A group of natural and artificial wonders more varied and magnificent
than at Portage, N. Y., is not to be found in this land of sublime
scenery and rapid improvement. It is destined to be a Mecca of travel,
only to be classed with the White mountains, Niagara and the Mammoth
cave. No descriptive language will appear exaggerated to one who visits
the scene, or studies the measurements and details now presented. These
do not tell half the story; a complete account would require a
guide-book of pen-and-pencil sketches. The small village of Portage lies
on the Genessee river, at a point where it enters a stupendous gorge,
which continues seventeen miles, in a north-east direction, to Mount
Morris. Here it flows into the famous Genessee valley, which extends
from Dansville to Rochester, and is a level tract of rich farms and
shaded meadows, that are said to resemble English park scenery more than
anything in our country. The river enters the lake a few miles below the
Rochester falls, thirty miles north of Mount Morris. To begin back, just
below Portage village is a noble aqueduct of the Genessee canal: this is
built of hewn limestone, and is much like the high bridge at Harlem, in
size and appearance. Passing this and advancing into the river-gulf,
with the Genessee on one hand, the canal on the other, and two hundred
and fifty feet of wooded declivity inclosing both, a short walk brings
you suddenly to the new bridge of the Buffalo and New York city
railroad. The first and last look at this bridge must be one of dumb
amazement. It is the crystal palace of all bridges. How any mortal ever
conceived, or having conceived ever dared to attempt carrying it into
execution, passes our comprehension. Resting on six heavy stone
basements in the water, and as many more on the land, it rises to the
immense hight, for a bridge, of two hundred and thirty-four feet, and is
eight hundred feet long, lifting its immense net-work of timber, as if a
whole village of house-frames and rectangular streets were raised up and
set perpendicularly on edge. The first fall of the river, a sidelong,
broken descent of sixty feet, is a few steps below the structure, and
visible from its top, long before reaching which the ascending mist is
dissipated. One and a half million feet of timber, being the product of
two hundred acres of land, together with thirty tuns of iron spikes,
were required for this climax of modern engineering. The cost is
estimated at one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Before the work
had reached its completion, the railroad passengers were taken in
carriages two miles around from one end of the bridge to the other, a
very comfortable hotel having been erected at the eastern extremity.
Below the monster bridge and its waterfall, the river chasm widens into
a deep basin of hills, with a pond in the center, and the second fall, a
descent of eighty feet, at the lower extremity. This grand natural
temple of cliffs, has thus at each end an organ with a shining range of
silver pipes; on the left side are several galleries in the shape of
canal aqueducts of wood, built to avoid the incessant slides of
quicksand; and, at the upper entrance, the six-story bridge furnishes
fifty rostrums for as many orators. Connected with the lower falls is a
singular semicircular chasm, and, at its base, a cave, worn by water,
which, as a matter of course, has been afflicted with a Satanic name: it
is of difficult access. Here begin the imposing precipices of three
hundred feet in hight, forming, at this point, a mighty amphitheater,
around the eastern brink of which winds the canal, protected by a stone
parapet. A gigantic tunnel was first constructed, and still remains in
part; but the rock proved so insecure, that the overhanging roof was
thrown off, at great expense, into the river, and the bed of the canal
laid in cement. Nearly the whole array of these wonders could be brought
into one view from a high point on the western bank, where the artist
Cole, when this scenery was in its pristine wildness, once took a sketch
for a very large autumnal picture, which is now in the possession of
Hon. W. H. Seward. Some distance below the places now described, is a
third fall, very grotesque in its features, and made remarkable by a
tall natural tower, left by the wearing of the river and surmounted by a
crown of foliage.