Niagara Falls 



1833 ried on without any considerable elevation of the voice. The 

 sound is that of thunder in its greatest intensity, deep, unbroken, 

 and unchanging. There is no hissing nor splashing; nothing 

 which breaks sharply on the ear; nothing which comes in any 

 degree into collision with the sounds of earth or air. Nothing 

 extrinsic can either add to, or diminish its volume. It mingles 

 with no other voice, and it absorbs none. It would be heard 

 amid the roaring of a volcano, and yet does not drown the chirp- 

 ing of a sparrow. 



Visitors generally wish, however, for a greater crash on the 

 tympanum, for something to stun and stupify, and return home 

 complaining that Niagara is less noisy than Trenton or the 

 Cohoes. This is a mistake. The volume of sound produced by 

 the Horseshoe Fall, is far greater than they ever heard before, or, 

 probably, will ever hear again. When the atmosphere is in a 

 condition favourable to act as a conductor of sound, it may be 

 heard at a distance of fifteen, and even twenty miles. A pas- 

 senger in the coach, who lived six miles beyond Lewiston, assured 

 me, that, in particular states of the barometer, the noise was there 

 distinctly perceptible. But it should be remembered that the 

 great body of sound is generated in a cavern far below the level 

 of the surrounding country, and fenced in on three sides by walls 

 of perpendicular rock. The noise vibrates from side to side of 

 this sunless cavity, and only a small portion escapes into the 

 upper air, through the dense canopy of spray and vapour by 

 which it is overhung, As an experiment, I employed a man to 

 fire a musket below, while I stood on the Table-rock. The 

 report was certainly audible, but scarcely louder than that of a 

 pop-gun. 



1834 



1834 FAIRHOLME, George. On the falls of Niagara with some observa- 

 Fairholme tions on the distinct evidence which they bear to the geological character 



of the North American plains. (London & Edinburgh phil. mag. 1 834, 

 5:11-25.) 



526 



