172 Niagara Falls. 



once restored. The cost of this mighty structure was only 

 $500,000. 



The River Niagara, signifying, in the Iroquois language, 

 " Thunder of Waters" takes its rise in the western extremity 

 of Lake Erie, and, after a course of thirty-three and a 

 half miles, flows into Lake Ontario, which is 334 feet 

 lower than Lake Erie. At Fort Erie, the point where it 

 issues from Lake Erie, it is something more than three- 

 quarters of a mile in width, and the powerful current, 

 running on through a level country, embosoms two islands 

 about half-way in its course, to the Falls ; these are Grand 

 Isle, belonging to the United States, the original seat of Mr. 

 Noah's famous Jewish colony, containing 11,000 acres, and, 

 about ten miles lower down, Navy Island, opposite to the 

 village of Chippewa, — memorable as being the rendezvous of 

 the so-called Patriots in '38 under Van Ranselaer, and from 

 whence, with American artillery, they swept the Canadian 

 shore till dislodged and compelled to evacuate it, Jan. 14th, 

 by the superior weight of British metal. Here the two chan- 

 nels formed by these islands re-unite, and the river becomes 

 about two miles wide. A little lower down, at the mouth of the 

 Welland or Chippeway River, it suddenly contracts to less 

 than a mile, and its current rapidly increases from three to 

 seven or eight miles an hour. The course of the river in this 

 part is nearly due west, and its banks begin to rise, first to ten 

 or twelve feet, and soon to twenty, thirty, and fifty feet above 

 the surface of the water. This rising of the banks is not the 

 effect of a rise in the surrounding country, which, in fact, 

 preserves its level in a continuous plain, but it is owing to 

 the bed of the river descending an inclined plane. Here the 

 waters begin to fall back into curling eddies along the banks, 

 but the current in the centre flows smoothly, till suddenly 

 the powerful stream is thrown with accumulated swiftness 

 among broken rocks ; and as you watch it, looking from 

 below, it seems tossed with the first shock into the very sky. 



