Niagara Falls 



1796 approached within six or seven miles of Ontario, the level of 

 Volney tHis plain is suddenly lowered, and a new plain commences at 



the foot of the declivity, more than 230 feet below the former 

 one, which forms the verge or table of Lake Ontario. In reced- 

 ing from the shore of the lake, we distinctly and easily perceive 

 this change of level. At a distance, viewed from the lake, it 

 appears like a lofty rampart, whose side is bristled with forests, 

 and which seems to interdict all passage beyond it. If we enter 

 the St. Laurence, and ascend as far as Queenstown, we presently 

 perceive a deep and narrow chasm, from which flows the river, 

 in a sv/ift but unruffled course. The cataract still remains unex- 

 plained. This precipice stretches from Toronto, or even from 

 a greater distance, and skirting the northern shore of Lake 

 Ontario, at an interval of one or two miles, it makes a bend 

 towards the east, on the southern shore of the lake, and crosses 

 the river seven miles from its mouth. 



The true mechanism of Niagara will not be so easily com- 

 prehended by those who approach it on the side of Lake Erie, in 

 which direction I approached it, October 24th, 1 796. From the 

 lake, we have no mountain in view, except near Presque Isle, 

 where some faint and remote ridges are seen, in the northwest 

 quarter of Pennsylvania. The country traversed by the St. 

 Laurence is a scene of continual forest, and the sluggish motion 

 of the stream, scarcely at the rate of three miles an hour, affords 

 no token of the direful commotion lower down. It is not till we 

 reach the mouth of Chippeway creek, eighteen miles below Lake 

 Erie, that the water assumes a quicker motion, and compels the 

 boats to seek the shore, at a village built at this spot. Here the 

 river expands into a sheet of water near two thousand feet wide, 

 overshadowed on all sides by woods. Two miles and a half 

 further is the fall. Our attention is at first awakened by a dull 

 and rumbling sound, like the roar of a remote sea. This sound 

 is lower or higher, according to the direction of the wind, but 

 the eye as yet discovers nothing extraordinary. From hence we 



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