The Niagara River is some nineteen hundred feet in width at its mouth here at Buffalo and forty-eight feet deep; the average rate of current here is under six miles per hour, but when south-west gales drive the lake billows in gigantic gulps down the river's mouth the current sometimes races as fast as twelve miles per hour. Old Fort Erie, built here at the mouth of the Niagara immediately after England won the continent from France, in 1764, was formerly the only settlement hereabouts, Black Rock, now part of Buffalo, at the mouth of the Erie Canal, was not settled until near the close of that century. It is believed that five forts have guarded the mouth of this strategic river, all known as Fort Erie. When the people of the opposite sides of the river were in conflict in 1812, Black Rock was the rival of Fort Erie. The large black rock which formed the landing-place of the ferry across the river here, and which gave the hamlet its name, was destroyed when the Erie Canal was built. Black Rock was formally laid out in 1804 and in 1853 was incorporated with the city of Buffalo. [Illustration: Lafayette Square.] The upper Niagara with its even current and low-lying banks is not specially attractive. Grand Island, two miles below the mouth, divides the river into two narrow arms. This beautiful island, the Indian name of which was Owanunga, so popular to-day as a summering place, is remembered in history especially as the site selected in 1825 for Major M. M. Noah's "New Jerusalem," the proposed industrial centre of the Jews of the New World, but nothing was accomplished on the island itself toward the object in view. At Buffalo, however, Noah took the title "Judge of Israel," and held a meeting in the old St. Paul's Church, where remarkable initiatory rites took place. In resplendent robes covered by a mantle of crimson silk, trimmed with ermine, the Judge held what he termed "impressive and unique ceremony," in which he read a proclamation to "all the Jews throughout the world," bringing them the glad tidings that on the ancient isle Owanunga "an asylum was prepared and offered to them," and that he did "revive, renew, and establish (in the Lord's name), the government of the Jewish nation, . . . confirming and perpetuating all our rights and privileges, our rank and power, among the nations of the earth as they existed and were recognised under the government of the Judges." Mr. Noah ordered a census of all the Hebrews in the world to be taken and did not forget, incidentally, to levy a tax of about one dollar and a half on every Jew in order to carry on the project. A "foundation stone" was prepared to be erected on the site of the future New Jerusalem; the following inscription was engraved upon it: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God--the Lord is one. ARARAT, A CITY OF REFUGE FOR THE JEWS, FOUNDED BY MORDECAI MANUEL NOAH, IN THE MONTH OF TISRI 5586--SEPT. 1825 IN THE FIFTIETH YEAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.