VII. 



NIAGARA* 



IT is one of the disadvantages of reading books about 

 natural scenery that they fill the mind with pic- 

 tures, often exaggerated, often distorted, often blurred, 

 and, even when well drawn, injurious to the freshness 

 of first impressions. Such has been the fate of most 

 of us with regard to the Falls of Niagara. There was 

 little accuracy in the estimates of the first observers 

 of the cataract. Startled by an exhibition of power 

 so novel and so grand, emotion leaped beyond the con- 

 trol of the judgment, and gave currency to notions 

 which have often led to disappointment. 



A record of a voyage in 1535 by a French mariner 

 named Jacques Cartier, contains, it is said, the first 

 printed allusion to Niagara. In 1603 the first map of 

 the district was constructed by a Frenchman named 

 Champlain. In 1648 the Jesuit Rageneau, in a letter 

 to his superior at Paris, mentions Niagara as ' a cata- 

 ract of frightful height/ f In the winter of 1678 and 

 1679 the cataract was visited by Father Hennepin, and 

 described in a book dedicated ' to the King of Great 

 Britain.' He gives a drawing of the waterfall, which 



* A Discourse delivered at the Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain, April 4, 1878. 



f From an interesting little book presented to me at Brooklyn 

 by its author, Mr. Holly, some of these data are derived : Henne- 

 pin, Kalm, Bakewell, Lyell, Hall, and others I have myself con- 

 sulted. 



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