288 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



And spoke in that loud voice which seem'd to him 



Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake, 



The sound of many waters ; and had bade 



Thy flood to chronicle the ages back, 



And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks 



Deep callcth unto deep. And what are we, 



That hear the question of that voice sublime 



Oh ! what are all the notes that ever rung 



From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side ? 



Yea, what is all the riot man can make, 



In his short life, to thy unceasing roar ? 



And yet, Bold Babbler ! what art thou to Him. 



\Vho drown'd a world, and heap'd the waters far 



Above its loftiest mountains ? a light wave, 



That breaks, and whispers -of its Maker's might." 



It has been remarked that at Niagara, several objects composing the chief beauty of 

 other celebrated waterfalls are altogether wanting. There are no cliffs reaching to an 

 extraordinary height, crowned with trees, or broken into picturesque and varied forms ; 

 for, though one of the banks is wooded, the forest scenery on the whole is not imposing. 

 The accompaniments, in short, rank here as nothing. There is merely the display, on a 

 scale elsewhere unrivalled, of the phenomena appropriate to this class of objects. There 

 is the spectacle of a falling sea, the eye filled almost to its utmost reach by the rushing of 

 mighty waters. There is the awful plunge into the abyss beneath, and the reverberation 

 thence in endless lines of foam, and in numberless whirlpools and eddies ; there are clouds 

 of spray that fill the whole atmosphere, amid which the most brilliant rainbows, in rapid 

 succession, glitter and disappear ; above all, there is the stupendous sound, of the peculiar 

 character of which all writers, with their utmost efforts, seem to have vainly attempted to 

 convey an idea. Bouchette describes it as " grand, commanding, and majestic, filling the 

 vault of heaven when heard in its fulness " as "a deep, round roar, an alternation of 

 muffled and open sounds, to which there is nothing exactly corresponding." Captain Hall 

 compares it to the ceaseless, rumbling, deep-monotonous sound of a vast mill, which, 

 though not very poetical, is generally considered as approaching near to the reality. 

 Dr. Reed states, " it is not like the sea ; nor like the thunder ; nor like any thing I have 

 heard. There is no roar, no rattle ; nothing sharp or angry in its tones ; it is deep, awful. 

 One." The diffusion of the noise varies according to the state of the atmosphere and the 

 direction of the wind, but it may be heard under favourable circumstances through a 

 distance of forty-six miles : at Toronto, across Lake Ontario. To the geologist the 

 Niagara falls have interest, on account of the movement which it is supposed has taken 

 place in their position. The force of the waters appears to be wearing away the rock over 

 which they rush, and gradually shifting the cataract higher up the river. It is conceived 

 that by this process it has already receded in the course of ages through a distance of 

 more than seven miles, from a point between Queenstown and Lewiston, to which the 

 high level of the country continues. The rate of procession is fixed, according to an 

 estimate, mentioned by Mr. M'Gregor, at eighteen feet during the thirty years previous 

 to 1810 ; but he adds another more recent, which raises it to one hundred and fifty feet 

 in fifty years. 



The following account of a visit to the Falls of Niagara has been communicated by 

 Mr. N. Gould. It forms a part of his unpublished Xotes on America and Canada. 



" My attention had been kept alive, and I was all awake to the sound of the cataract ; 

 but, though within a few miles, I heard nothing. A cloud hanging nearly steady over 

 the forest, was pointed out to me as the 'spray cloud;' at length we drove up to For- 

 syth's hotel, and the mighty Niagara was full in view. My first impression was that 



