Niagara Falls, the grandest cataract in the world, belong in part to the state of New York. Here the water of the great lakes, west of Ontario, is poured over a precipitous cliff about 160 feet high in two immense sheets, called the American and Horseshoe falls, separated by Goat Island. These falls received the name Niagara from the aborigines, Ni-a-ga-ra meaning the "thunder of waters." The roar created by the fall can be heard, under favorable conditions, at a distance of fifteen miles. There are three distinct falls. The Horseshoe fall, so named on account of its crescent shape, is the largest, covering a distance of 2,000 feet and having a fall of 154 feet; the American fall, 660 feet, and the Central fall, 243 feet in width, each have a fall of 163 feet. The volume of water is perpetually the same, no amount of rain or snow making any apparent change. This is conceded to be the grandest natural feature in the world, providing a water power the limit of which is incalculable. Many of our readers have visited the falls in the summer season and doubtless all of them have read descriptions of them, more or less disappointing; everyone is familiar with the numberless photographs and engravings that have been made of them. Of course, no adequate idea of them has ever been given to the imagination. The writer has seen them many times and must confess to a want of sympathy with that feeling of wonder and bewilderment which many people claim to experience when first beholding them. It would be interesting to compile a list, if it could be done, of exclamations made on first viewing Lake Erie, as it really is, tumbling over a gigantic cliff. Charles Dickens is reported to have been unable to utter a word for many seconds, and there does not appear to be an adjective of sufficient potentiality to hold the idea of its majesty. And yet there are falls greater than these in the world. Dr. Livingstone, alluding to Victoria Falls in Central Africa, declared that of all the wonders of the lands he had visited he had seen no such stupendous spectacle as they. The chasm into which a mile-wide sheet of water plunges has been plumbed to twice the depth of Niagara.