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I 
NIAGARA FALLS. 121 
bushes are so exceedingly thick, and the 
ground so rugged that the task would be 
arduous in the extreme. 
The next spot from which we surveyed 
the falls was from the part of the cliff nearly 
opposite to that end of the Fort Schloper 
Fall, which lies next to the islrnd. You stand 
here on the edge of the cliff, behind some 
bushes, the tops of w hich have been cut down 
in order to open the view. From hence you 
have a better prospect of the whole cataract, 
and are enabled to form a more correct idea of 
the position of the precipice, than from any 
one other place The prospect from hence is 
more beautiful, but I think less grand than 
from any other spot. The officer who so po¬ 
litely directed our movements on this occasion 
was so struck with the view from this spot, 
that he once had a wooden house constructed, 
and drawn down here by oxen, in which he 
lived until he had finished several different 
drawings of the cataract, one of these we were 
gratified with the sight of, which exhibited a 
view of the cataract in the depth of winter, 
when in a most curious and wonderful state. 
The ice at this season of the year accumulates 
at the bottom of the cataract in im mense mounds, 
and huge icicles, like the pillars of a massy 
building, hang pendent in many places from 
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