NIAGARA FALLS AND RIVER 



4224 



NIAGARA FALLS AND RIVER 



valued at $45,000,000. The international trade 

 for a single year sometimes exceeds $42,000,000. 

 The Falls of the Niagara W( re .l:<cnvored by 

 Father Hennepin in 1678. In 1892 the two vil- 

 lages of Niagara Falls and Suspension Bridge 



r chart rivd as the city of Niagara 

 Falls. In 1915 the city adopted the commis- 

 sion form of government. Niagara Falls enter- 

 tains thousand* of victors annually. See NI- 

 AGARA FALLS AND RIVEK. G.W.K. 



THE STORY OF NIAGARA FALLS 



IIAGARA FALLS AND RIVER. In 



the Irpquois tongue the Niagara River is called 

 with fine poetic inspiration the "thundering 

 water." It connects Lake Erie and Lake On- 

 tario, and discharges the outflow of all the 

 Great Lakes except Lake Ontario. For the 

 thirty-three miles of its course it separates New 

 York state from the Canadian province of On- 

 tario; it is navigable throughout the most of 

 its length, the principal exception being the 

 nine miles occupied by the series of rapids and 

 the Falls that constitute its chief natural glory. 

 The Welland Canal, built by the Canadian 

 government, carries lake commerce to Lake 

 Ontario. 



The Falls and Whirlpool. Along the plateau 

 which it traverses after emerging from Lake 

 Erie, the river flows tranquilly between level 

 hanks, being swift and turbulent only for a 

 short distance near its source. Near the lower 

 edge of the plateau, its waters divide to pass on 

 either side of Grand Island, and a little dis- 

 tance beyond the point where they reunite the 

 channel swiftly narrows, and the river enters 

 upon a series of rapids. Down these rapids the 

 waters race for their leap into space, plunging 

 a mass of 500,000 tons a minute into the gorge. 

 Goat Island separates the river into two un- 

 equal streams just above the Falls the greater 

 hurling itself over the ledge on the Canadian 

 side, forming the magnificent Horseshoe Falls, 

 and the lesser over that on the east shore, form- 

 ing the American Falls. The Horseshoe Falls 

 have a length of 2,950 feet along the crest, or 

 1,230 feet across the chord of the circle. This 



main cataract carries over ninety per cent of 

 the entire volume of water and has a fall of 158 

 feet. The American Falls are 1,060 feet along 

 the curve and have a drop of 167 feet. 



The gorge is scarcely less splendid than the 

 Falls themselves. It stretches for a distance of 

 seven miles, from the brink of the Horseshoe 

 Falls to the escarpment at Lewiston. Its first 

 reach is almost straight, and the river flows 

 placidly between towering walls of rock for a 

 distance of two and one-fourth miles. It then 

 passes under the railroad bridges and enters the 

 Whirlpool Rapids, where the waters are 

 churned and beaten in their leap from ledge 

 to ledge. Below the rapids, the channel swerves 

 sharply to the left, and the violence of the 

 current has hewn a circular basin out of the 

 rock. In this basin the waters whirl and foam, 

 forming the most impressive maelstrom in the 

 world. Below the Whirlpool, the channel has 



