Travelers' Original Accounts Since J 840 



wonders, renewing and changing at every step, and presenting a 1846 

 world of incomparable beauties. aumer 



1846 



MACKAY, ALEXANDER. The western world; or, Travels in the 1846 

 United States in 1846-1847: exhibiting them in their latest develop- Mackay 

 ment, social, political and industrial. ... 2d ed. Lond. : Richard 

 Bentley. 1849. 3:116-131. 



The author bear9 witness to the overwhelming power of the scene and 

 the enduring impression which it made upon him. He gives a detailed 

 description of Niagara by moonlight. His account, though rather long 

 and serious, is appreciative withal. 



1848 



Dixon, James. Personal narrative of a tour through a part of the 1848 

 United States and Canada : with notices of the history and institutions Dixon 

 of Methodism in America. N. Y.: Lane and Scott. 1849. Pp. 110- 

 124. 



A good example of the reflective sort of appreciation of Niagara which 

 expresses itself in philosophy and religion rather than detailed and matter- 

 of-fact description of the points of interest. 



. . . There is something perfectly awful in the idea of the 

 undeviating uniformity of all the forces seen to be at work at this 

 great fall. 



We behold motion, calm, but rapid, — uninterrupted, irre- 

 sistible, eternal, — with the feeling that this motion has been in 

 progress for hundreds, for thousands, of years ; for aught we know, 

 from the beginning of time, or, at any rate, ever since the flood. 

 We see force and power, — palpable, tangible, concentrated, and, 

 to man, omnipotent, — always at work, and unwearied, silent, 

 majestic, like the omnipotence of God. We contemplate a 

 created sovereignty, a kind of rectoral glory, enthroned; — a 

 power, concentrating itself at this point in lofty grandeur, as if 

 to render itself visible, — then sweeping along, and, in regard 

 to all within its sway, helpless in resistance; like the mighty 

 stream of time, bearing the fate and destiny of nature and 



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