VII. 

 NIAGARA. 1 



TT is one of the disadvantages of reading books abo.ut 

 JL natural scenery that they fill the mind with pictures, 

 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 control of the 

 judgment, and gave currency to notions which have 

 often led to disappointment. 



A record of a voyage in 1 535 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 Kageneau, in a letter 

 to his superior at Paris, mentions Niagara as * a cataract 

 of frightful height.' 2 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 



1 A Discourse delivered at the Eoyal Institution of Great 

 Britain, April 4, 1873. 



* From an interesting little book presented to me at Brooklyn 

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

 Kalm, Bakewell, Lyell, Hall, and others I have myself consulted. 



