3G0 



FALLS OF NIAGAEA. 



[Ch. XV. 



present site of the Falls to the escarpment (called the 

 Queenstown Heights) , where it is supposed that the cataract 

 was first situated, and that the river has been slowly eating 

 its way backwards through the rocks for the distance of seven 

 miles. This hypothesis naturally suggests itself to every 

 observer, who sees the narrowness of the gorge at its termi- 

 nation, and throughout its whole course, as far up as the 

 Falls, above which point the river expands as before stated. 

 The boundary cliffs of the ravine are usually perpendicular, 

 and in many places undermined on one side by the im- 

 petuous stream. The uppermost rock of the table-land at 

 the Falls consists of hard limestone (a member of the Silurian 

 series), about ninety feet thick, beneath which lie soft shales 

 of equal thickness, continually undermined by the action of 

 the spray, which rises from the pool into which so large a 

 body of water is projected, and is driven violently by gusts 

 of wind against the base of the precipice. In consequence of 

 this action, and that of frost, the shale disintegrates and 

 crumbles away, and portions of the incumbent rock overhang 

 forty feet, and often when unsupported tumble down, so that 

 the Falls do not remain absolutely stationary at the same 

 spot, even for half a century. Accounts have come down to 

 us, from the earliest period of observation, of the frequent 

 destruction of these rocks, and the sudden descent of huge 

 fragments in 1818 and 1828, are said to have shaken the 

 adjacent country like an earthquake. The earliest travellers, 

 Hennepin and Kalm, who in 1678 and 1751 visited the Falls, 

 and published views of them, attest the fact, that the rocks 

 have been suffering from dilapidation for more than a century 

 and a half, and that some slight changes, even in the scenery 

 of the cataract, have been brought about within that time. 

 The idea, therefore, of perpetual and progressive waste is 

 constantly present to the mind of every beholder; and as that 

 part of the chasm, which has been the work of the last 150 

 years resembles precisely in depth, width, and character the 

 rest of the gorge which extends seven miles below, it is most 

 natural to infer, that the entire ravine has been hollowed out 

 in the same manner, by the recession of the cataract. 



It must at least be conceded, that the river supplies an 



