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NEW YORK. 



can fall,* and bathe your hands, if you please, in its just leaping waters. Then, pursuing tne 

 circuit of the island, descend a spiral flight of stairs, and treading cautiously along a narrow foot- 

 path, cut horizontally in the side of the cliff, enter the magnificent hall formed by the falling 

 flood, the bank of which you have just leit, and command your nerves for a few moments, that, 

 standing as you do about midway in the descent of the fall, you may look up eighty feet to its 

 arched and crystal roof, and down eighty feet, on its terrible, and misty, and resounding floor. 

 You will never forget that sight and sound. 



" Retrace your steps to the upper bank, and then, if your strength holds out, proceed a short 

 way further, to the enjo3'ment of a view already referred to, which excels every other in this 

 place of many wonders, it is obtained from a bridge or platform, which has recently been 

 thrown out over some rocks, f and is canied to the very brink of the Horseshoe fall, and even 

 projects beyond it ; so that the spectator at the end of the platform is suspended over it. 



"• These falls are not without their history ", but like their depths, it is enveloped in clouds. 

 Geologists suppose, and with good apparent reason, that time was when the Niagara fell over the 

 abrupt bank at Queenstown, between six and seven miles below the place of the present falls, 

 and that it has, in the lapse of unknown and incalculable years, been wearing away the gulf in 

 the intermediate distance, and toiling and traveling through the rock, back to its parent lake. 



Plan of the Falls. — .f, hotel ; BB, steep bank ; f, brink of the precipice ; c, Goat Island ; hh, perpendicular rock ; 

 d, rapids ; m, platform ; /, spiral staircase by which you descend ; g, ferry ; /i, ascent to the American side of the Falls. 



After Niagara, any cataract would appear tame and insignificant in description ; yet those 

 which remain to be mentioned here would excite admiration in any part of the world. The 

 great falls of the Genesee, about half a mile below Rochester, are 90 feet perpendicular; and a 

 few rods above, is another of 12 feet, surmounted by a rapid. On the same river are several 

 other falls. Trenton Falls are on West Canada Creek, a feeder of tlie I\Iohawk, 14 miles 

 north of ['^tica ; they consist of several grand and beautiful cascades, some of them 40 feet in 

 descent. The river here passes through a rocky chasm four miles in length, presenting the 

 greatest variety of cascades and rapids, boiling pools and eddies. The rock is a dark lime- 

 stone, and contains abundance of marine shells. The falls of the Cohoes are upon the Mohawk, 



* This is separated from the jj^reaterfal! by a diminutive This lesser fall, small as it is compared with the others. 

 Island, covered with treea, which tenaciously maintains ita would of itself be worth a Journey, 

 terrible position in emulation, as it were, of Goat Island. t These are called the Terrapin Rocks. 



