NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 43 



brink, and repeat the descent, as if delighted with the gift of 

 wings, which enabled them to sport over such frightful pre- 

 cipices without danger. I found among the debris in the abyss, 

 pieces of hornstone, and crystals of calcareous spar, radiated 

 quartz, sulphuret of zinc, and sulphate of lime. Its geology is 

 best explained by observing that the river, in falling over the pre- 

 cipice of the Niagara ridge into the basin of Lake Ontario, leaps 

 over horizontal strata of limestone, slate, and red sandstone. In 

 this respect, nothing can be more simple and plain. It is magni- 

 tude alone that makes the cataract sublime. 



On returning to Buffalo, I found the lake rapidly discharging 

 its ice, which had been recently broken up by a storm of wind; 

 and, while awaiting the motion of the steamer, I was joined by 

 Captain D. B. Douglass, Professor of Engineering at West Point, 

 who had been appointed topographer and astronomer of the 

 expedition. TVe embarked on the 6th of May, at nine o'clock in 

 the morning, in the steamer Walk-in-the-Water, an elegant and 

 conveniently-planned vessel, with a low-pressure Fulton engine. 

 This boat had been put upon the lake two years before, when it 

 made a trip to Michilimackinac, and was, indeed, the initial boat 

 in the history of steam navigation on the Lakes. "VVe embarked 

 at Black Eock, and it was necessary to use a tow-line, drawn by 

 oxen on the shore, to enable the boat to ascend the Eapids, This 

 Captain Eodgers, a gentlemanly man, facetiously termed his horn- 

 breeze. The oxen were dismissed a short distance before reach- 

 ing the mouth of Buffalo Creek, where we reached the level of 

 Lake Erie, five hundred and sixty feet above the tide- waters of 

 the Hudson Eiver.* We were favored with clear weather, and, 

 a part of the time, with a fair wind. The boat touched at Erie, 

 at the mouth of Grand Eiver, at Cleveland, and at Portland, in 

 Sandusky Bay, on coming out of which we passed Cunningham 

 Island, and the Put-in-Bay Islands, from a harbor in which Perry 

 issued to achieve his memorable naval victory on the 10th of 

 September, 1813. Passing through another group of islands, 

 called the Three Sisters, we entered the mouth of the Detroit 

 Eiver late on the afternoon of the 8th, just as the light became 

 dim and shadowy. The scale of these waters is magnificent. 



■^ Ficport of the New York Canal Commissioners. 



