left bank of the Tweed, was created at the Reformation by the junction
of Upsetlington and Horndean. James IV. had built a church which he
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whence it received its name.
As we proceed downwards, the scenery on the Tweed may be said to be
majestic, from the fine wooded banks which sweep downwards to its
northern shores. The surface of the water is continually animated by
the salmon coble shooting athwart the stream.
A very handsome suspension bridge, executed by Captain Samuel Brown
of the Royal Navy here connects England with Scotland, and at some
distance below, the Tweed receives the Whitadder as its tributary from
the left bank.
When we begin to find ourselves within the liberties of Berwick, we
discover that we are in a species of no man’s land. We are neither in
England nor in Scotland, but in “our good town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.”
We have never passed through it without being filled with veneration
for the many marks that yet remain to show what a desperate struggle
it must have had for its existence for so many centuries, proving a
determined bravery in the inhabitants almost unexampled in the history
of man. It always brings to our mind some very ancient silver flagon,
made in an era when workmen were inexpert and when the taste of their
forms was more intended for use than for ornament, but of materials
so solid and valuable as to have made it survive all the blows and
injuries, the marks of which are still to be seen upon it; and which
is thus infinitely more respected than some modern mazer of the most
exquisite workmanship.
Escaping from Berwick-bridge the Tweed, already mingled with the tide,
finds its way down to its estuary, the sand and muddy shores of which
have no beauty in them.
And now, oh silver Tweed! we bid thee a kind and last adieu, having
seen thee rendered up to that all-absorbing ocean, with which all
rivers are doomed to be commingled, and their existence terminated, as
is that of frail man, with the same hope of being thence restored by
those well-springs of life that are formed above the clouds.
NIAGARA
JOHN TYNDALL
It is one of the disadvantages of reading books about natural scenery
that they fill the mind with pictures, often exaggerated, often
distorted, often blurred, and, even when well drawn, injurious to the
freshness of first impressions. Such has been the fate of most of us
with regard to the Falls of Niagara. There was little accuracy in
the estimates of the first observers of the cataract. Startled by an
exhibition of power so novel and so grand, emotion leaped beyond the
control of the judgment, and gave currency to notions which have often
led to disappointment.
A record of a voyage, in 1535, by a French mariner named Jacques
Cartier, contains, it is said, the first printed allusion to Niagara.
In 1603 the first map of the district was constructed by a Frenchman
named Champlain. In 1648 the Jesuit Rageneau, in a letter to his
superior at Paris, mentions Niagara as “a cataract of frightful
height.” In the winter of 1678 and 1679 the cataract was visited by
Father Hennepin, and described in a book dedicated “to the King of
Great Britain.” He gives a drawing of the waterfall, which shows that
serious changes have taken place since his time. He describes it as
“a great and prodigious cadence of water, to which the universe does
not offer a parallel.” The height of the fall, according to Hennepin,
was more than 600 feet. “The waters,” he says, “which fall from this
great precipice do foam and boil in the most astonishing manner,
making a noise more terrible than that of thunder. When the wind blows
to the south its frightful roaring may be heard for more than fifteen
leagues.” The Baron la Hontan, who visited Niagara in 1687, makes
the height 800 feet. In 1721 Charlevois, in a letter to Madame de
Maintenon, after referring to the exaggerations of his predecessors,
thus states the result of his own observations: “For my part, after
examining it on all sides, I am inclined to think that we cannot
allow it less than 140 or 150 feet”--a remarkably close estimate. At
that time, viz., a hundred and fifty years ago, it had the shape of
a horseshoe, and reasons will subsequently be given for holding that
this has been always the form of the cataract, from its origin to its
present site.
[Illustration: THE NIAGARA]
As regards the noise of the fall, Charlevois declares the accounts of
his predecessors, which, I may say, are repeated to the present hour,
to be altogether extravagant. He is perfectly right. The thunders of
Niagara are formidable enough to those who really seek them at the base
of the Horseshoe Fall; but on the banks of the river, and particularly
above the fall, its silence, rather than its noise, is surprising. This
arises, in part, from the lack of resonance; the surrounding country
being flat, and therefore furnishing no echoing surfaces to reinforce
the shock of the water. The resonance from the surrounding rocks causes
the Swiss Reuss at the Devil’s Bridge, when full, to thunder more
loudly than the Niagara.
Seen from below, the American Fall is certainly exquisitely beautiful,
but it is a mere frill of adornment to its nobler neighbour the
Horseshoe. At times we took to the river, from the centre of which
the Horseshoe Fall appeared especially magnificent. A streak of cloud
across the neck of Mont Blanc can double its apparent height, so here
the green summit of the cataract shining above the smoke of spray
appeared lifted to an extraordinary elevation. Had Hennepin and La
Hontan seen the fall from this position, their estimates of the height
would have been perfectly excusable.
From a point a little way below the American Fall, a ferry crosses the
river, in summer, to the Canadian side. Below the ferry is a suspension
bridge for carriages and foot-passengers, and a mile or two lower down
is the railway suspension bridge. Between ferry and bridge the river
Niagara flows unruffled; but at the suspension bridge the bed steepens
and the river quickens its motion. Lower down the gorge narrows,
and the rapidity and turbulence increase. At the place called the
“Whirlpool Rapids,” I estimated the width of the river at 300 feet, an
estimate confirmed by the dwellers on the spot. When it is remembered
that the drainage of nearly half a continent is compressed into this
space, the impetuosity of the river’s rush may be imagined.
Two kinds of motion are here obviously active, a motion of translation
and a motion of undulation--the race of the river through its gorge,
and the great waves generated by its collision with, and rebound from,
the obstacles in its way. In the middle of the river the rush and
tossing are most violent; at all events, the impetuous force of the
individual waves is here most strikingly displayed. Vast pyramidal
heaps leap incessantly from the river, some of them with such energy
as to jerk their summits into the air, where they hang momentarily
suspended in crowds of liquid spherules. The sun shone for a few
minutes. At times the wind, coming up the river, searched and sifted
the spray, carrying away the lighter drops and leaving the heavier
ones behind. Wafted in the proper direction, rainbows appeared and
disappeared fitfully in the lighter mist. In other directions the
common gleam of the sunshine from the waves and their shattered crests
was exquisitely beautiful. The complexity of the action was still
further illustrated by the fact, that in some cases, as if by the
exercise of a local explosive force, the drops were shot radially from
a particular centre, forming around it a kind of halo.
At some distance below the Whirlpool Rapids we have the celebrated
whirlpool itself. Here the river makes a sudden bend to the north-east,
forming nearly a right angle with its previous direction. The water
strikes the concave bank with great force, and scoops it incessantly
away. A vast basin has been thus formed, in which the sweep of the
river prolongs itself in gyratory currents. Bodies and trees which
have come over the falls are stated to circulate here for days without
finding the outlet. From various points of the cliffs above this is
curiously hidden. The rush of the river into the whirlpool is obvious
enough; and though you imagine the outlet must be visible, if one
existed, you cannot find it. Turning, however, round the bend of the
precipice to the north-east, the outlet comes into view.
The Niagara season was over; the chatter of sight-seers had ceased,
and the scene presented itself as one of holy seclusion and beauty.
I went down to the river’s edge, where the weird loneliness seemed
to increase. The basin is enclosed by high and almost precipitous
banks--covered, at the time, with russet woods. A kind of mystery
attaches itself to gyrating water, due perhaps to the fact that we
are to some extent ignorant of the direction of its force. It is said
that, at certain points of the whirlpool, pine-trees are sucked down,
to be ejected mysteriously elsewhere. The water is of the brightest
emerald-green. The gorge through which it escapes is narrow, and
the motion of the river swift though silent. The surface is steeply
inclined, but it is perfectly unbroken. There are no lateral waves, no
ripples with their breaking bubbles to raise a murmur; while the depth
is here too great to allow the inequality of the bed to ruffle the
surface. Nothing can be more beautiful than this sloping liquid mirror
formed by the Niagara in sliding from the whirlpool.
A connected image of the origin and progress of the cataract is easily
obtained. Walking northwards from the village of Niagara Falls by the
side of the river, we have to our left the deep and comparatively
narrow gorge, through which the Niagara flows. The bounding cliffs
of this gorge are from 300 to 350 feet high. We reach the whirlpool,
trend to the north-east, and after a little time gradually resume our
northward course. Finally, at about seven miles from the present falls,
we come to the edge of a declivity, which informs us that we have been
hitherto walking on table-land. At some hundreds of feet below us is
a comparatively level plain, which stretches to Lake Ontario. The
declivity marks the end of the precipitous gorge of the Niagara. Here
the river escapes from its steep mural boundaries, and in a widened bed
pursues its way to the lake which finally receives its waters.
The fact that in historic times, even within the memory of man, the
fall has sensibly receded, prompts the question, How far has this
recession gone? At what point did the ledge which thus continually
creeps backwards begin its retrograde course? To minds disciplined in
such researches the answer has been, and will be--At the precipitous
declivity which crossed the Niagara from Lewiston on the American
to Queenston on the Canadian side. Over this transverse barrier the
united affluents of all the upper lakes once poured their waters, and
here the work of erosion began. The dam, moreover, was demonstrably of
sufficient height to cause the river above it to submerge Goat Island;
and this would perfectly account for the finding, by Sir Charles Lyell,
Mr. Hall, and others, in the sand and gravel of the island, the same
fluviatile shells as are now found in the Niagara River higher up. It
would also account for those deposits along the sides of the river,
the discovery of which enabled Lyell, Hall, and Ramsay to reduce to
demonstration the popular belief that the Niagara once flowed through a
shallow valley.
The vast comparative erosive energy of the Horseshoe Fall comes
strikingly into view when it and the American Fall are compared
together. The American branch of the river is cut at a right angle
by the gorge of the Niagara. Here the Horseshoe Fall was the real
excavator. It cut the rock, and formed the precipice, over which the
American Fall tumbles. But, since its formation, the erosive action
of the American Fall has been almost nil, while the Horseshoe has
cut its way for 500 yards across the end of Goat Island, and is now
doubling back to excavate its channel parallel to the length of the
island. This point, which impressed me forcibly, has not, I have just
learned, escaped the acute observation of Professor Ramsay. The river
bends; the Horseshoe immediately accommodates itself to the bending,
and will follow implicitly the direction of the deepest water in the
upper stream. The flexures of the gorge are determined by those of
the river channel above it. Were the Niagara centre above the fall
sinuous, the gorge would obediently follow its sinuosities. Once
suggested, no doubt geographers will be able to point out many examples
of this action. The Zambesi is thought to present a great difficulty
to the erosion theory, because of the sinuosity of the chasm below the
Victoria Falls. But, assuming the basalt to be of tolerably uniform
texture, had the river been examined before the formation of this
sinuous channel, the present zigzag course of the gorge below the fall
could, I am persuaded, have been predicted, while the sounding of the
present river would enable us to predict the course to be pursued by
the erosion in the future.
But not only has the Niagara River cut the gorge; it has carried away
the chips of its own workshop. The shale, being probably crumbled,
is easily carried away. But at the base of the fall we find the huge
boulders already described, and by some means or other these are
removed down the river. The ice which fills the gorge in winter, and
which grapples with the boulders, has been regarded as the transporting
agent. Probably it is so to some extent. But erosion acts without
ceasing on the abutting points of the boulders, thus withdrawing their
support and urging them gradually down the river. Solution also does
its portion of the work. That solid matter is carried down is proved
by the difference of depth between the Niagara River and Lake Ontario,
where the river enters it. The depth falls from seventy-two feet to
twenty feet, in consequence of the deposition of solid matter caused by
the diminished motion of the river.
In conclusion, we may say a word regarding the proximate future of
Niagara. At the rate of excavation assigned to it by Sir Charles
Lyell, namely, a foot a year, five thousand years or so will carry the
Horseshoe Fall far higher than Goat Island. As the gorge recedes it
will drain, as it has hitherto done, the banks right and left of it,
thus leaving a nearly level terrace between Goat Island and the edge
of the gorge. Higher up it will totally drain the American branch of
the river; the channel of which in due time will become cultivable
land. The American Fall will then be transformed into a dry precipice,
forming a simple continuation of the cliffy boundary of the Niagara
gorge. At the place occupied by the fall at this moment we shall
have the gorge enclosing a right angle, a second whirlpool being the
consequence. To those who visit Niagara a few millenniums hence I
leave the verification of this prediction. All that can be said is,
that if the causes now in action continue to act, it will prove itself
literally true.
THE NIAGARA RIVER
G. K. GILBERT
The Niagara River flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The shore of
Erie is more than 300 feet higher than the shore of Ontario; but if
you pass from the higher shore to the lower, you do not descend at a
uniform rate. Starting from Lake Erie and going northwards, you travel
upon a plain--not level, but with only gentle undulations--until you
approach the shore of Lake Ontario, and then suddenly you find yourself
on the brink of a high bluff, or cliff, overlooking the lower lake and
separated from it only by a narrow strip of sloping plain.
Where the Niagara River leaves Lake Erie at Buffalo and enters the
plain, a low ridge of rock crosses its path, and in traversing this
its water is troubled; but it soon becomes smooth, spreads out broadly
and indolently loiters on the plain. For three-fourths of the distance
it cannot be said to have a valley, it rests upon the surface of the
plateau; but then its habit suddenly changes. By the short rapid at
Goat Island and by the cataract itself the water of the river is
dropped two hundred feet down into the plain, and thence to the cliff
at Lewiston it races headlong through a deep and narrow gorge. From
Lewiston to Lake Ontario there are no rapids. The river is again broad,
and its channel is scored so deeply in the littoral plain that the
current is relatively slow, and the level of its water surface varies
but slightly from that of the lake.
The narrow gorge that contains the river from the Falls to Lewiston
is a most peculiar and noteworthy feature. Its width rarely equals
the fourth of a mile, and its depth to the bottom of the river ranges
from two hundred to five hundred feet. Its walls are so steep that
opportunities for climbing up and down them are rare, and in these
walls one may see the geologic structure of the plateau.
The contour of the cataract is subject to change. From time to time
blocks of rock break away, falling into the pool below, and new shapes
are then given to the brink over which the water leaps. Many such falls
of rock have taken place since the white man occupied the banks of the
river, and the breaking away of a very large section is still a recent
event. By such observation we are assured that the extent of the gorge
is increasing at its end, that it is growing longer, and that the
cataract is the cause of its extension.
This determination is the first element in the history of the river.
A change is in progress before our eyes. The river’s history, like
human history, is being enacted, and from that which occurs we can
draw inferences concerning what has occurred, and what will occur. We
can look forward to the time when the gorge now traversing the fourth
part of the width of the plateau will completely divide it, so that the
Niagara will drain Lake Erie to the bottom. We can look back to the
time when there was no gorge, but when the water flowed on the top of
the plain to its edge, and the Falls of Niagara were at Lewiston.
We may think of the river as labouring at a task--the task of sawing
in two the plateau. The task is partly accomplished. When it is done
the river will assume some other task. Before it was begun what did the
river do?
How can we answer this question? The surplus water discharge from
Lake Erie could not have flowed by this course to Lake Ontario without
sawing at the plateau. Before it began the cutting of the gorge it did
not flow along this line. It may have flowed somewhere else, but if
so it did not constitute the Niagara River. The commencement of the
cutting of the Niagara gorge is the beginning of the history of the
Niagara River.
The river began its existence during the final retreat of the great
ice sheet, or, in other words, during the series of events that closed
the age of ice in America. During the course of its history the length
of the river has suffered some variation by reason of the successive
fall and rise of the level of Lake Ontario. It was at first a few miles
shorter than now; then it became suddenly a few miles longer, and its
present length was gradually acquired.
With the change in the position of its mouth there went a change in the
height of its mouth; and the rate at which it eroded its channel was
affected thereby. The influence on the rate of erosion was felt chiefly
along the lower course of the river between Lewiston and Fort Niagara.
The volume of the river has likewise been inconstant. In early days,
when the lakes levied a large tribute on the melting glacier, the
Niagara may have been a larger river than now; but there was a time
when the discharge from the upper lakes avoided the route by Lake Erie,
and then the Niagara was a relatively small stream.
The great life work of the river has been the digging of the gorge
through which it runs from the cataract to Lewiston. The beginning of
its life was the beginning of that task. The length of the gorge is in
some sense a measure of the river’s age.
The river sprang from a great geologic revolution, the banishment of
the dynasty of cold, and so its lifetime is a geologic epoch; but from
first to last man has been a witness to its toil, and so its history is
interwoven with the history of man. The human comrade of the river’s
youth was not, alas! a reporter with a notebook, else our present
labour would be light. He has even told us little of himself. We only
know that on a gravelly beach of Lake Iroquois, now the Ridge Road, he
rudely gathered stones to make a hearth and built a fire; and the next
storm breakers, forcing back the beach, buried and thus preserved, to
gratify yet whet our curiosity, hearth, ashes and charred sticks.
In these Darwinian days we cannot deem primeval the man possessed of
the Promethean art of fire, and so his presence on the scene adds zest
to the pursuit of the Niagara problem. Whatever the antiquity of the
great cataract may be found to be, the antiquity of man is greater.
THE MEUSE
ESTHER SINGLETON
The Meuse, or Maas, has the distinction of belonging to three
countries,--France, Belgium and Holland. In its long journey of 580
miles to the sea, it passes through varied and beautiful scenery,
including the Forest of Ardennes, so famous in the Charlemagne romances
and in the turbulent period of the Middle Ages; then through the
vine-lands and hop-gardens so often laid waste by battles in Belgium;
and finally through the flat lands of Holland where it has afforded
inspiration to many painters.
[Illustration: THE MEUSE]