Travelers' Original Accounts Since 1840 



public; some in classic and eloquent, impassioned and poetic 1848 

 strains; some, again, in scientific and geological language; — D *x° a 

 but all have come short, all have failed. This attempt to convey 

 the impressions of another soul, the feelings of another heart, is 

 equally short of the truth, is equally a failure. Who can describe 

 thunder? who can paint the rainbow? who can exhibit the 

 ocean in language? who can grasp the infinite? God has left, 

 in all his dominions and works, space for imagination. Every- 

 thing has its mystery, — nothing its limits. Niagara stands a 

 mystic creation, defying the admeasurements of the human intel- 

 lect. But he welcomes all who approach to indulge the feelings 

 of admiration, wonder, awe ; — and by the eternal roar of his 

 glorious music, he sends up sounds of adoration to God, and 

 challenges for his Creator the homage of all hearts. 



WHITMAN, WALT. November boughs. Phila.: D. McKay. 1848 

 1888. P. 104. Whitman 



Got in the cars and went to Niagara ; went under the falls — 

 saw the whirlpool and all the other sights. 

 This was in June, 1 848. 



Prentice, Archibald. A tour in the United States. Lond. : 1848 



1848. Pp. 73-74. P'ent.ce 



A brief appreciation by one who found at Niagara Falls, " calm, 

 gentle, tranquil exceeding loveliness." 



It takes some boldness to avow that I was less awestruck than 

 tourists generally profess to be; but I was delighted with the 

 exceeding beauty of the scene. 



Close at hand the falling river was broken into millions of 

 resplendent diamonds; farther off it was a perpendicular fall of 

 snow ; in the middle it was the rush of the green ocean wave into 

 a chasm opened in the great deep ; and again in the distance was 

 the gentle snow-fall; all illuminated by a brilliant sun, and all 

 gentle and lovely. There was no rage, no discord, no tumultuous 

 chafings of the immense flood. There was the quietness as of the 

 conscious possession of power; perfect harmony; perfect beauty. 



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