Flora and Fauna 



more. A voice of thunder speaks to us from the abyss below; 1855 

 the shifting breeze blinds us with vapour; and another gust shows 

 us Hesper glittering in the front of Heaven and heralding the 

 night. 



1870 



Robinson, William. (Description of Niagara.) (In N. Y. 1870 

 (state) survey — Special report for 1879. Albany, N. Y. : Van Ben- Robinion 

 thuysen. 1880. Pp. 28-29.) 



This description of the Falls is quoted in this special report by Fred- 

 erick Law Olmstead in his " Notes on the preservation of the Falls and 

 the natural beauty of their surroundings." He credits it to the 1875 

 edition of Robinson's 'Alpine flowers." This particular edition of 

 Robinson's book was not accessible. 



The noblest of nature's gardens that I have yet seen is that 

 of the surroundings and neighborhood of the Falls of Niagara. 

 Grand as are the collossal falls, the rapids and the course of the 

 river for a considerable distance above and below possess more 

 interest and beauty. 



As the river courses far below the falls, confined between vast 

 walls of rock — the clear water of a peculiar light-greenish hue, 

 and white here and there with circlets of yet unsoothed foam — 

 the effect is startlingly beautiful, quite apart from the falls. The 

 high cliffs are crested with woods; the ruins of the great rock 

 walls forming wide, irregular banks between them and the water, 

 are also beautifully clothed with wood to the river's edge, often 

 so far below that you sometimes look from the upper brink down 

 on the top of tall pines that seem diminished in size. The 

 wild vines scramble among the trees; many shrubs and flowers 

 seam the high rocks; in moist spots, here and there a sharp eye 

 may detect many flowered tufts of the beautiful fringed Gen- 

 tian, strange to European eyes; and beyond all, and at the upper 

 end of the wood-embowered deep river bed, a portion of the 

 crowning glory of the scene — the falls — a vast cliff of illu- 

 minated foam, with a zone towards its upper edge as of green 



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