NIAGARA AND ITS WILD FLOWERS 
17 
sitting we have taken advantage of masses of tall shrubs and the 
stems of forest trees, to shut out from view all buildings and roads, 
and have left ourselves with the Falls and the Nature-planted garden 
as they might have been seen long, long ago. There is hardly a breath 
of wind; the great misty columns of spray rise high into the sky from 
the base of the falling water, and it is only at rare intervals that a 
wandering spirit of air takes one of the lighter spray clouds and bends 
it over towards us, when its soft and dew-like mist is shed over the 
thirsty flowers, making their vivid colours glow with intenser beauty 
in the rays of the setting sun. As the gentle breeze passes by they 
bow their heads in gratitude for the welcome moisture, and a rustling 
murmur runs from top to bottom of the hill as they raise themselves 
up again in thankful praise. And ever the voices of the waters are 
circling around us, now seeming to raise a threatening warning of 
their irresistible power, now chanting a solemn death song as they are 
hurled over the precipice to be broken to the very last drop into foam, 
and spray, and mist on the rocks below, and ever through the voices, 
now loud, now low, with unceasing iteration, seems to vibrate a note 
of praise to the great Creator of all for the use He has made of them 
in the formation of one of the wonderful sights He has given on earth 
for our enjoyment. 
And now, with sudden dip, the sun is lost behind the hill; the 
air strikes chill, and the flowers begin folding themselves away 
to sleep, but the beauty of the scene entrances us yet. In front 
of the now dark and sunless foreground sweeps the broad horse-shoe 
of foaming and struggling water; the great emerald is now changing 
into myriad-tinted opal; the wavelets that leap into the air all along 
the whirling rapids are dyed with a flush of pink; while from far down 
in the gloom and depths of the Great Fall a rainbow rises into the 
misty mass of spray. Above, around, and through the spray gleam the 
floating clouds in the evening sky—now blushing o’er with rosy flame, 
now slowly changing to a lustrous gold, till all colour slowly fading 
gleam by gleam away, the grey hush of the coming night falls over the 
wondrous scene. As we rise to begin our way down the hill, our first 
step seems to bring us back from a world of dreams, and we know 
afterwards that the same thought was in both our minds and the 
same words were ringing in both our ears, those words in which God 
gives us afore-shadowing of His eternal mysteries:—“ Eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the 
things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”—From 
“The Garden,” by H. Stuart Wortley (Colonel). 
Hybrid Moss.— H. Philibert records a new instance of a hybrid 
moss, found wild, between Orthotrichum diaphanuni and 0. sprucei. 
He considers it a true instance of a hybrid sporogonium, resulting from 
the fertilisation of an arcliegonium of 0. sprucei by antherozoids of 
0. diaphanuni. The hybrid was intermediate in its characters 
between the two parents, and also in the time of producing its 
reproductive organs.—Rev. Bryol, X., p. 813 (1883). 
