Niagara Falls 



1798 



Weld 



1798 

 New York 

 Legislature 



than three months on the ground. The summers are intensely hot, 

 Fahrenheit's thermometer often rising to 96°, and sometimes 

 above 100°. 



As I passed along to Fort Erie I killed a great many large 

 snakes of different sorts that I found basking in the sun. 

 Amongst them I did not find any rattlesnakes ; these reptiles, how- 

 ever, are very commonly met with here; . . . 



The Seneka is one of the six nations which formerly bore the 

 general name of the Iroquois Indians. Their principal village is 

 situated on Buffalo Creek, which falls into the eastern extremity 

 of Lake Erie, on the New York shore. We took the ship's boat 

 one morning, and went over to visit it, but all the Indians, men, 

 women, and children, amounting in all to upwards of six hundred 

 persons, had, at an early hour, gone down to Fort Niagara, to 

 partake of a feast which was there prepared for them. 



New York (State) Legislature. An act for opening the naviga- 

 tion between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, passed April 5, 1 798. (Laws 

 of 1 798. chap. 93.) 



The preamble states that this law is passed in response to the representa- 

 tions to the legislature that the construction of a canal paralleling the Falls 

 is practicable and that it will greatly advance commerce and serve the 

 convenience of the people of the state. 



1799 



1799 OcDEN, John CosENS. A tour, through Upper and Lower Canada. 



Ogden By a citizen of the United States . . . Litchfield. 1799. Pp. 110-112. 



The author was especially interested in the Niagara portage, but attempts 

 no description of the Falls. 



The noble river St. Lawrence supplies this country for an 

 extent of two thousand miles, with commercial advantages inferior 

 to none on this side of the Atlantic. — Conceive to yourself 

 vessels of six hundred tons burthen, unloading all kinds of British 

 goods at the port of Montreal, five hundred miles from the sea, 

 and again receiving in return, furs from the interior parts of the 

 country as far as the Mississippi is known to the westward, and 



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