insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel, those of Italy and Switzerland being but sorry patterns." To this priest, Hennepin, we owe the first description and picture of Niagara, [Footnote: "Four leagues from Lake Frontenac there is an incredible Cataract or Waterfall, which has no equal. The Niagara river near this place is only the eighth of a league wide, but it is very deep in places, and so rapid above the great fall that it hurries down all the animals which try to cross it, without a single one being able to withstand its current. They plunge down a height of more than five hundred feet, and its fall is composed of two sheets of water and a cascade, with an island sloping down. In the middle these waters foam and boil in a fearful manner. They thunder continually, and when the wind blows in a southerly direction the noise which they make is heard for more than fifteen leagues. Four leagues from this cataract, or fall, the Niagara river rushes with extraordinary rapidity especially for two leagues into Lake Frontenac."--Hennepin, "Description of Louisiana," pp. 71-73.] probably now more familiar to the world than any other natural feature of this continent. He has somewhat magnified the height of these falls, making it five hundred feet in the edition of 1683, and raising it to six hundred in 1697; but they are impressive enough to acquit him of intentional falsification and powerful enough to run virtually all the manufacturing plants in the United States, if they could be gathered within its easy reach. As it is, less than 9 per cent of the water that overflows from the four upper Great Lakes into the lower lake, once known as Lake Frontenac and now as Ontario, is diverted for utilitarian purposes; it supplies the Americans and the Canadians almost equally between the two shores five hundred thousand horse-power. [Footnote: "Under a treaty between the United States and the British Government only about 25 per cent of the theoretical horsepower of Niagara Falls can be developed. The estimate of the minimum amount of power that can be developed on the Niagara River above and including the Falls is 5,800,000 h.p., and the assumed maximum is 6,500,000 h.p. The treaty, therefore, limits present possible minimum development on both sides of the Falls to 1,450,000 h.p. Under the treaty only five-fourteenths of the power made available thereby belongs to the United States, its share being reduced by the diversion of water from Lake Michigan into the Drainage Canal at Chicago. There is thus left at Niagara Falls only about 518,000 h.p. that can at present be developed on the American side." About one-half of this total is now developed.--United States Commissioner of Corporations. Report on water-power development in the United States. 1912.]