Maps and Pictures 



will remember that the falls are divided by a mass of rock which 1868 

 is crowned by a dense wood ; this wood is also obscured by mist, Church 

 but partially, and much less so than that in the distance ; and the 

 effects of mist on these woods are full of interesting study, and 

 surprisingly truthful. Let us now follow the fall from the 

 Canadian shore to the American, from which we see it. First, 

 we have three or four white cascades like a Swiss fall, then a 

 rather broader mass, and then for a space we see no water at all 

 on account of the rising mist. A little to the left of the mist, 

 however, there is a broad sheet of pure emerald, whose translucent 

 beauty, though it really covers only a few square inches of canvas, 

 leads the imagination to give an ideal splendour to the whole 

 waterfall. . . . This transparent passage is followed by one 

 of dull, opaque white, and then we come to the rocks in mid- 

 stream, whose thick vegetation is watered by the ever ascending 

 mist and trembles at the eternal thunder. From here to the spec- 

 tator is nothing but the rippling rapid above, and the ragged sheet 

 of heavily falling water, losing itself below in masses of rolling 

 cloud. In the way of immediate foreground we have a cliff to 

 the left, and before us its scattered debris. 



The most original passage remains to be described. Below 

 every waterfall there is a pool, whose motion is in great part 

 determined by the continual rising from below of the water which 

 the force of the cascade has driven down to the very bed of the 

 river. A fall like Niagara actually dives and strikes the bottom, 

 from which it continually rebounds. The effects on the surface 

 of the pool are amongst the most curious of all the phenomena of 

 water. One very remarkable result is that, although there may be 

 nothing like what we are accustomed to call a wave, the water is 

 not level ; it often perceptibly rises into gentle eminences, flowing 

 away from these in all directions. Sometimes the whole pool is 

 visibly, though slightly domed, and this, from Mr. Church's 

 record, appears to be the case with Niagara. There was no great 

 technical difficulty in rendering this appearance, but Mr. Church 

 has achieved a very great feat in his interpretation of the surface- 



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