Niagara Falls 



1836 



Jameson 



1836 



Preston 



There are no water-fowl now as in the winter — when driven 

 from the ice-bound shores and shallows of the lake, they came up 

 here to seek their food, and sported and wheeled amid the 

 showers of spray. They have returned to their old quiet haunts; 

 sometimes I miss them; they were a beautiful variety in the 

 picture. 



Perhaps even for my sake you may now and then look upon 

 a map of Canada, and there . . . you will find not a few 

 towns and cities laid down by name which you might in vain 

 look for within the precincts of the province, seeing that they are 

 non-extant, as yet, at least, though full surely to be, some time 

 or other, somewhere or other, when this fair country shall have 

 fair play, and its fair quota of population. But from this antici- 

 pation I would willingly except a certain ClTY OF THE FALLS 

 which I have seen marked on so many maps, and men- 

 tioned in so many books, as already laid out and commenced, 

 that I had no doubt of its existence till I came here for the first 

 time last winter. But here it is not — Grazie a Dio ! — nor 

 likely to be, as far as I can judge, for a century to come. Were 

 a city to rise here, it would necessarily become a manufacturing 

 place, because of the '* water powers and privileges," below 

 and above the cataract, which would then be turned to account. 

 Fancy, if you can, a range of cotton factories, iron foundries, 

 grist mills, saw mills, where now the mighty waters rush along 

 in glee and liberty — where the maple and the pine woods now 

 bend and wave along the heights. Surely they have done enough 

 already with their wooden hotels, museums, and curiosity stalls: 

 neither in such a case were red brick tenements, gas-lights, and 

 smoky chimneys, the worst abomination to be feared. There 

 would be a moral pollution brought into this majestic scene, far 

 more degrading; more than all those rushing waters, with their 

 " thirteen millions of tons per minute," could wash away. 



Preston, T. R. Three years' residence in Canada, from 1837 to 

 1 839, with notes of a winter voyage to New York, and journey thence 

 to the British possessions. Lond. : Richard Bentley. 1 840. 2:11 -20. 



218 



