ROCK RUINS. 79 
ment. as children a fairy tale, some doubt without the ability 
to give a valid reason, and some, fearing the sudden de- 
struction of their dream-land, refuse to analyze the glories 
of the river. They shrink from familiarity with nature, lest 
water should prove itself nothing but water, and stone noth- 
ing but stone, entirely ignorant of the fact, that the close 
observer, whether poet, artist, or naturalist, is the only one 
who seeks the spirit of the beautiful with success. He alone 
grasps the internal creative thought, the soul embodied in 
the landscape, without which the rocks, rivers, and moun- 
tains, with their green garlands, are comparatively expres- 
sionless forms, like faces without eyes. 
Along the sides of the gorge at Niagara a few of the great 
layers which make up the body of the continent are seen 
rising one after another, overlapping at the surface like tiles 
on a nearly horizontal roof;* the inclination of the layers, 
in fact, being only about twenty-five feet to the mile, in a 
southerly direction. 
Out of the cloud and foam of the cataract appear two lay- 
ers, each about eighty feet thick, the upper one (8) of lime- 
stone, the under (7) of shale. Still farther northward,.above 
the debris that has accumulated at the foot of the cliffs, runs 
a thinner layer of limestone (6), and, continuing in the same 
direction, we find a layer of green shale (5) succeeded soon 
by one of light-colored sandstone (4), and lastly a mass of 
red sandstone (3). 
Thus, when we reach Suspension Bridge it is compara- 
tively easy even for an unpractised eye to analyze the cliff. 
Attracted by the emerald curtain of the great fall, few 
= vouchsafe more than a passing glance down the chasm, and 
yet in autumn this view is one of rare beauty. The alter- 
nate bands of color in the rocks blend with the fringe of 
golden and scarlet trees upon the żalus at their feet, and 
from every crevice graceful vines hang their lace-work of 
flaming foliage. The painted walls and their gorgeous ta- 
*Vide 8, 8’, 9, 4 tA in th W ad-ent 



