Science, Geology and Physics 



pursue our way, on foot, through a rugged waggon road, on the 1796 

 left bank of the river, while the trees shut us out from all the oney 

 scene before us. Having proceeded a mile, we perceive the 

 river growing turbid and tumultuous, and, in another mile, it is 

 entangled among rocks, which are covered with foam. Beyond 

 these breakers, we behold issuing, as it were, from a chasm in 

 the forest, a cloud of vapour, and this is the only token, as yet, 

 of the river. The noise becomes now more violent, but the cata- 

 ract is still unseen. We continue to proceed along the bank, 

 which at first did not exceed the height of ten or twelve feet 

 above the water, but which soon becomes twenty, thirty, or even 

 fifty feet high, by which we may judge of the declivity thus far 

 in the channel of the river. Some hollows oblige us here to make 

 a circuit from the river bank, which we presently reach again, 

 by crossing some newly enclosed fields, and emerging at length 

 from the trees and bushes, we find ourselves along side of the 

 cataract. We here behold the river fall in one sheet, twelve 

 hundred feet wide, into a hollow or canal worn by the force of 

 its waters, from a perpendicular height of about two hundred 

 feet. It is hemmed in by two rocky walls, whose tops are 

 crowned with firs, oaks, cedars, &c. The traveller usually sur- 

 veys the fall from a spot where a jutting rock tov/ers above the 

 abyss. Some of my companions gave this spot the preference. 

 Some others, whom I joined, were told that the descent to the 

 bottom of the gulph, more than half a mile below, was prac- 

 ticable, by means of Simcoe's ladder, and thought we should 

 enjoy the scene more completely, as objects of this kind are 

 viewed most advantageously looking upward to them. We 

 accordingly descended, not without difficulty, by a kind of stairs, 

 which are nothing more than the trunks of trees, disposed con- 

 veniently, with notches cut in them, on the face of the declivity. 

 Having reached the bottom, we re-ascended towards the fall by 

 a ledge of broken rocks mixed with sand, where lay the bones and 

 reliques of deer and other animals, who, in attempting to pass 

 the stream above, had been borne down by its rapidity. 



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