Niagara Falls 



1755-60 The journeys which the French undertook at an early period 



Pouchot j n j Q ^ e i n j er j or f America, gave them a knowledge less vague 

 concerning this celebrated cascade. They were at first, how- 

 ever, very incorrect, and we scarcely depend upon the details 

 which the Baron de la Hontan and Father Hennepin had given 

 us. The description which we derive from Father Charlevoix, 

 merits more dependence. M. de Buffon has not hesitated to 

 insert it in his immortal work. Besides what M. Pouchot has 

 related of this fall in the observations which follow, we have 

 found nothing among his papers which we could use. 



The river of the Portage, or of the Niagara, is properly noth- 

 ing but the outlet of Lake Erie, which discharges itself into Lake 

 Ontario, at six leagues from the Falls. It is not easy to measure 

 with instruments the elevation of this fall, and travelers who 

 could see it only in profile, have therefore varied considerably in 

 their accounts. The Baron de la Hontan asserts that they are 

 seven or eight hundred feet high, and the Chevalier de Tonti, a 

 hundred toises. The estimate of Father Charlevoix is much 

 more correct. He gives a hundred and forty or a hundred and 

 fifty feet as the height of the Falls of Niagara. 



M. de Buffon had at first supposed this fall was the finest in 

 the whole world, and that it owed this honor to its elevation, 

 but after a little he appears to retract in giving preference to 

 that of Terni in Italy. Although most travelers do not give 

 these falls more than two hundred feet, the illustrious naturalist 

 supposes them to be three hundred. . . . 



It is not the height, but the breadth of a cascade which ren- 

 ders it considerable, and that of Niagara, having nine hundred 

 feet in breadth, evidently surpasses all others. It cannot be com- 

 pared perhaps with the Terni, which, in relative height, is inferior 

 to several which we know in the country of the Grisons, Valois 

 and Switzerland. . . . 



The fall of Niagara is also remarkable from the phenomena 

 occasioned by its breadth. When the weather is clear, we 

 always see several rainbows, one within another, of which it is 



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