[Illustration: Falls of the Genesee.]
The Genesee is one of the most picturesque rivers of North America.
Its name is indeed characteristic: the word Genesee being formed from
the Indian for _Pleasant Valley,_ which term is very descriptive of
the river and its vicinity. Its falls have not the majestic extent
of the Niagara; but their beauty compensates for the absence of such
grandeur.
The Genesee, the principal natural feature of its district, rises
on the _Grand Plateau_ or table-land of Western Pennsylvania, runs
through New York, and flows into Lake Ontario, at Port Genesee, six
miles below Rochester. At the distance of six miles from its mouth are
falls of 96 feet, and one mile higher up, other falls of 75 feet.[1]
Above these it is navigable for boats nearly 70 miles, where are other
two falls, of 60 and 90 feet, one mile apart, in Nunda, south of
Leicester. At the head of the Genesee is a tract six miles square,
embracing waters, some of which flow into the gulf of Mexico, others
into Chesapeake Bay, and others into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This
tract is probably elevated 1,600 or 1,700 feet above the tide waters
of the Atlantic Ocean.
[1] It may be as well here to quote the formation of Cataracts
and Cascades, from Maltebrun's valuable _System of Universal
Geography._ "It is only the sloping of the land which can at first
cause water to flow; but an impulse having been once communicated
to the mass, the pressure alone of the water will keep it in
motion, even if there were no declivity at all. Many great rivers,
in fact, flow with an almost interruptible declivity. Rivers which
descend from primitive mountains into secondary lands, often form
_cascades and cataracts_. Such are the cataracts of the Nile,
of the Ganges, and some other great rivers, which, according to
Desmarest, evidently mark the limits of the ancient land.
Cataracts are also formed by lakes: of this description are the
celebrated Falls of the Niagara; but the most picturesque falls
are those of rapid rivers, bordered by trees and precipitous
rocks. Sometimes we see a body of water, which, before it arrives
at the bottom, is broken and dissipated into showers, like the
Staubbach, (see _Mirror,_ vol. xiv. p. 385.); sometimes it forms
a watery arch, projected from a rampart of rock, under which the
traveller may pass dryshod, as the "falling spring" of Virginia;
in one place, in a granite district, we see the Trolhetta, and the
Rhine not far from its source, urge on their foaming billows
among the pointed rocks; in another, amidst lands of a calcareous
formation, we see the Czettina and the Kerka, rolling down
from terrace to terrace, and presenting sometimes a sheet, and
sometimes a wall, of water. Some magnificent cascades have been
formed, at least in part, by the hands of man: the cascades of
Velino, near Terni, have been attributed to Pope Clement VIII.;
other cataracts, like those of Tunguska, in Siberia, have
gradually lost their elevation by the wearing away of the rocks,
and have now only a rapid descent."--_Maltebrun_, vol. i.
The Engraving includes the falls of the river, with the village
of Rochester, seven miles south of Lake Ontario. This place, for
population, extent, and trade, will soon rank among the American
cities: it was not settled until about the close of the last war;
its progress was slow until the year 1820, from which period it has
rapidly improved. In 1830 it contained upwards of 12,000 inhabitants:
the first census of the village was taken in December, 1815, when the
number of inhabitants was three hundred and thirty-one. The aqueduct
which takes the Erie canal across the river forms a prominent object
of interest to all travellers. It is of hewn stone, containing eleven
arches of 50 feet span: its length is 800 feet, but a considerable
part of each end is hidden from view by mills erected since its
construction.
On the brink of the island which separates the main stream of the
river from that produced by the waste water from the mill-race,
will be seen _a scaffold or platform_ from which an eccentric but
courageous adventurer, named _Sam Patch_, made a desperate leap into
the gulf beneath. Patch had obtained some celebrity in freaks of this
description, though his feats be not recorded, like the hot-brained
patriotism of Marcus Curtius in olden history. At the fall of Niagara,
Patch had before made two leaps in safety--one of 80 and the other of
130 feet, in a vast gulf, foaming and tost aloft from the commotion
produced by a fall of nearly 200 feet. In November, 1829, Patch
visited Rochester to astonish the citizens by a leap from the falls.
His first attempt was successful, and in the presence of thousands of
spectators he leaped from the scaffold to which we have directed the
attention of the reader, a distance of 100 feet, into the abyss, in
safety. He was advertised to repeat the feat in a few days, or, as he
prophetically announced it his "last jump," meaning his last jump that
season. The scaffold was duly erected, 25 feet in height, and Patch,
an hour after the time was announced, made his appearance. A multitude
had collected to witness the feat; the day was unusually cold, and Sam
was intoxicated. The river was low, and the falls near him on either
side were bare. Sam threw himself off, and the waters (to quote the
bathos of a New York newspaper) "received him in their cold embrace.
The tide bubbled as the life left the body, and then the stillness of
death, indeed, sat upon the bosom of the waters." His body was found
past the spring at the mouth of the river, seven miles below where
he made his fatal leap. It had passed over two falls of 125 feet
combined, yet was not much injured. A black handkerchief taken from
his neck while on the scaffold, and tied about the body, was still
there. He is stated to have had perfect command of himself while in
the air; and, says the journalist already quoted, "had he not been
given to habits of intoxication, he might have astonished the world,
perhaps for years, with the greatest feats ever performed by man."
The Genesee river waters one of the finest tracts of land in the state
of New York. Its alluvial flats are extensive, and very fertile. These
are either natural prairies, or Indian clearings, (of which, however,
the present Indians have no tradition,) and lying, to an extent of
many thousand acres, between the villages of Genesee, Moscow, and
Mount Morris, which now crown the declivities of their surrounding
uplands; and, contrasting their smooth verdure with the shaggy hills
that bound the horizon, and their occasional clumps of spreading
trees, with the tall and naked relics of the forest, nothing can
be more agreeable to the eye, long accustomed to the uninterrupted
prospect of a level and wooded country.
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