Niagara Falls 



1805 which the sound of the Falls can be heard. No attempt is made to 



Sutcliff describe the Falls as such. 



In riding along yesterday, a few miles from Buffalo Creek, 

 I thought I could very distinctly hear the noise of the Falls of 

 Niagara, although then about 24 miles from that stupendous 

 cataract. The distance at which the people in these parts say 

 the Falls may be heard, when the wind and other concurring 

 circumstances are favourable, is almost incredible. I met with 

 a reputable looking farmer . . . who told me, with all 

 the gravity of a man speaking the truth, that he sometimes heard 

 them very plainly at his residence, 40 miles distant from them; 

 when the wind was favourable, or the air calm and serene. Last 

 night I came to Crow's tavern in Buffalo Town, . . . Crow, 

 the keeper of this inn, told me that in cold weather, or when the 

 wind suited, the noise of the Falls was generally heard in 

 Buffalo; which is a distance of 20 miles from them. 



[At Chippewa] . . . the noise of them is so loud, that 

 a person seems to be close upon them, although they are nearly 

 three miles distant. I was informed by several of Fenning's 

 family, that the concussion occasioned by the descent of so large 

 a body of water, is such, that in a still summer's evening, a con- 

 stant tremor of the earth is perceptible; and the loose glass in 

 the windows is so shaken as to produce considerable noise. 



• • • • • 



I was informed by Joseph Ellicot and his brother, at whose 

 house I lodged, that they had twice measured the falls, and 

 found them to be 158 feet in height, and about 1 800 yards in 

 width from the opposite edges of the river. I was told by the 

 ferryman, that about 16 miles above the Falls, the river was 

 nearly one mile in width, and that, in the middle, it was 40 feet 

 in depth; and, in common, the stream ran at the rate of six miles 

 in the hour. If this is really the case, and I have no cause to 

 doubt it, the quantity of water passing over the Falls, and con- 

 tinually suspended between the top and bottom, may be more 



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