NARRATIVE. 15 



Agassiz pointed out seven different kinds of trees, viz., arbor 

 vitoe, red cedar, hemlock, bass-wood, chestnut-oak, white pine, and 

 maple. The Professor also pointed out the shell-bed of which he had 

 spoken. The shells are very numerous, as may be readily seen in 

 the crumbling bank on the outer side of the island. At the upper 

 end of the island, vast numbers of delicate ephemera-like insects, 

 with long filaments, were fluttering about, particularly under the 

 trees. 



Some of us had never seen the Falls, and none of us at this season 

 of the year, when the mass of water is greatest. Coming at length 

 in sight of them, we were struck with the thickness of the sheet at 

 the pitch of the English Fall, particularly in that part of it between 

 the apex of the Horseshoe and the middle of the cataract on the 

 Canadian side.* It bends over in a polished, unbroken mass, as of 

 green glass over white. Some one said the average depth of water 

 at that point was about fourteen feet. Other remarkable features are, 

 the distance to which the water is projected, the rocket-like bursts of 

 spray from the falling sheet, and the sudden spouting up of the mist 

 at intervals from below, as if shot from a cannon. These sheets of 

 mist rise high above the Fall, and move slowly down the river in 

 perpendicular columns, like a procession of ghosts. On the whole, 

 the difference of season is in favor of that when the river is lowest, 

 the features of the scene, particularly the Rapids outside of Goat 

 Island, being rather obscured than improved by a greater depth of 

 water. 



After tea, the following remarks on what we had seen were made 

 by Prof. Agassiz : 



" If we follow the chasm cut by the Niagara River, down to Lake Ontario, 

 we have a succession of strata coming to the surface, of various character 

 and formation. These strata clip S.W. or towards the Falls, so that in their 

 progress to their present position, the Falls have had a bed of very 

 various consistency. Some of these strata, as the shales and the Med- 

 ina sandstone, are very soft, and when they formed the edge of the Fall, it 

 probably had the character of rapids. But wherever it comes to an edge of 

 hard rock, with softer beds below, the softer beds, crumbling away, leave a 



* The " Horseshoe " at present is a triangle, but it has been a nearly regular semi- 

 circle within the recollection of persons now living. 



