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the stream, in a noise like the loudest thunder, to make the solid rock (at least as to sense) shake to its very foundation, and threaten to tear every nerve to pieces, and to deprive one of other senses besides that of hearing. It was a most magnificent sight, that ages, added to the greatest length of human life, would not efface or eradicate from my memory; it struck me with a kind of stupor, and a total oblivion of where I was, and of every other sublunary conceru. It was one of the most magnificent, stupendous sights in the creation, though degraded and vilified by the lies of a grovelling fa natic priest.

I was awakened from one of the most profound reveries that ever I fell into, by Mahomet, and by my friend Drink, who now put to me a thousand impertinent questions. It was after this I measured the fall, and believe, within a few feet, it was the height I have mentioned; but I confess I could at no time in my life less promise upon precision; my reflection was suspended, or subdued; and, while in sight of the fall, I think I was under a temporary aliena. tion of mind; it seemed to me as if one element had broke loose from, and become superior to, all laws of subordination; that the fountains of the great deep were again extraordinarily opened, and the destruction of a world was once more begun by the agency of

water.

[Bruce's Travels, Vol. V. 8vo.

2. Falls of the River Niagara, drawn up from M. Borassaw's Account. By the Hon. Paul Dudley, F.R.S.

THE falls of Niagara are formed by a vast ledge or precipice of solid rock, lying across the whole breadth of the river, a little before it empties itself into, or forms the lake Ontario.

M. Borassaw says, that in spring 1722, the governor of Canada ordered his own son, with three other officers, to survey the Niagara, and take the exact height of the cataract, which they accordingly did with a stone of half a hundred weight, and a large cod-line, and found it on a perpendicular no more than 26 fathomis, vingt et six brass.

This differs very much from the account Father Hennepin has given of that cataract; for he makes it 100 fathoms, and our modern maps from him, as I suppose, mark it at 600 feet; but I believe Hennepin never measured it, and there is no guessing at such things.

When I objected Hennepin's account of those falls to M. Borassaw, he replied, that accordingly every body had depended on it as right, until the late survey. On further discourse he acknowledged, that below the cataract, for a great way, there were numbers of small ledges or stairs across the river, that lowered it still more and more, till you come to a level; so that if all the descents be put together, he does not know but the difference of the water above the falls and the level below, may come up to father Hennepin; but the strict and proper cataract on a perpen. dicular is no more than 26 fathoms, or 156 feet, which yet is a prodigious thing, and what the world I suppose cannot parallel, considering the size of the river, being near a quarter of an English mile broad, and very deep water.

Several other things M. Borassaw set me right in, as to the falls of the Niagara. Particularly it has been said, that the cataract makes such a prodigious noise, that people cannot hear each other speak at some miles distances; whereas he affirms, that you may converse together close by it. I have also heard it positively asserted, that the shoot of the river, when it comes to the precipice, was with such force, that men and horse might march under the body of the river without being whet; this also he utterly denies, and says, the water falls in a manner right down.

What he observed farther to me was, that the mist or shower which the falls make, is so extraordinary, as to be seen at five leagues distance, and rises as high as the common clouds. In this brume or cloud, when the sun shines, you have always a glorious rainbow. That the river itself, which is there called the river Niagara, is much narrower at the falls than either above or below; and that from below there is no coming nearer the falls by water than about six English miles, the torrent is so rapid, and having such terrible whirlpools.

He confirms Father Hennepin's and Mr. Kelug's account of the large trouts of those lakes, and solemnly affirmed there was one taken lately, that weighed 861b. which I am the rather inclined to believe, on the general rule, that fish are according to the waters. To confirm which, a very worthy minister affirmed, that he saw a pike taken in Canada river, and carried on a pole between two men, that measured five feet ten inches in length, and pro, portionably thick,

I myself saw a cataract, three leagues above Albany, in the prowince of New York, on Schenectada river, called the Cohoes, which they count much of there, and yet it is not above 40 or 50 feet perpendicular. From these falls also there rises a misty cloud, which descends like small rain, which, when the sun shines gives a handsome small rainbow, that moves as you move, according to the angle of vision. The river at the Cohoes is 40 or 50 rods broad, but then it is very shallow water, for in a dry season the whole river runs in a channel of not more than 15 feet wide.

In my journey to Albany, 20 miles to the eastward of Hudson's river, near the middle of a long rising hill, I met with a brisk noisy brook, sufficient to serve a water-mill; and having observed nothing of it at the beginning of the hill, I turned about, and followed the coarse of the brook, till at length I found it come to an end, being absorbed, and sinking into the ground, thence either passing through subterraneous passages, or soaked up by the sand; and though it be common in other parts of the world for brooks and even rivers thus to be lost, yet this is the first of the sort I have heard of, or met with, in this country.

The Fall of Fyers.

[Phil. Trans. 1722.

THE fall of Fyers, is a vast cataract, in a darksome glen of a stupendous depth; the water darts far beneath the top through a narrow gap between two rocks, then precipitates above forty feet lower into the bottom of the chasm, and the foam, like a great cloud of smoke, rises and fills the air. The sides of this glen are vast precipices mixed with trees over-hanging the water, through which, after a short space, the waters discharge themselves into the lake.

About half a mile south of the first fall is another passing through a narrow chasm, whose sides it has undermined for a considerable way over the gap is a true Alpine bridge of the bodies of trees covered with sods, from whose middle is an aweful view of the water roaring beneath.

At the fall of Foher the road quits the side of the lake, and is carried for some space through a small vale on the side of the river Fyers, where is a mixture of small plains of corn and rocky hills.

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