THOUGHTS AT NIAGARA. 



745 



Models of tents and chairs were numerous at the 

 Trocadero. The portable chairs were especially appre- 

 ciated by ladies who were obliged to walk far ; as to 

 arbors, the models exhibited around the plans of the 

 gardens showed that the art of the seventeenth century 

 still lived, 



HEATING OF THE GREENHOUSES. 



The circulation of hot water for the heating of baths 

 was known to the Romans, who only employed bronze 

 pipes, which one still sees in the passages of the ruins of 

 their thermae. Many centuries later, in 1675, Evelyn 

 speaks of heating greenhouses in England by a circula- 



tion of hot air ; then in 1706, Triewald heated a green- 

 house by a heater placed outside, but having hot water 

 circulating through pipes, under the plants. 



In France, Bonnemain was the first who, in 1777, ap- 

 plied the circulation of hot water to an apparatus made 

 for artificial incubation. Later he applied his system to 

 the heating of baths and greenhouses ; he does not seem 

 to have derived much profit from his works, for on the 

 2ist of May, 1828, Mr. Payen submits a report to the 

 Society of Encouragement, in which he mentions the 

 embarassing circumstances of Bonnemain, and enumer- 

 ates his claims to recognition by his compatriots. 

 [to be concluded next month. J 



THOUGHTS AT NIAGARA. 



IF ADAM and Eve had started in life outside the Gar- 

 den of Eden, and had subsequently been ushered 

 into it through an opening in a high board fence, 

 at which opening stood a gate-keeper, demanding 

 twenty-five cents each before they might enter to gaze 

 upon the beauties within : if, when once within, vocifer- 

 ous hackmen had clamored for their patronage, vieing 

 with each other as to who should take them " the com- 

 plete drive about the Garden": if, in short, civilizalioii 

 had been there before them, would there have been r.uch 

 great cause for grief when they were finally banished ? 

 Qiiien sabe ? 



If, four hundred years ago, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, 

 crossing the Isthmus of Darien and discovering on its 

 thither side the vast and boundless ocean, had found his 

 route marked with sign-boards warning him to ' ' prepare 

 to discover something," would he have realized so fully 

 the glory and majesty of that sea when he finally stood 

 upon its shore ? Qttien salu- 



If the first sentient human bemg who gazed upon 

 Niagara had journeyed to it per railway express ; had 

 run a gauntlet of hackmen ; had then gone down through 

 a mean street of catch-penny shops ; had been stopped 

 by hawkers at the doors of "curio" stores and impor- 

 tuned to buy a thousand and one things that bear no 

 manner of relation to the falls ; if he had finally entered 

 to the very presence of the falls through a trim park, 

 guarded by sentinels ; found signboards, directing him 

 to the best "points of view," and others cautioning him 

 to ' ' keep off the grass, " would he finally have approached 

 the cataract in the calm and receptive frame of mind 

 which enables — and which alone enables — one to be- 

 come wholly embued with the spirit of such a scene ? 

 Dios sabc ! 



If Niagara was ever encompassed and belittled by 

 such drawbacks, we may well pardon the primitive man 

 who beheld it under such conditions, because he could 

 see in it no more than "a big waterfall." 



We, who live in a more enlightened age, find it diffi- 

 cult to believe that Niagara ever was beset by such con- 

 ditions; but history tells us authoritatively that, dur- 

 ing the nineteenth century, taste had fallen so low that 



it was made a " show place :" was photographed, litho- 

 graphed, advertised, excursioned, ad nauseam. 



Now, it is sufficient for us to know that Niagara 

 exists, and when any individual of us feels moved to 

 gaze upon its impressive features, we start in quest of 

 it, as did our forebears for the sword Excalibur, or the 

 Holy Grail, or the pot of gold at the foot of the rain- 

 bow. 



But away back before our time, and before the nine- 

 teenth century, with its pinchbeck civilization, and be- 

 fore the primitive man, Niagara existed. And one 

 day an Autochthone, Son of the Earth, wandering the 

 wide world over, came face to face upon it. Now, this 

 was but a poor untutored savage, not a man with our 

 vast development of brain and mind and reasoning 

 power — only a poor being with an instinct. This being 

 watched the mass of falling waters, and instinct told him 

 that was power. He listened to the musical roar of the 

 waters, and instinct told him it was the voice of that 

 power. Standing below the cataract, instinct told him 

 that the waters came from the unfathomable nowhere ; 

 and standing above, instinct could only guess that they 

 passed into the infinite beyond. So the being called 

 the cataract a Great Spirit, and fell down and wor- 

 shipped it. 



Now, I wish I had been that being. I admit that he 

 had never heard the falls extolled ; had never heard 

 the falls adjectivized ; so could form only his own dim 

 conception of them. He had never seen a picture of 

 them ; never heard them scientifically or geologically 

 explained ; was even so ignorant as to imagine they 

 meant something — had some lesson to convey. Perhaps 

 he stood there a long time, the unbroken forest slretching 

 everywhere about, no other presence besides himself 

 and that awful and mysterious spirit of the waters. It 

 did not occur to him that a tourist of enterprise could 

 " do " the falls in two hours, and have ample time then 

 to exhaust the vocabulary of admiring adjectives and 

 quarrel with the hackmen into the bargain. But as I 

 have said, he was only a savage ; but again, I wish I 

 had been he ! B. 



Niagara, A. D. iggo. 



