33 



It seems peculiar to the water of the Thames, that 

 in eight months time it acquires a spirituous quality, so 

 as to bum like spirits* of wine. Even when it stinks, it 

 is not unwholesome : men who were obliged to hold 

 their noses, yet drank of it all the way to the East-Indies, 

 and found no inconvenience. If you take out the bung 

 from any cask that stinks, and let the air come in, it will 

 be sweet in twenty-four hours. If you take a broom- 

 stick, and stir it well, it will be sweet in four or five 

 hours. It casts a black lee to the bottom, which remix- 

 ing with it, causes a third or fourth fermentation, after 

 which it stinks no more. But though Thames water 

 does not putrify when it stinks, most other water does, 

 and is at that time very dangerous to drink. 



The cataracts of the Nile are probably less remark- 

 able than that of Niagara, in Canada. The fall of this is 

 about six leagues from Fort Niagara. The whole 

 course of the river, for two leagues and a half below the 

 great fall, is a series of smaller falis^ one under another. 

 The rocks of the great fall cross the river in almost a se- 

 micircle. Above the fall, in the middle of the river, 

 and parallel with the sides of it, is an island above four 

 hundred yards long. The lower end of this islaml is 

 just at the perpendicular edge of the fall. On both 

 sides of this island runs all the water that comes from 

 the lakes of Canada, which indeed are rather seas than 

 lakes, receiving many large rivers. When the water ap- 

 proaches the island, it runs with an amazing swiftness, 

 and before it comes to the fall, is quite white, and in 

 many places is thrown high kito the air. Looking up 

 the river from the fall, you see it is exceeding steep, re- 

 sembling the side of a hill. When this vast body of 

 water comes to the fall, it throws itself down perpendi- 

 cular. To see this rush headlong down so prodigious a 

 precipice, strikes the beholder in a manner not to be ex- 

 pressed. 



f It falls one hunrded nnd thirty-seven feet. When the 



water is come down to the bottom, it leaps back to a 



great height in the air : at a little distance it is white as 



C 4 



