A VISIT TO EUROPE 32? 



manded prudence in a perfectly strange country, I retired 

 to the Hotel, satisfied with what I had seen. The roar of 

 the falling waters, the splashing of the rain soon put me 

 to sleep within stone throw of America's greatest Won- 

 der. 



Tuesday, May the fourteenth, 1868. 

 By six o'clock in the morning the rain seemed to dimin- 

 ish sufficiently to risk the much longed-for excursion 

 across the chain-bridge, which in itself is a wonder of 

 human ingenuity placed alongside of this wonder of the 

 Supreme Architect of the Universe. This bridge leads, 

 on the Canadian side, to Table-rock, whence wooden and 

 stone steps, grown slippery from the ever dripping 

 waters, lead downward to a path which has been hewn 

 into the stony wall and which in turn takes the visitor to 

 the "Horseshoe" Fall. Though one can scarcely progress 

 more than fifteen feet under the main cataract, it is quite 

 sufficient for one's nerves. Here, about eighty feet above 

 the boiling, foaming whirl-pool, in the ever dark twilight, 

 scarcely admitted by the constantly falling waters, the 

 thundering noise of which is simply deafening, nobody 

 will ever remain very .long at one time. The immense 

 waters, which thus form the unique wonder in the shape 

 of a cataract, come originally from the Erie and Ontario 

 lakes, whence the Niagara River, at times four thousand 

 feet wide, has its powerful strength. The celebrated 

 Falls form between the little American town of the same 

 name and the Canadian village, Clifton. Goat-Island di- 

 vides the cataract into two arms, the Eastern, which 

 measures at least one thousand feet in width, and the 

 Western, which is on Canadian territory, known as the 

 Horseshoe Fall and said to exceed the Eastern division 

 in width and consequently in momentum. The grandeur 

 of this natural wonder is not to be measured by the 

 height of the cataract, but by the almost incredible mass 

 of falling water which reaches one hundred million of 

 tons in a single hour. The bed of the Niagara at this 

 point is partly chalk hut mostly slate and it would seen] 



