Tradition preserves the memory of the warrior of the red race, who got entangled in the rapids above the falls, and, seeing his fate inevitable, calmly resigned himself to it, and sat singing in his canoe till buried by the torrent in the abyss to which it plunges. The celebrated Chateaubriand narrowly escaped a similar fate. On his arrival he had repaired to the fall, having the bridle of his horse twisted round his arm. While he was stopping to look down, a rattle-snake stirred among the neighboring bushes. The horse was startled, reared, and ran back toward the abyss. He could not disengage his arm from the bridle; and the horse, more and more frightened, dragged him after him. His fore-legs were all but off the ground; and, squatting on the brink of the precipice, he was upheld merely by the bridle. He gave himself up for lost; when the animal, astonished at this new danger, threw itself forward with a pirouette, and sprang to the distance of ten feet from the edge of the abyss. The erosive action of running water, which is urging the Niagara Falls toward Lake Erie, is strikingly exhibited by several rivers which penetrate through rocks and beds of compact strata, and have either scooped out their own passage entirely, or widened and deepened original tracks and fissures in the surface, into enormous wall-sided valleys. The current of the Simeto--the largest Sicilian river round the base of Etna--was crossed by a great stream of lava about two centuries and a half ago; but, since that era, the river has completely triumphed over the barrier of homogeneous hard blue rock that intruded into its channel, and cut a passage through it from fifty to a hundred feet broad, and from forty to fifty deep. The formation of the magnificent rock-bridge which overhangs the course of the Cedar creek, one of the natural wonders of Virginia, is very probably due in part to the solvent and abrading power of the stream. This sublime curiosity is 213 feet above the river, 60 feet wide, 90 long, and the thickness of the mass at the summit of the arch is about 40 feet. The bridge has a coating of earth, which gives growth to several large trees. To look down from its edge into the chasm inspires a feeling answering to the words of Shakspeare: “Come on, sir; here’s the place:--stand still. How fearful And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low!”