In the hills north of Utica, the West Canada Creek cuts its remarkable
gorge at Trenton Falls. It is a vigorous stream, rising in the western
slopes of the Adirondacks and flowing to the Mohawk. In getting down
through the limestone rocks from the highlands to the plain adjacent
to the river, it passes into the ravine, giving a magnificent display
of chasms, cascades and rapids, in a gorge of such amazing
construction that it is regarded as a wonder second only to Niagara.
During the ages, the torrent has cut through over four hundred layers
of the stratified limestone, exposing the geological formation to full
view, with the fossil organic remains deposited there as the world was
built. In descending the ravine, there are five prominent cataracts,
besides rapids, all compressed within two miles distance, the
aggregate descent being three hundred and twelve feet. This wonderful
gorge was the Indian Kauy-a-hoo-ra, or the "Leaping Water," and from
its color they called the stream Kahnata, the "amber water," a name
readily corrupted into Canada Creek. The Dutch called the place after
the Grand Pensioner of Holland, Oldenbarneveld, he having sent out the
first colonists under a grant known as the "Holland Patent." It was in
this region Grover Cleveland spent his early life. A grandson of Roger
Sherman, who had charge of the Unitarian church here, is regarded as
the discoverer of the ravine in 1805, and he did much to make it known
to the world. His grave is within sound of the Sherman Fall.
Entering the chasm at the lower end, where the stream passes out from
the rock terrace to the plain, the ravine is found to be about one
hundred feet deep, the almost perpendicular rocky walls built up in
level layers as if by hands, the well-defined separate strata being
from one inch to a foot in thickness, and narrowest at the bottom.
Hemlocks and cedars crown the blackened rocks, their branches hanging
over the abyss, while far below, the boisterous torrent rushes across
the pavement of broad flagstones forming its bed. Descending to the
bottom, the impression is like being in a deep vault, this
subterranean world disclosing operations lasting through ages, during
which the rocks have slowly yielded to the resistless power of the
water and frost that has gradually cut the chasm. Fossils and
petrifactions found in the deepest strata are trod upon, and each thin
layer of the walls, one imposed upon the other, shows the deposit of a
supervening flood happening successively, yet eternity only knows how
long ago. And ages afterwards the torrent came, and during more
successive ages carved out the gorge, until it has penetrated to the
bottom of the limestone.
The torrent flows briskly out of the long and narrow vault, while some
distance above is the lowest of the series of cataracts--the Sherman
Fall--where the water plunges over a parapet of rock forty feet high
into a huge basin it has worked out. The amber-colored waters boil
furiously in this cauldron. Above the Sherman Fall the stream flows
through rapids, the chasm broadening and the lofty walls rising higher
as the hill-tops are more elevated, mounting to two hundred feet above
the torrent at a lofty point called the Pinnacle. The floor of the
ravine is level, and becomes quite wide, with massive slabs, weighing
tons, resting upon it, showing the power of freshets which bring them
down from above, and will ultimately carry them completely through the
gorge to its outlet, so resistless is the sweep of the raging flood at
such times, when every bound these huge stones make over the rocky
floor causes the neighboring hills to vibrate, the stifled thunder of
their progress being heard above the roar of waters. At the head of
this widened gorge is the High Falls, in a grand amphitheatre, the
cataract broken into parts and combining all the varieties of cascade
and waterfall, being one hundred feet high, and the walls of the chasm
rising eighty feet higher to the surface of the land above, which
keeps on rising as the ends of the limestone strata are surmounted.
The top of this High Fall is another perpendicular wall stretching
diagonally across the chasm, and below it the protruding layers of
rock form a sort of huge stairway. Down this the waters fall in
varying fashion, finally condensing as a mass of whirling, shifting
foam into a dark pool beneath. This splendid cataract is fringed about
with evergreens and shrubbery, for between the dark thin slabs of
limestone are inserted thinner strata of crumbling shale, and these
give root-hold to the cedars and other nodding branches clinging to
the walls of the ravine. The waterfall begins at the top with the
color of melted topaz, and is unlike anything elsewhere seen, for the
hemlocks and spruces of the mountain regions impart the amber hue to
the torrent. Descending, the changing tints become steadily lighter,
until the brown turns to a creamy white, which is finally lost under
the cloud of spray at the foot of the lower stairway slide, while
beyond, the water rushes away black in hue and driving forward almost
as if shot from a cannon.
Above is another great amphitheatre, floored with rocky layers, upon
which the stream flows in gentler course. In this is the Milldam Fall,
a ledge about fourteen feet high, over which the waters make a uniform
flow all across the ravine. This has above it an expanded platform of
level slabs almost a hundred feet wide, fringed on each side with
cedars, the attractive place being called the Alhambra. At the upper
end a naked rock protrudes about sixty feet high, from which a stream
falls as a perpetual shower-bath. The creek rushes down another
complex stairway in the Alhambra Cascade. The ravine above suddenly
contracts, and the walls beyond change their forms into shapes of
curves and projections. Another cascade of whirling, foaming waters is
passed, and a new amphitheatre entered, where great slabs of rock have
fallen from the walls and lie on the floor, ready to be driven down
the ravine by freshets. The torrent here develops another curious
formation, known as the Rocky Heart. Curved holes are being rounded
out by whirling boulders of granite, which are kept constantly
revolving by the running water, and thus readily act upon the softer
limestones. The chasm goes still farther up to the Prospect Falls, a
cataract twenty feet high, near the beginning of the ravine.
Canada Creek passes out of the lower end of the gorge, where the
limestone layers are exhausted, and their edges fall off in terraces
sharply to the lower level, and almost down to the surface of the
stream. All about the broadened channel, as it flows away towards the
Mohawk, lie the huge slabs and boulders driven down through the chasm
by repeated freshets, with the amber waters foaming among them. This
wonderful ravine is a geological mine, disclosing the transition
rocks, the first containing fossil organic remains. In the lower part
of the chasm they are compact carbonate of lime, extremely hard and
brittle, and a dark blue, almost black, in color. At the High Fall,
and above to the Rocky Heart, the upper strata are from twelve to
eighteen inches thick, and composed of the crystallized fragments of
the vertebræ of crinoidea and the shells of terebratulæ. These fossils
of the Silurian period are numerous. The strata throughout the chasm
are remarkably horizontal, varying, as they ascend, from one inch to
eighteen inches in thickness. They are very distinct, and separated by
a fine shaly substance which disintegrates upon exposure to the air or
moisture. From the top to the bottom of the ravine small cracks
extend down perpendicularly, and run in a straight line through the
whole mass across the stream. These divide the pavements into
rhomboidal slabs. The most interesting fossils are found, among them
the large trilobite, a crustacean that could both swim and crawl upon
the bottom of the sea. This extraordinary place is in reality a
Titanic fissure, cracked through the crust of mother earth, down which
roars and dashes a tremendous torrent.