Niagara Falls 



1796 astonishing impetuosity do the waves break on the rocks in these 

 d rapids, that the mere sight of them from the top of the banks is 



sufficient to make you shudder. I must in this place, however, 

 observe, that it is only on each side of the river that the waters are 

 so much troubled; in the middle of it, though the current is also 

 there uncommonly swift, yet the breakers are not so dangerous 

 but boats may pass down, if dexterously managed, to an island 

 which divides the river at the very falls. To go down to this 

 island it is necessary to set off at some distance above Chippeway, 

 where the current is even, and to keep exactly in the middle of 

 the river the whole way thither; if the boats were suffered to get 

 out of their course ever so little, either to the right or left, it would 

 be impossible to stem the current, and bring them again into it; 

 they would be irresistibly carried towards the fails, and destruc- 

 tion must inevitably follow. In returning from the island there 

 is still more difficulty and danger than in going to it. Notwith- 

 standing these circumstances, numbers of persons have the fool- 

 hardiness to proceed to this island, merely for the sake of 

 beholding the falls from the opposite side of it, or for the sake 

 of having in their power to say that they had been upon it. 



The river forces its way amidst the rocks with redoubled 

 impetuosity, as it approaches towards the falls; at last coming 

 to the brink of the tremendous precipice, it tumbles headlong to 

 the bottom, without meeting with any interruption from rocks in 

 its descent. Just at the precipice the river takes a considerable 

 bend to the right, and the line of the falls, instead of extending 

 from bank to bank in the shortest direction, runs obliquely across. 

 The width of the falls is considerably greater than the width of 

 the river, admeasured some way below the precipice; . . . 

 you will see that the river does not rush down the precipice in 

 one unbroken sheet, but that it is divided by islands into three 

 distinct collateral falls. The most stupendous of these is that 

 on the north western or British side of the river, commonly called 

 the Great, or Horse-shoe Fall, from its bearing some resem- 

 blance to the shape of a horse shoe. The height of this is only 



100 



