VISIT to parry's falls. 451 



compared with their size, is enormous, as may 

 be understood from the fact that most of the 

 stones used in forming this cache were, singly, 

 as much as two able men could lift. 



Each of the crew being laden with a piece 

 weighing seventy-five pounds, we began our 

 march to the Fort across the mountains, now 

 entirely covered with snow four inches deep. 

 The small lakes and swamps were also frozen 

 hard enough to bear a passage across. We had 

 not proceeded more than six or seven miles, when 

 observing the spray rising from another fall, we 

 were induced to visit it, and were well consoled 

 for having left the boat where she was. From 

 the only point at which the greater part of it was 

 visible, we could distinguish the river coming 

 sharp round a rock, and falling into an upper 

 basin almost concealed by intervening rocks ; 

 whence it broke in one vast sheet into a chasm 

 between four and five hundred feet deep, 

 yet in appearance so narrow that we fan- 

 cied w r e could almost step across it. Out of 

 this the spray rose in misty columns several 

 hundred feet above our heads; but as it was 

 impossible to see the main fall from the side on 

 which we were, in the following spring I paid a 

 second visit to it, approaching from the western 

 bank. The road to it, which I then traversed in 

 snow shoes, was fatiguing in the extreme, and 



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