CARARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 217 



I myself saw a cataract, three leagues above Albany, in the pro- 

 vince of New York, ou Schenectada river, called the Cohoes, which 

 {hey count much of there, and yet it is not above 40 or 60 feet 

 perpendicular. From these falls also there rises a misty cloud, 

 which descends like small rain, which, when the sun shines gives a 

 handsome small rainbow, that moves as you move, according to the 

 angle of vision. The river at the Cohoes is 40 or 50 rods broad, 

 but then it is very shallow water, for in a dry season the whole 

 river runs in a channel of not more than 15 feet wide. 



In my journey to Albany, miles to the eastward of Hudson's 

 river, near the middle of a long rising hill, I met with a brisk noisy 

 brook, sufficient to serve a water-mill ; and having observed 

 nothing of it at the beginning of the hill, I turned about, and 

 followed the coarse of the brook, till at length I found it come to an 

 end, being absorbed, and sinking into the ground, thence either 

 passing through subterraneous passages, or soaked up by the sand ; 

 and though it be common in other parts of the world for brooks 

 and even rivers thus to be lost, yet this is the first of the sort I 

 have heard o^ or met with, in this country. 



[Phil. Trans. 1722, 



The Fall of Fyers. 



THE fall of Fyers, is a vast cataract, in a darksome glen of a stu- 

 pendous depth ; the water darts far beneath the top through a 

 narrow gap between two rocks, then precipitates above forty feet 

 lower into the bottom of the chasm, and the foam, like a great 

 cloud of smoke, rises and fills the air. The sides of this glen are 

 vast precipices mixed with trees over-hanging the water, through 

 which, after a short space, the waters discharge themselves into the 



lake. 



About half a mile south of the first fall is another passing through 

 a narrow chasm, whose sides it has undermined for a considerable 

 way : over the gap is a true Alpine bridge of the bodies of trees 

 covered with sods, from u hose middle is an aweful view of the 

 water roaring beneath. 



At the full of Foher the road quits the side of the lake, and is 

 carried for some space through a small vale on the side of the river 

 l^ers, where is a mixture of small plains of corn and rocky hills. 



