NIAGARA. 133 



leaped beyond the control of the judgment, and gave cur- 

 rency to notions which have of ten led to disappointment. 



A record of a voyage in 1535 by a French mariner named 

 Jacques Cartier, contains, it is said, the first printed allu- 

 sion to Niagara. In 1603 the first map of the district 

 was constructed by a Frenchman named Champlain. In 

 1648 the Jesuit Rageneau, in a letter to his superior at 

 Paris, mentions Niagara as " a cataract of frightful height."* 

 In the winter of 1678 and 1679 the cataract was visited by 

 Father Heuuepin, and described in a book dedicated " to 

 the king of Great Britain." He gives a drawing of the 

 waterfall, which shows that serious changes have taken 

 place since his time. He describes it as " a great and pro- 

 digious cadence of water, to which the universe does not 

 offer a parallel." The height of the fall, according to 

 Hennepin, was more than 600 feet. " The waters," he 

 says, " which fall from this great precipice do foam and 

 boil in the most astonishing manner, making a noise more 

 terrible than that of thunder. When the wind blows to 

 the south its frightful roaring may be heard for more than 

 fifteen leagues." The Baron la Hontau, who visited Niag- 

 ara in 1687, makes the height 800 feet. In 1721 Charle- 

 vois, in a letter to Madame de Main tenon, after referring 

 to the exaggerations of his predecessors, thus states the 

 result of his own observations: " For my part, after ex- 

 amining it on all sides, I am inclined to think that we can- 

 not allow it less than 140 or 150 feet " a remarkably 

 close estimate. At that time, viz., a hundred and fifty 

 years ago, it had the shape oj a horseshoe, and reasons will 

 subsequently be given for holding that this has been always 

 the form of the cataract, from its origin to its present 

 site. 



As regards the noise of the fall, Charlevois declares the 

 accounts of his predecessors, which, I may say, are repeated 

 to the present hour, to be altogether extravagant. He is 

 perfectly right. The thunders of Niagara are formidable 

 enough to those who really seek them at the base of the 

 Horseshoe Fall; but on the banks of the river, and par- 

 ticularly above the fall, its silence, rather than its noise, 



* From an interesting little book presented to ine at Brooklyn by 

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

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



