190 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



incessantly away. A vast basin has been thus formed, 

 in which the sweep of the river prolongs itself in 

 gyratory currents. Bodies and trees which have come 

 over the falls, are stated to circulate here for days with- 

 out finding the outlet. From various points of the 

 cliffs above, this is curiously hidden. The rush of the 

 river into the whirlpool is obvious enough ; and though 

 you imagine the outlet must be visible, if one existed, 

 you cannot find it. Turning, however, round the bend 

 of the precipice to the north-east, the outlet comes into 

 view. 



The Niagara season was over ; the chatter of sight- 

 seers had ceased, and the scene presented itself as one 

 of holy seclusion and beauty. I went down to the 

 river's edge, where the weird loneliness seemed to in- 

 crease. The basin is enclosed by high and almost 

 precipitous banks covered, at the time, with russet 

 woods. A kind of mystery attaches itself to gyrating 

 water, due perhaps to the fact that we are to some 

 extent ignorant of the direction of its force. It is said 

 that at certain points of the whirlpool, pine-trees are 

 sucked down, to be ejected mysteriously elsewhere. 

 The water is of the brightest emerald -green. The 

 gorge through which it escapes is narrow, and the 

 motion of the river swift though silent. The surface is 

 steeply inclined, but it is perfectly unbroken. There 

 are no lateral waves, no ripples with their breaking 

 bubbles to raise a murmur ; while the depth is here too 

 great to allow the inequality of the bed to ruffle the 

 surface. Nothing can be more beautiful than this 

 sloping liquid mirror formed by the Niagara, in sliding 

 from the whirlpool. 



The green colour is, I think, correctly accounted for 

 in the last Fragment. While crossing the Atlantic in 

 1872-73 I had frequent opportunities of testing the ex- 



