Niagara Falls 



1749 



1749 BoNN£CAMPS, JOSEPH PlERRE DE. Account of the voyage on the 



Bonnecampj Beautiful river made in 1 749, under the direction of Monsieur de Celoron, 

 by Father Bonnecamps. (Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, LXIX, p. 159.) 

 Bonnecamps was a French Jesuit who accompanied the De Celeron 

 expedition of the summer of 1 749. The party passed Niagara Falls on its 

 way to the Ohio. The extract given is taken from Bonnecamps's journal 

 of the expedition. 



The famous waterfall of Niagara is very nearly equidistant 

 from the two lakes. It is formed by a rock cleft vertically, and 

 is 133 feet, according to my measurement, which I believe to 

 be exact. Its figure is a half-ellipse, divided near the middle by 

 a little island. The width of the fall is perhaps three-eighths of 

 a league. The water falls in foam over the length of the rock, 

 and is received in a large basin, over which hangs a continual 

 mist. 



1751 

 1751 La LANDE, M. DE LA. Memoire sur la vie de M. Picquet, missionaire 



La Lande au Canada. (Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, ecrites des missions 

 etrangeres. Nouvelle edn. Paris: J. P. Merigot. 1783. Tome 

 XXVI, p. 32.) 



Picquet's description may also be found in the Proceedings and 

 Transactions of the Royal Society; of Canada, volume XII, section I, 

 page 20. An English version occurs in O'Callaghan's Documentary 

 History of the Stale of New York, 8vo. ed. 1 849, volume I, pages 

 434-435. 



From Niagara, Mr. Picquet went to the Carrying place which 

 is six leagues from that Post. He visited on the same day the 

 famous Fall of Niagara by which the four Great Canada lakes 

 discharge themselves into Lake Ontario. This Cascade is as 

 prodigious by its height and the quantity of water which falls 

 there, as by the variety of its falls which are to the number of 

 six principal ones divided by a small island, leaving three to the 

 North and three to the South. They produce of themselves a 

 singular symmetry and wonderful effect. He measured the 

 height of one of those falls from the south side, and he found it 

 about one hundred and forty feet. 



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