The Indians who first looked upon the world's greatest cataract gave
the best idea of it in their appropriate name, "The Thunder of
Waters." There is no setting provided for it in the charms of natural
scenery; it has no outside attractions. All its beauty and sublimity
are within the rocky walls of its stupendous chasm. The approaches
from every direction are dull and tedious, the surrounding country
being flat. The forests are sparse and there are few fine trees, these
being confined to the verge of the abyss, and being generally of
recent planting. The Niagara River flows northward from Lake Erie
through a plain. The Lake Erie level is five hundred and sixty-four
feet above the sea, and in its tortuous course of about thirty-six
miles to Lake Ontario, the Niagara River descends three hundred and
thirty-three feet, leaving the level of Ontario still two hundred and
thirty-one feet above the sea. More than half of all the fresh water
on the entire globe--the whole enormous volume from the vast lake
region of North America, draining a territory equalling the entire
continent of Europe, pours through this contracted channel out of Lake
Erie. There is a swift current for a couple of miles, but afterwards
the speed is gentler as the channel broadens, and Grand Island divides
it. Then it reunites into a wider stream, flowing sluggishly westward,
small islands dotting the surface. About fifteen miles from Lake Erie
the river narrows and the rapids begin. They flow with great speed for
a mile above the falls, in this distance descending fifty-two feet,
Goat Island dividing their channel at the brink of the cataract, where
the river makes a bend from the west back to the north. This island
separates the waters, although nine-tenths go over the Canadian fall,
which the abrupt bend curves into horseshoe form. This fall is about
one hundred and fifty-eight feet high, the height of the smaller fall
on the American side being one hundred and sixty-four feet. The two
cataracts spread out to forty-seven hundred and fifty feet breadth,
the steep wooded bank of Goat Island, separating them, occupying about
one-fourth the distance. The American fall is about eleven hundred
feet wide and the Canadian fall twice that width, the actual line of
the descending waters on the latter being much larger than the breadth
of the river because of its curving form. Recent changes, caused by
falling rock in the apex of this fall, have, however, made it a more
symmetrical horseshoe than had been the case for years. The Niagara
River, just below the cataract, contracts to about one thousand feet,
widening to twelve hundred and fifty feet beneath the new single-arch
steel bridge recently constructed a short distance farther down. For
seven miles the gorge is carved out, the river banks on both sides
rising to the top level of the falls, and the bottom sinking deeper
and deeper as the lower rapids descend towards Lewiston, and in some
places contracting to very narrow limits. Two miles below the cataract
the river is compressed within eight hundred feet, and a mile farther
down, at the outlet of the Whirlpool, where a sharp right-angled turn
is made, the enormous current is contracted within a space of less
than two hundred and fifty feet. In the seven miles distance, these
lower rapids descend about one hundred and four feet, and then with
placid current the Niagara River flows a few miles farther northward
to Lake Ontario.
The view of Niagara is impressive alike upon sight and hearing, and
this impressiveness grows upon the visitor. From the bridge just below
the American fall, and from the Canadian side, the whole grand scene
is in full display, and quickly convinces that no description can
exaggerate Niagara. The Indians first told of the falls, and they are
indicated on Champlain's map of 1632. In 1648 the Jesuit missionary
Rugueneau wrote of them as a "cataract of frightful height." The first
white man who saw them was Father Louis Hennepin, the Franciscan, in
1678, who described them as "a vast and prodigious cadence of water
which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch
that the universe does not afford its parallel. The waters which fall
from this horrible precipice do foam and boil after the most hideous
manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise more terrible than that
of thunder, for when the wind blows out of the south their dismal
roaring may be heard more than fifteen leagues off." Upon Charles
Dickens the first and enduring effect, instant and lasting, of the
tremendous spectacle, was: "Peace--peace of mind, tranquility, calm
recollections of the dead, great thoughts of eternal rest and
happiness." The falls had a sanative influence upon Professor Tyndall,
for, "quickened by the emotions there aroused," he says, "the blood
sped exultingly through the arteries, abolishing introspection,
clearing the heart of all bitterness, and enabling one to think with
tolerance, if not with tenderness, upon the most relentless and
unreasonable foe." After Anthony Trollope had looked upon the cataract
he wrote: "Of all the sights on this earth of ours, I know no other
one thing so beautiful, so glorious and so powerful. That fall is more
graceful than Giotto's Tower, more noble than the Apollo. The peaks of
the Alps are not so astounding in their solitude. The valleys of the
Blue Mountains in Jamaica are less green. The finished glaze of life
in Paris is less invariable; and the full tide of trade around the
Bank of England is not so inexorably powerful."