Niagara Falls 



1841 much more enormous a duration must we assign to many ante- 

 y cedent revolutions of the earth and its inhabitants! No analogy 



can be found in the natural world to the immense scale of these 

 divisions of past time, unless we contemplate the celestial spaces 

 which have been measured by the astronomer. Some of the 

 nearest of these within the limits of the solar system, as, for 

 example, the orbits of the planets, are reckoned by hundreds of 

 millions of miles, which the imagination in vain endeavours to 

 grasp. Yet one of these spaces, such as the diameter of the 

 earth's orbit, is regarded as a mere unit, a mere infinitesimal 

 fraction of the distance which separates our sun from the nearest 

 star. By pursuing still farther the same investigations, we learn 

 that there are luminous clouds scarcely distinguishable by the 

 naked eye, but resolvable by the telescope into clusters of stars, 

 which are so much more remote, that the interval between our 

 sun and Sirius may be but a fraction of this larger distance. To 

 regions of space of this higher order in point of magnitude, we 

 may probably compare such an interval of time as that which 

 divides the human epoch from the origin of the coralline lime- 

 stone over which the Niagara is precipitated at the Falls. Many 

 have been the successive revolutions in organic life, and many 

 the vicissitudes in the physical geography of the globe, and often 

 has sea been converted into land, and land into sea, since that 

 rock was formed. The Alps, the Pyrenees, the Himalaya, have 

 not only begun to exist as lofty mountain chains, but the solid 

 materials of which they are composed have been slowly elabo- 

 rated beneath the sea within the stupendous interval of ages here 

 alluded to. 



The geologist may muse and speculate on these events until, 

 filled with awe and admiration, he forgets the presence of the 

 mighty cataract itself, and no longer sees the rapid motion of its 

 waters, nor hears their sound, as they fall into the deep abyss. 

 But whenever his thoughts are recalled to the present, the tone 

 of his mind, — the sensations awakened in his soul, will be found 



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