Travelers' Original Accounts: 1801-1840 



conducts to the edge of the bank. The ground is marshy for a 1818 

 considerable space up and down, with a good deal of brush- 

 wood scattered about, but part of it had been cut away from 

 the brow of the precipice, to afford a view of the falls. 



Turning to the right I followed a narrow path, which skirted 

 the edge of the bank; but stepped slowly and with caution, for I 

 had read alarming accounts of the abundance of rattlesnakes in 

 this quarter. . . . Before reaching the Table Rock, as it is 

 called, at which this path terminates, I stopped behind a few 

 bushes upon a projecting edge, from which I enjoyed a com- 

 manding prospect of the wonders before me. 



During the summer, the American newspapers had announced 

 that the whole of the Table Rock had given way, and been 

 precipitated into the channel of the river; I was therefore eager 

 to ascertain the extent of the mischief. We got over the rail 

 fences of two fields, and passing the distillery to which I 

 have already alluded, reached the edge of the precipice. On 

 looking to the right, I at once remarked the great change which 

 had taken place. From within a few feet of v/here I stood, the 

 bank which had formerly run forward nearly in a straight line 

 towards the Table Rock, now presented a great concavity. The 

 foot path along which I had formerly walked, and the bushes 

 behind which I had stood, had all disappeared : — the rock upon 

 whose deceitful support they rested, had suddenly given way, 

 from top to bottom, and a mass, as we were informed, about 1 60 

 feet in length, and from 30 to 40 in breadth, upon which I had 

 formerly imagined myself in security, now lay shattered into ten 

 thousand fragments at the bottom of the precipice. . . . 



The final disruption of this mass took place about midnight in 

 the month of July or August. . . . 



A new path, winding considerably backward from the brow 

 of the cliff, has been cut through the brushwood with which the 

 marsh abounds, and a line of planks conducts the traveller to the 



149 



