It is difficult to describe the profound chasm opening below the Birmingham Falls. It is a prodigious rent in the earth's crust, making sudden right-angled turns. The visitor at first goes down a long stairway and walks on the rocky floor adjoining the torrent, enormous walls rising high above. There are various formations made by the boiling waters, ovens, anvils, chairs, pulpits, punch-bowls and the like, and, judging by their names, the Devil seems to be the owner of most of them. The chasm turns sharply around the "Elbow," and the waters rush through the narrow passage of "Hell Gate." There are many caves and lateral fissures, all the masonry being hewn square, as in fact the whole gorge is, such being the regularity of the stratification and the accuracy of the angles and joints,--the ponderous walls, reared on high, sometimes almost close together, making the deep pass narrow and gloomy. The gorge finally contracts so much there is no further room for walking, and a boat is taken for the remainder of the journey down the "Grand Flume." The torrent carries the boat along swiftly, guided by strong oarsmen both at bow and stern, swinging quickly around the bends, shooting the rapids and whirling through the eddies. After rushing along the "Flume," embracing the narrowest portions of the profound chasm, the boat finally floats out into the "Pool," where the waters at length settle into rest as they pass from the broken-down sandstone strata to the flat land beyond, where the river flows through its two mouths into the lake. PLATTSBURG AND ITS NAVAL BATTLE.