Niagara Falls 



1859 darting over like cascades of snow upon the rocks beneath, rush- 

 Wood* j n g | nto tne g rea t b as i n a t the foot of the cataracts, where the 

 waters hiss and seethe in foam, yet lie all motionless now, as if 

 stunned and crushed by their deep overthrow. Niagara has 

 flowed from all time as it thunders now, yet even those who have 

 lived there longest see in its mighty rush fresh beauties every 

 hour, though its eternity of waters never alter in their bulk for 

 summer snow or melting of the great Canadian snows. Some- 

 times a sudden gust of wind will rise and, clearing up the mist 

 in broken masses like a torn cloud, show the base of the Falls, a 

 Phlegethon of waters, where they seem to writhe, and creep, 

 and boil in endless torture. To see this is grand; but to watch 

 them in the evening and the night from the Canadian side is the 

 finest and most solemn scene of all. As the sun goes behind the 

 hills, the mist rises higher and higher, in a gauze-like cloud, 

 which spreads from shore to shore, wrapping Goat Island in its 

 grey sombre tinge, and making its very rocks and pine woods 

 look watery and unsubstantial as a vision. When the silence of 

 the night settles down at last upon the scene, the roar of the 

 cataract seems louder and more grand, and through the darkness 

 its great outline of foam and livid water can be dimly seen, 

 vague, terrible, and ill-defined as is the ocean in a storm, yet 

 making its impression of eternal force and grandeur not less dis- 

 tinct upon the memory, never to be forgotten. As often happens 

 to those who watch these cataracts on a summer's night you may 

 see the lightning playing down among the angry waters, and 

 then the scene is one of unutterable terror and lurid grandeur. 



• • • • • 



The first view which the Prince got of the cataracts was on the 

 evening of his arrival, when he saw them as no man had ever 

 seen them before, and as they will probably never be seen again 

 — he saw the Falls of Niagara illuminated ! At the first idea it 

 seems about as feasible to light up the Atlantic as those great out- 

 pourings of Lake Erie, and Mr. Blackwell, when he started the 

 idea, was looked on as well meaning and all that, but chimerical, 



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