Below these islands are rapids which extend a mile to the precipice, in which space the river descends fifty-seven feet. Down these rapids the stream rushes, foaming and dashing, giving to the beholder a wild scene of novel interest. Goat Island divides the river into two courses. A small island but a few yards from Goat Island divides the channel on the American side. Between the two is a beautiful cascade; and, from the small island to the American side, the sheet is broad, with a greater descent, though less quantity of water, than at the other fall on the Canada side. Much the greater body of water passes through the course between Goat Island and the Canada shore. This fall, from its shape, has been named the Horse-shoe Fall. The waters, as they wend their way over the edge and downward, assume a white appearance, save a streak eastward in the Horse-shoe Fall, which streak is of a green color, like the water of the river where it is deep and undisturbed. In one spot, near "the Cave of the Winds," on the American side, I saw a narrow cascade with so thin a sheet that it assumed a pearl color, and descended in congregated globules, or beads, sparkling in their beauty, and altogether variable from the heavier masses rolling over the more central parts. Farther centreward, the bounding waters assume a snowy appearance; and, in gazing upon them, they seem large volumes, or rather avalanches of foam, rolling down into the trembling depths of the lower river. A gentleman skilled in science, who has measured the water above, below, and on the brink of the falls, reports that three millions of tons of water fall over the precipice every second. The moving water below the falls creates one vast mass of "liquid foam," which, like pressed down, floats upon the surface of the river. Here, amid the roar of the rumbling and rushing waters, the spray rolls up in clouds, like ascending smoke. Rainbows dawn amid the dull-appearing mist, and we have, as a whole, Niagara presented to us as she is, and as no language can describe her. The grand view remains fixed upon the mind, and a halo of happy fancies takes hold of the conceptions.