8 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Wind blows out of the South, their dismal roaring may be heard 

 more than Fifteen Leagues off." 1 



If today, from our vantage ground of precise knowledge, we 

 smile on the extravagant estimates of Father Hennepin, it may be 

 asked, who among us, that is capable of admiration and enthusiasm 

 at the sight of nature's grand spectacles, would, on coming unpre- 

 pared on these great cataracts, be able to form a calm and just esti- 

 mate of hight and breadth and volume of sound? 



Since the time of La Salle and Hennepin, the falls have been 

 viewed by a constantly increasing number of visitors. For Ameri- 

 cans of the present generation and for people of other lands as well, 

 Niagara has become a sort of Mecca, to which they hope once in 

 their life time to journey. With many this is a hope long deferred 

 in realization, with most perhaps it is a dream never realized, but 

 those who do go and see, come away with their conceptions of nature 

 much enlarged and with memories which cling to the end of life. 

 Fully to appreciate Niagara, one must give it more than a passing 

 glance from the carriage of an impatient driver, who is anxious to 

 have you " do " Niagara in as short time as possible, that he may 

 secure another " fare ". Learn to linger at Niagara, and give nature 

 time to impress you with her beauty and her majesty. "Time and 

 close acquaintanceship," says Tyndall, " the gradual interweaving 

 of mind and nature, must powerfully influence any final estimate 

 of the scene ". And the growing impression which this incompar- 

 able scene produced on him, served to strengthen the desire " to 

 see and know Niagara falls as far as it is possible for them to be 

 seen and known". 2 



It is surprising that many of the visitors to the falls allow them- 

 selves to be hurried past some of its most beautiful spots and to 

 bestow on others only casual attention, and then waste a wholly 

 disproportionate amount of time in the museums and curio stores 

 looking for souvenirs purporting to come from Niagara but gen- 

 erally manufactured elsewhere. Real and valuable Niagara 

 souvenirs may be had for the trouble of picking them up, in the 

 minerals, fossils and shells which abound in the vicinity of the falls. 



1 Loc. cit. 



2 Tyndall. Fragments of science, " Niagara ". 



