38 



as that of game which you were pursuing, and presenting to- 

 me, as I stood admiring in the distance, a picture which ha.s^^ 

 left a deeper impression upon my mernory, than did the 

 luxurious repast afforded us that night by your numerous 

 captures. I saw enough to convince me of the great import- 

 ance of the enterprise you have in charge, of seeing that the 

 injunction of "crescite et multiplicamini," inscribed upon 

 the arms of Maryland, and which seems to be pai'ticularly 

 directed to the attention of the man with the fish, is carried 

 out. And I hope that you will make it appear that tlie great 

 barrier of the i'alis which prevents our finest fish from ascend- 

 ing higher, can, at a moderate cost, be circumvented. 



The broad bed of the Potomac, above the falls, with it*; 

 islands and innumerable projecting points, is formed by a 

 horizontal ledge of granite rock, which, at the I'alls, is cleft 

 across the entire bed by a deep fissure, while lesser fissures at 

 right angles to this present several channels, for the escape 

 of the waters to the bottom or" the chasm in as many seric\s 

 of tumbles. 



The main volume fiows through the second fissui'e from the 

 Virginia shore, falling fifty feet in about eight hundred feet. 

 of distance, the last tumble being nearly a perpendicular fall 

 of about fifteen feet, separated I'rom this by a wall of rock, a 

 smaller volume rushes between it and the precipice forming 

 the Virginia shore. Both of these torrents are received in a 

 deep basin and proceed from tlience, and following the trans- 

 verse cleft to the Maryland side, where it deflects nearly a 

 right angle, escape by a longitudinal cleft of about the same 

 width, flowing at a moderate velocity. 



Another of these fissures leading into the transverse chasm 

 marks out the Maryland shore and formerly conducted 

 another volume of water, and was called the Little River. 

 But since the erection of the dam of the Washington Water 

 Works from an island in the middle of the river to the Mary- 

 land shore, no water flows in this channel, except what is let 

 out of the waste weir. The s])ace intervening between the 

 currents next to the Virginia shore and Little River, is called 

 Falls Lsland. During floods the Avaters find their way over 

 nearly all of its rugged surface, and are, for the most part, 

 precipitated into the chasm below, through another of these 

 parallel fissures near the middle of the lower end of the 

 island. Each of these fissures present at their entrance into 

 the transverse chasm nearly the same declivity. 



The waters, at ordinary stages, after being precipitated by 

 any of these channels from the ledge above, all find an exit 

 by the same channel, and Avhich liows in the same line as 

 that of Little River produced. In its higher stages there are 

 two other out-lets, one following the transverse cleft to its- 



