Niagara Falls 



1906 



Severance 



1907 



1907 



1909 



Buffalo 



Historical 



Society 



1909 



Severance 



he is precise with his dates, and in his account of Indian customs 

 shows much accurate knowledge. Among the things that tell 

 against him are his allusions to a Jesuit priest, Father Cirene, 

 among the Mohawks ; but this name is not found in all the Rela- 

 tions of the order. His account of Niagara Falls is dubious; he 

 says they are 600 feet high. This is La Hontan's figure of many 

 years before. Le Beau has much to say of La Hontan and his 

 misrepresentations, but the indications are that he accepted one of 

 that gay officer's wildest exaggerations, and that he may never 

 have seen Niagara at all. He probably came to Canada, and 

 had some experience among the Indians ; and when he wrote his 

 book, chose to so enlarge upon what he had really seen and experi- 

 enced, still holding to a thread of fact, that the result has little 

 interest as fiction, and no value whatever as history. 



1907 



Niagara, and how to see it. Meetings of the S. A. F. and O. H. 

 1907. Pp. 33-34. 



Rebridging Niagara. (Harp, w., July 31, 1907. 41:756-762.) 



With special reference to the new upper steel arch bridge just below the 

 Falls. 



1909 



Buffalo Historical Society. Publications. Vol. XIII. 1909. 

 (See index for references to Niagara ship canal and effect of opening of 

 Erie canal on the Niagara portage.) 



SEVERANCE, FRANK HAYWARD. Historical sketch of the board of 

 trade, the merchants exchange, and the chamber of commerce of Buffalo. 

 (Pub. Buff. hist. soc. 1 909. 13:311-313.) 



Opposition to the Niagara ship canal. 



On one subject which came up time and again, championed by 

 many boards of trade and individuals, both in and out of Con- 

 gress, the Buffalo Board of Trade was uniformly and consistently 

 obdurate. That was the Niagara Ship Canal. Ship canals 

 around the falls had been proposed in very early days ; and advo- 

 cated, after surveys and elaborate reports, from 1835, at intervals 

 through nearly four decades. In December, 1871, a Niagara 



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