Niagara Falls 



1753 which did not again appear; from which I have concluded that 

 Severance there is a gulf where everything that falls from above is swal- 

 lowed up. 



About twenty feet above this fall is a little island, formed of 

 rock, some fifteen toises in length, by 10 or 12 feet in width, 

 overgrown with bushes, with one single tree in the midst. The 

 water of Lake Erie, which rushes around it and throws itself into 

 the fall, is very rapid and glides over a shelf of flat rock at a 

 depth of four or five feet, especially on the side to the south, 

 where I examined it. 



One finds at the foot of the fall, along the river Niagara, a 

 great many dead fish. Travelers pretend that these fish come 

 from Lake Erie. They find they have become drawn down into 

 the fall by the rapidity of the water. I have given to this 

 matter a reflection which seems to me just. It is that they first 

 ascend rather than descend, and that coming from Lake Ontario, 

 ascending near to the fall, they are there killed, afterward drawn 

 down by the current which throws them on the banks, where one 

 often finds them only stunned. Now if they came from Lake 

 Erie they would be killed and, what is more, swallowed up in 

 the fall. 



It is said also that birds which fly over the fall are drawn into 

 it in spite of themselves, by the force of the air. I am not sure 

 of this fact, which, however, is not lacking in probability, since 

 there is often seen there a rainbow which seems strongly to 

 attract the birds who direct their flight into it, where they become 

 confused and drenched, lacking strength to ascend. And it 

 may perhaps be only birds of passage, for those which inhabit 

 the neighborhood are so accustomed to the rainbow and to the 

 noise of the fall that they know how to preserve themselves, since 

 they are seldom seen there, although there are a great many of 

 them in this vicinity. 



This account is not so well known as many others but it is interesting 

 nevertheless. The original manuscript was in the form of a journal. 

 Both the original and a copy of it were at last accounts to be found in 

 Paris. 



42 



