PREFACE 



Under the provisions of the concurrent resolution of the Senate 

 (May 7, 1917) and of the Assembly (May 10, 1917) of the 

 State of New York, the State Historian was asked to consider 

 for publication Doctor Dow's "Anthology and Bibliography of 

 Niagara Falls." After an examination of the manuscript, he 

 was very glad to give it official approval. 



In reading the numerous selections which Doctor Dow had 

 made, he was impressed by the fact that the author had in reality 

 compiled a veritable source book for the history of Niagara Falls. 

 During the approximate three centuries which the work covers 

 one is brought to realize that few men and women of national 

 or international importance, who traveled in the United States, 

 failed to visit the Falls and record their impressions. Foreigners 

 from virtually all lands — Frenchmen, Englishmen, Dutchmen, 

 Swedes, Germans, Spaniards, Italians, and a host of others have 

 expressed their wonder and admiration of this stupendous work 

 of nature. 



Here came early explorers and travelers like Hennepin, Charle- 

 voix, Crevecoeur, Lahontan, Lescarbot, Rochefoucauld, Lian- 

 court, Hall, Carver and Dwight; authors, too numerous to 

 mention, like Chateaubriand, Martineau, Dickens, Marryat, 

 Trollope, Cooper, Hawthorne, Curtis, Parkman and Busch. 

 Among men of our own day Howells with his delightful humor 

 has given us inimitable sketches separated by long intervals of 

 time; and poets like Longfellow, Arnold and Gilder, have 

 recorded their impressions in verse or prose. Artists like Bartlett, 

 Cole, Philoppoteaux, Vanderlyn and Church have painted its 

 beauties; clergymen like Channing and Abbott, professors like 

 Lieber, journalists like Rochefort, and musicians like Ole Bull 

 have written charmingly of their sensations; engineers like 



