Niagara Falls 



1879 



Argyll 



1880 



Hardy 



1880 



Pidgeon 



Taken from Fraser's Magazine. The description of the rapids is 

 especially fine and frequently quoted. 



The river Niagara above the falls runs in a channel very 

 broad, and very little depressed below the general level of the 

 country. But there is a steep declivity in the bed of the stream 

 for a considerable distance above the precipice, and this consti- 

 tutes what are called the Rapids. The consequence is that when 

 we stand at any point near the edge of the falls, and look up the 

 course of the stream, the foaming waters of the Rapids consti- 

 tute the sky line. No indication of land is visible — nothing to 

 express the fact that we are looking at a river. The crests of the 

 breakers, the leaping and the rushing of the waters, are all seen 

 against the clouds, as they are seen in the ocean when the ship 

 from which we look is in the " trough of the sea." It is impos- 

 sible to resist the effect on the imagination. It is as if the fountains 

 of the great deep were being broken up, and as if a new deluge 

 were coming on the world. The impression is rather increased 

 than diminished by the perspective of the low wooded banks on 

 either shore, running down to a vanishing point and seeming to 

 be lost in the advancing waters. An apparently shoreless sea 

 tumbling towards one is a very grand and a very awful sight. 

 Forgetting there what one knows, and giving oneself to what 

 one only sees, I do not know that there is anything in nature more 

 majestic than the view of the Rapids above the Falls of Niagara. 



1880 



Hardy, Mary McDowell Duffus, Lady. Between two oceans 

 . . . Lond.: Hurst and Blackett. 1884. Pp. 37-55. 



An interesting and original treatment of a much-hackneyed theme. 



PlDGEON, DANIEL. An engineer's holiday; or, Notes of a round trip 

 from longitude 0° to 0°. Lond. Keegan Paul, Trench & Co. 2v. 

 1882. 1:93-106. 



Record of a visit to Niagara June 5-12, 1880. The author indulges 

 in no enthusiastic descriptions of the Falls, but gives a rather matter-of- 

 fact account of the days he spent there and his observations of the scenery, 

 country, etc., with some information concerning the geological history of 

 the Falls. In spite of his efforts to be matter-of-fact the description of 

 the mist and spray of the Falls quoted below is exceedingly well written. 



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