The Indians who first looked upon the world's greatest cataract gave the best idea of it in their appropriate name, "The Thunder of Waters." There is no setting provided for it in the charms of natural scenery; it has no outside attractions. All its beauty and sublimity are within the rocky walls of its stupendous chasm. The approaches from every direction are dull and tedious, the surrounding country being flat. The forests are sparse and there are few fine trees, these being confined to the verge of the abyss, and being generally of recent planting. The Niagara River flows northward from Lake Erie through a plain. The Lake Erie level is five hundred and sixty-four feet above the sea, and in its tortuous course of about thirty-six miles to Lake Ontario, the Niagara River descends three hundred and thirty-three feet, leaving the level of Ontario still two hundred and thirty-one feet above the sea. More than half of all the fresh water on the entire globe--the whole enormous volume from the vast lake region of North America, draining a territory equalling the entire continent of Europe, pours through this contracted channel out of Lake Erie. There is a swift current for a couple of miles, but afterwards the speed is gentler as the channel broadens, and Grand Island divides it. Then it reunites into a wider stream, flowing sluggishly westward, small islands dotting the surface. About fifteen miles from Lake Erie the river narrows and the rapids begin. They flow with great speed for a mile above the falls, in this distance descending fifty-two feet, Goat Island dividing their channel at the brink of the cataract, where the river makes a bend from the west back to the north. This island separates the waters, although nine-tenths go over the Canadian fall, which the abrupt bend curves into horseshoe form. This fall is about one hundred and fifty-eight feet high, the height of the smaller fall on the American side being one hundred and sixty-four feet. The two cataracts spread out to forty-seven hundred and fifty feet breadth, the steep wooded bank of Goat Island, separating them, occupying about one-fourth the distance. The American fall is about eleven hundred feet wide and the Canadian fall twice that width, the actual line of the descending waters on the latter being much larger than the breadth of the river because of its curving form. Recent changes, caused by falling rock in the apex of this fall, have, however, made it a more symmetrical horseshoe than had been the case for years. The Niagara River, just below the cataract, contracts to about one thousand feet, widening to twelve hundred and fifty feet beneath the new single-arch steel bridge recently constructed a short distance farther down. For seven miles the gorge is carved out, the river banks on both sides rising to the top level of the falls, and the bottom sinking deeper and deeper as the lower rapids descend towards Lewiston, and in some places contracting to very narrow limits.