The Falls Of Niagara And Other Famous Cataracts - free ebook by George W. (George Washington) Holley

THEFALLS OF NIAGARAANDOTHER FAMOUS CATARACTS. BY GEORGE W. HOLLEY.

With Thirty Illustrations. London: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXXXII. Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. CONTENTS. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS....

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PREFACE.

The writer, having resided in the village of Niagara Falls for more than a third of a century, has had opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with the locality, and to study it with constantly increasing interest and admiration. Long observation enables him to offer some new suggestions in regard to the geological age of the Falls, their retrocession, and the causes which have been potent in producing it; and also to demonstrate the existence of a barrier or dam that was once the shore of a

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CHAPTER I.

First French expedition—Jacques Cartier—He first hears of the great Cataract—Champlain—Route to China—La Salle—Father Hennepin's first and second visits to the Falls. In 1534, Jacques Cartier, a shrewd, enterprising, and adventurous sailor, made his first voyage across the Atlantic, touching at Newfoundland, and exploring the coast to the west and south of it. The two vessels of Cartier, called ships by the historians of the period, were each of only forty tons burden. On the return of Cartier t

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CHAPTER II.

Baron La Hontan's description of the Falls—M. Charlevoix's letter to Madame Maintenon—Number of the Falls—Geological indications—Great projection of the rock in Father Hennepin's time—Cave of the Winds—Rainbows. Even more exaggerated than Father Hennepin's is the next account of the Falls which has come down to us, and which was written by Baron La Hontan, in the autumn of 1687. Fear of an attack from the Iroquois, the relentless enemies of the French, made his visit short and unsatisfactory. He

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CHAPTER III.

The name Niagara—The musical dialect of the Hurons—Niagara one of the oldest of Indian names—Description of the river, the Falls, and the surrounding country. There is in some words a mystic power which it is not easy to analyze or define; they fascinate the ear even of those who do not understand their meaning. The very sound of them as they are enunciated by the human voice touches a chord to which the heart instinctively responds. So it is with the name of the great cataract. No one can hear

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CHAPTER IV.

Niagara a tribal name—Other names given to the tribe—The Niagaras a superior race—The true pronunciation of Indian words. The name Niagara has been so thoroughly identified with the river and the Falls that the question whether it was also the name of an Indian nation or tribe has been quite neglected. It is proposed now to give the question some consideration, assuming, at once, its affirmative to be true. This, it is believed, we shall be justified in doing by every principle of analogy. We kn

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CHAPTER V.

The lower Niagara—Fort Niagara—Fort Mississauga—Niagara Village—Lewiston—Portage around the Falls—The first railroad in the United States—Fort Schlosser—The ambuscade at Devil's Hole—La Salle's vessel, the Griffin —The Niagara frontier. From the earliest visit of the French missionaries and voyageurs to the lake region, the banks of the lower Niagara were to them a favorite locality. Very early they were cleared of the grand forest which covered them, and the genial, fertile, and easily worked s

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CHAPTER VI.

America the old world—Geologically recent origin of the Falls—Evidence thereof—Captain Williams's surveys for a ship canal—Former extent of Lake Michigan—Its outlet into the Illinois River—The Niagara barrier—How broken through—The birth of Niagara. If Professor Agassiz and Elie De Beaumont are correct in their geological reading, America is the old world rather than the new, and the northern portion of it, stretching from Lake Huron eastward to Labrador and northward toward the Arctic, was the

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CHAPTER VII.

Composition of the terrace cut through—Why retrocession is possible—Three sections from Lewiston to the Falls—Devil's Hole—The Medina group—Recession long checked—The Whirlpool—The narrowest part of the river—The mirror—Depth of the water in the chasm—Former grand Fall. The water having laid bare the face of the mountain barrier from top to bottom, we are enabled to examine the composition of the mass through which it slowly cut its way. After removing the thin plates of the upper stratum, as we

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CHAPTER VIII.

Recession above the present position of the Falls—The Falls will be higher as they recede—Reason why—Professor Tyndall's prediction—Present and former accumulations of rock—Terrific power of the elements—Ice and ice bridges—Remarkable geognosy of the lake region. There is probably little foundation for the apprehension which has been expressed that the recession of the chasm will ultimately reach Lake Erie and lower its level, or that the bed of the river will be worn into an inclined plane by g

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CHAPTER IX.

Forty years since—Niagara in winter—Frozen spray—Ice foliage and ice apples—Ice moss—Frozen fog—Ice islands—Ice statues—Sleigh-riding on the American rapids—Boys coasting on them—Ice gorges. If the first white man who saw Niagara could have been certain that he was the first to see it, and had simply recorded the fact with whatever note or comment, he would have secured for himself that species of immortality which accrues to such as are connected with those first and last events and things in w

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CHAPTER X.

Judge Porter—General Porter—Goat Island—Origin of its name—Early dates found cut in the bark of trees and in the rock—Professor Kalm's wonderful story—Bridges to the Island—Method of construction—Red Jacket—Anecdotes—Grand Island—Major Noah and the New Jerusalem—The Stone Tower—The Biddle Stairs—Sam Patch—Depth of water on the Horseshoe—Ships sent over the Falls. In preparing this narrative, the writer has had the good fortune to listen to many recitals of facts and incidents by the late Judge A

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CHAPTER XI.

Joel R. Robinson, the first and last navigator of the Rapids—Rescue of Chapin—Rescue of Allen—He takes the Maid of the Mist through the Whirlpool—His companions—Effect upon Robinson—Biographical notice—His grave unmarked. The history of the navigation of the Rapids of Niagara may be appropriately concluded in this chapter, which is devoted to a notice of the remarkable man who began it, who had no rival and has left no successor in it—Joel R. Robinson. In the summer of 1838, while some extensive

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CHAPTER XII.

A fisherman and a bear in a canoe—Frightful experience with floating ice—Early farming on the Niagara—Fruit growing—The original forest—Testimony of the trees—The first hotel—General Whitney—Cataract House—Distinguished visitors—Carriage road down the Canadian bank—Ontario House—Clifton House—The Museum—Table and Termination Rocks—Burning Spring—Lundy's Lane—Battle Anecdotes. Soon after the War of 1812, a fisherman—whose name we will call Fisher—on a certain day went out upon the river, about th

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CHAPTER XIII.

Incidents—Fall of Table Rock—Remarkable phenomenon in the river—Driving and lumbering on the Rapids—Points of the compass at the Falls—A first view of the Falls commonly disappointing—Lunar bow—Golden spray—Gull Island and the gulls—The highest water ever known at the Falls—The Hermit of the Falls. Of incidents, curious, comic, and tragic, connected with the locality the catalogue is long, but we must make our recital of them brief. We have before referred to Professor Kalm's notice of the fall

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CHAPTER XIV.

Avery's descent of the Falls—The fatal practical joke—Death of Miss Rugg—Swans—Eagles—Crows—Ducks over the Falls—Why dogs have survived the descent. On the morning of the 19th of July, 1853, a man was discovered in the middle of the American rapid, about thirty rods below the bridge. He was clinging to a log, which the previous spring had lodged against a rock. He proved to be a Mr. Avery, who had undertaken to cross the river above the night before, but, getting bewildered in the current, was d

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CHAPTER XV.

Wedding tourists at the Falls—Bridges to the Moss Islands—Railway at the ferry—List of persons who have been carried over the Falls—Other accidents. For many years Niagara has been a favorite resort for bridal tourists, who in a crowd of strangers can be so excessively proper that every one else can see how charmingly improper they are. The three fine, graceful bridges which unite Goat Island with the three smaller islands—the Moss Islands, or the Three Sisters—lying south of it were built in 18

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CHAPTER XVI.

The first Suspension Bridge—The Railway Suspension Bridge—Extraordinary vibration given to the Railway Bridge by the fall of a mass of rock—De Veaux College—The Lewiston Suspension Bridge—The Suspension Bridge at the Falls. On the partial completion of the Hydraulic Canal, the principal stockholders, with a number of invited guests, celebrated the event on July 4, 1857, by an excursion from Buffalo in the Cygnet , the first steamer that ever landed within the limits of the village of Niagara. Th

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CHAPTER XVII.

Blondin and his "ascensions"—Visit of the Prince of Wales—Grand illumination of the Falls—The steamer Caroline —The water-power of Niagara—Lord Dufferin and the plan of an International Park. In the year 1858, a short, well-rounded, fair-complexioned, light-haired Frenchman made his appearance at the Falls, and expressed a wish to put a tight-rope across the chasm below them, for the purpose of crossing on the rope and exhibiting athletic feats. He received little encouragement, but, having a Na

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CHAPTER XVIII.

Poetry in the Table Rock albums—Poems by Colonel Porter, Willis G. Clark, Lord Morpeth, José Maria Heredia, A. S. Ridgely, Mrs. Sigourney, and J. G. C. Brainard. Before the last fall of Table Rock, there stood upon it for many years a comfortable summer-house, where people could take refuge from the spray, look at the Falls, partake of luncheon, and procure guides and dresses to go under the sheet. In the sitting-room was a large round table, on which were placed a number of albums, as they were

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CHAPTER XIX.

Yosemite—Vernal—Nevada—Yellowstone—Shoshone—St. Maurice—Montmorency. For the purpose of comparison it may be interesting to note other cataracts in the United States, and in other parts of the world, and also some of the remarkable rapids, which may be successors to what were once perpendicular falls. For descriptions of those in foreign countries we are chiefly indebted to the geographical gazetteers and the journals of Humboldt, Livingstone, Bohle, and Stanley; for information regarding the ca

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CHAPTER XX.

Tequendama—Kaiteeur—Paulo Affonso—Keel-fos—Riunkan-fos—Sarp-fos—Staubbach—Zambesi or Victoria—Murchison—Cavery—Schaffhausen. In South America is the remarkable fall of Tequendama, on the river Bogota, which, at this point, is only one hundred and forty feet wide, and is divided into numerous narrow and deep channels which finally unite in two of nearly the same width, and make a perpendicular plunge of six hundred and fifty feet to the plain below. "The cataract," says Humboldt, "forms an assemb

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CHAPTER XXI.

Famous Rapids and Cascades—Niagara—Amazon—Orinoco—Parana—Nile—Livingstone. In all its features and characteristics the great water-course, including the great lakes, which feeds the Niagara, is peculiar and interesting. It is more than two thousand miles long; its utmost surface-sources are scarcely six hundred feet above tide-water; its bottom, at its greater depth, is more than four hundred feet below tide-water. In all its course it receives less than two score of affluents, and only two of t

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