Preservation of the Falls 

 very choice collection of coins, which was placed in a glass case 1849 



in the Museum. Bonnycastle 



He is now forming a menagerie, and also has a collection of 

 fossils and minerals from the neighborhood, with a camera 

 obscura. He is, in short, a specimen of what untiring industry 

 can accomplish, even when unassisted. 



There are some tulip-trees near the Falls, but this plant does 

 not grow to any size so far north; and, although native to the 

 soil, it is, perhaps, the extreme limit of its range. The snake- 

 wood, a sort of slender bush, is found here, with very many other 

 rare Canadian plants, which are no doubt fostered by the con- 

 tinual humidity of the place; and, if you wish to sup full of 

 horrors, Mr. Barnett has plenty of live rattlesnakes. 



To wind up all, the Americans are going to put up another 

 immense gin-palace on the opposite shore; and, as a climax to 

 the excellent taste of the vicinage, they are about to place a 

 huge steamboat to cross the rapids at the foot of the Manchester 

 Falls. The next speculation, as I hinted above, must be to turn 

 the Niagara into the Erie, or into the Welland Canal, and make 

 it carry flour, grind wheat, and do the duty which the political 

 economists of this thriving place consider all rivers as alone 

 created for. 



One traveller of the Utilitarian school has recorded, in the 

 traveller's album at the Falls, the number of gallons of water 

 running over to waste per minute; and another writes, "What 

 an almighty splash! " 



I went once more to see the Burning Spring, and have no 

 doubt whatever that the City of the Falls, that great pre-eminent 

 humbug, if it had been built, might have easily been lit by 

 natural gas, as it abounds everywhere in the neighborhood, the 

 rock under the superior Silurian limestone being a shale containing 

 it, as may be evidenced by those visitors, who are persuaded to go 

 under " the Sheet of Water," as the place is called where the 

 Table Rock projects, and part of the cataract slides over it; for, 



1077 



