grinding crash. And with it fell some
isolated rocks which lay on the brink of the precipice in front of the
tower, and from which the tower derived its name. Before the tower was
built, some person looking at the rocks from the shore suggested that
they looked like huge terrapins sunning themselves on the edge of the
Fall. A few days after the fall of the triangular mass, a huge column of
rock a hundred feet high, about fourteen feet by twelve, and flat on the
top, became separated from the bank and settled down perpendicularly
until its top was about ten feet below the surface rock. It stood thus
about four years, when it began gradually to settle, as the shale and
stone were disintegrated beneath it, and finally it tumbled over upon
the rocks below, furnishing an illustration of the manner in which we
suppose the rocks which once accumulated below the Whirlpool must have
been broken down. In the spring of 1871 a portion of the west side of
the sharp angle of the Horseshoe, apparently about ten by thirty feet,
went down, producing a decided change in the curve.
On the 7th day of February, 1877, about eleven o'clock of a cold, cloudy
day, there occurred the most extensive abrasion of the Horseshoe Fall
ever noted. It extended from near the water's edge at Table Rock, more
than half the distance round the curve, some fifteen hundred feet, and
at the most salient angle the mass that fell was from fifty to one
hundred feet wide. By this downfall the contour of the Horseshoe was
decidedly changed, the reentering angle being made acute and very
ragged. Less than three months afterward the abrasion was continued some
two hundred feet toward Goat Island.
The trembling earth and muffled thunder gave evidence of the immensity
of the mass of fallen rock, but no one saw it go down. For several
months after the fall, until the mass of rock got thoroughly settled in
the bed of the Falls, the exhibition of water-rockets, sent up a hundred
feet above the top of the precipice, was unique and beautiful. The
greatest angle of retrocession, which had previously been wearing toward
Goat Island, is again turning toward the center of the stream.
On the 29th of March, 1848, the river presented a remarkable phenomenon.
There is no record of a similar one, nor has it been observed since. The
winter had been intensely cold, and the ice formed on Lake Erie was very
thick. This was loosened around the shores by the warm days of the early
spring. During the day, a stiff easterly wind moved the whole field up
the lake. About sundown, the wind chopped suddenly round and blew a gale
from the west. This brought the vast tract of ice down again with such
tremendous force that it filled in the neck of the lake and the outlet,
so that the outflow of the water was very greatly impeded. Of course, it
only needed a short space of time for the Falls to drain off the water
below Black Rock.
The consequence was that, when we arose in the morning at Niagara, we
found our river was nearly half gone. The American channel had dwindled
to a respectable creek. The British channel looked as though it had been
smitten with a quick consumption, and was fast passing away. Far up from
the head of Goat Island and out into the Canadian rapids the water was
gone, as it was also from the lower end of Goat Island, out beyond the
tower. The rocks were bare, black, and forbidding. The roar of Niagara
had subsided almost to a moan. The scene was desolate, and but for its
novelty and the certainty that it would change before many hours, would
have been gloomy and saddening. Every person who has visited Niagara
will remember a beautiful jet of water which shoots up into the air
about forty rods south of the outer Sister in the great rapids, called,
with a singular contradiction of terms, the "Leaping Rock." The writer
drove a horse and buggy from near the head of Goat Island out to a point
above and near to that jet. With a log-cart and four horses, he drew
from the outside of the outer island a stick of pine timber hewed twelve
inches square and forty feet long. From the top of the middle island was
drawn a still larger stick, hewed on one side and sixty feet long.
There are few places on the globe where a person would be less likely to
go lumbering than in the rapids of Niagara, just above the brink of the
Horseshoe Fall. All the people of the neighborhood were abroad,
exploring recesses and cavities that had never before been exposed to
mortal eyes. The writer went some distance up the shore of the river.
Large fields of the muddy bottom were laid bare. The shell-fish, the
uni-valves, and the bi-valves were in despair. Their housekeeping and
domestic arrangements were most unceremoniously exposed. The clams, with
their backs up and their open mouths down in the mud, were making their
sinuous courses toward the shrunken stream. The small-fry of fishes were
wriggling in wonder to find themselves impounded in small pools.
This singular syncope of the waters lasted all the day, and night closed
over the strange scene. But in the morning our river was restored in all
its strength and beauty and majesty, and we were glad to welcome its
swelling tide once more.
It is a curious fact that nine out of every ten persons who visit the
Falls for the first time, are on their arrival completely bewildered as
to the points of the compass; and this without reference to the
direction from which they may approach them. All understand the general
geographical fact that Canada lies north of the United States. Hence
they naturally suppose, when they arrive at the frontier, that they must
see Canada to the north of them. But when they reach Niagara Falls they
look across the river into Canada, in one direction directly south, and
in another directly west. Only a reference to the map will rectify the
erroneous impression. It is corrected at once by remembering that the
Niagara River empties into the south side of Lake Ontario.
One other fact may be regarded as well-established, namely, that most
visitors are disappointed when they first look upon the Falls. They are
not immediately and forcibly impressed by the scene, as they had
expected to be. The reasons for this are easily explained. The chief
one is that the visitor first sees the Falls from a point above them.
Before seeing them, he reads of their great height; he expects to look
up at them and behold the great mass of water falling, as it were, from
the sky. He reads of the trembling earth; of the cloud of spray, that
may be seen a hundred miles away; of the thunder of the torrent, and of
the rainbows. He does not consider that these are occasional facts. He
may not know he is near the Falls until he gets just over them. At
certain times he feels no trembling of the earth; he hears no stunning
roar; he may see the spray scattered in all directions by the wind, and
of course he will see no bow. Naturally, he is disappointed. But it is
not long before the grand reality begins to break upon him, and every
succeeding day and hour of observation impresses him more and more
deeply with the vastness, the power, the sublimity of the scene, and the
wonderful and varied beauty of its surroundings. Those who spend one or
more seasons at Niagara know how very little can be seen or comprehended
by those who "stop over one train."
[Illustration: ROCK OF AGES AND WHIRLWIND BRIDGE]
They are fortunate who can see the Falls first from the ferry-boat on
the river below, and about one-third of the way across from the American
shore. The writer has frequently tried the experiment with friends who
were willing to trust themselves, with closed eyes, to his guidance, and
wait until he had given them the signal to look upward.
Those who may be at Niagara a few nights before and after a full moon
should not fail to go to Goat Island to see the lunar bow. It is the
most unreal of all real things--a thing of weird and shadowy beauty.
Another striking scene peculiar to the locality is witnessed in the
autumn, when the sun in making its annual southing reaches a point
which, at the sunset hour, is directly west from the Falls. Then those
who are east of them see the spray illuminated by the slant rays of the
sinking sun. In the calm of the hour and the peculiar atmosphere of the
season, the majestic cloud looks like the spray of molten gold.
In 1840 there was a small patch of stones, gravel, sand, and earth,
called Gull Island, lying near the center of the Canadian rapid and
about one hundred rods above the Horseshoe Fall. It was apparently
twenty rods long by two rods wide, and was covered with a growth of
willow bushes. It was so named because it was a favorite resort of that
singular combination of the most delicate bones and lightest feathers
called a gull.
The birds seem large and awkward on the wing, but as they sit upon the
water nothing can appear more graceful. They are far-sighted and
keen-scented. Their eyes are marvels of beauty. They are eccentric in
their habits, the very Arabs of their race--here to-day and gone
to-morrow. They are gregarious and often assemble in large numbers. At
times in a series of wild, rapid, devious gyrations, and uttering a low,
mournful murmur, they seem to be engaged, as it were, in some solemn
festival commemorative of their departed kindred. One moment the air
will be filled with them and their sad refrain; the next moment the cry
will have ceased and not a gull will be seen. They come as they go,
summer and winter alike. In thirty years the writer has never been able
to discover when nor whence they came. In winter they generally appear
in the milder days, and their disappearance is followed by cooler
weather.
In the spring of 1847 a long and fierce gale from the west, which drove
the water down Lake Erie, caused the highest rise ever known in the
river. It rose six feet on the rapids, and for the first time reached
the floor-planking of the old bridge. The greater part of Gull Island
was washed down in this flood, and ten years later it had wholly
disappeared.
The vague tradition--the origin of which cannot be traced--that there is
a flux and reflux of the waters in the Great Lakes, which embraces a
period of about seven years, is not confirmed by our observation, if it
be intended to affirm that the ebb and flow are both completed in seven
years. Our observation shows that there is a flow of about seven years,
and a reflux, which is accomplished in the same period. The water in the
Niagara was very low in 1843-4, again in 1857-8, and again in 1871-2.
This last is the lowest long continued shrinkage ever known. It is,
however, altogether probable that the general level of the lakes will
fall hereafter, owing to the destruction of the forests and the
cultivation of the land along their shores. In this case the waters of
the Niagara and Detroit rivers may, in the far future, meet in the bed
of Lake Erie, and their margins be covered with orchards and vineyards
more extensive and productive than those along the Rhine.
The Hermit of the Falls, so called, Mr. Francis Abbott, came to the
village in June, 1829. He was a rather good-looking, respectable young
man, of moderate attainments, who was subject, apparently, to a mild
form of intermittent derangement. Though his manner was eccentric, his
conduct was harmless, and it is probable that his parents, who, it was
afterward ascertained, were respectable members of the Society of
Friends in England, encouraged his desire to travel, and furnished him
the means to do so. He seems to have had some taste for music, and to
have been a tolerable performer on the flute. He wandered much about the
island, both night and day, and often bathed below the little fall on
the south side of Goat Island, near its head. He lived alone in an
unoccupied log-hut, directly across the island from this fall, until
about the first of April, 1831, when he removed to a little cabin of his
own building, on Point View. In June of that year, just two years after
his arrival, he was drowned while bathing below the ferry. Ten days
after, his body was found at Fort Niagara, brought back, and buried in
the God's-acre at the Falls.