Niagara Falls 



1821 STANSBURY, Philip. A pedestrian tour of two thousand three hun- 



Stansbury j^j m [\ eSf m N or th America. To the Lakes, the Canadas, — and the 



New England States. Performed in the autumn of 1821. N. Y. : 

 Meyers and Smith. 1822. Pp. 100-114. 



It is quite evident from this description that Niagara was becoming 

 more and more accessible. 



. . . The American fall, is one hundred and sixty-two feet : 

 the sheet of water, however, is thin, and the spray which is formed 

 scarcely rises to the top. The Horse-shoe fall creates a deep 

 stunning roar, and whirls its spray volume after volume, a thou- 

 sand feet into the air, till it seems to mingle with the clouds above. 

 Fantastic shapes, giants, towers and sea-monsters, may be descried 

 upon the spray, as it swells dark and watery upon the atmosphere. 

 Sometimes a majestic being seems to rise, with his arms out- 

 stretched and his wings gradually expanding: his head strikes 

 the clouds and slowly separates from the body. Now the wings 

 and arms spread and become the boughs of a tree, waving in the 

 wind and bending from its violence. Suddenly the mist rolls in 

 thick folds from beneath, like the smoke of a house in flames, 

 and mounting higher and higher assumes the form of a straight 

 upright column, supporting the arch of the heavens. The column 

 breaks, and as if its demolition had raised a dust from its ruins, 

 new volumes ascend and afford new employment to the fancy. 



Having amused myself long enough in tracing figures in the 

 spray, and surveying the streaming chute, rendered by the mid- 

 day sun of a most dazzling brightness, I advanced along the 

 brink, and found myself all of a sudden, in a pleasant grove of 

 trees, with their roots washed by the waves of the river, which 

 spreads like a boiling ocean immediately above the falls. This 

 is an astonishing scene : billows rebounding back from concealed 

 rocks, dash aloft and hide the prospect of the opposite shores: 

 islands and clumps of rocks and trees, lay scattered among them, 

 feebly endeavouring to stop the irresistible violence of the rapid. 



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