For ease of access, romantic situation, historic interest, and many of the advantages usually desired during a hot vacation recess, these towns along the lower Niagara offer a varied number of important advantages; if by some magic touch a dam could be raised between Fort Mississauga and the American shore, rendering that marvellously beautiful stretch of river--unmatched in some ways by any American stream--slack water, one of the most lovely boating lakes on the Continent could be created, whereon international regattas in both winter and summer could be held of unusual interest. Is it supposable that this could be effected without great detriment to either the yachting fraternity, whose sails, from the verandah of the Queen's Royal, are always a delight, or the steamboat interests, which could land as well at Fort Niagara, perhaps, as at Lewiston, or at Niagara-on-the-Lake, which could be connected with the Gorge Route. The river's current is all now that keeps the lower Niagara from being as popular a resort of its kind as can be suggested. All the elements of popularity are in fair measure present here, and immensely enjoyed yearly by increasing multitudes. A little beyond the mouth of the Niagara, just over those blue waves, rise the spires of the queen city of Canada, Toronto. To all practical purposes this beautiful city stands at one end of Niagara River, as Buffalo stands at the other. Historically and commercially this is altogether true, and we elsewhere weave its history into our record. [Footnote 7: _Scribner's Monthly_, vol. xxi., pp. 583-6.] [Footnote 8: _The Niagara Book_, p. 15.] [Footnote 9: _The Century Magazine_, vol. xxxvi., p. 197.] [Footnote 10: _The Century Magazine_, xxxvi., 198-201.] Chapter III The Birth of Niagara Geologic time presents to the scientist one of the most difficult problems with which he has to deal. When the different divisions into which he would divide the ages are numbered by thousands and even millions of years, the human mind is appalled at the prospect; and when the calculations of different geologists vary by hundreds of thousands of years, the lay mind can not help growing somewhat credulous, and at times be tempted to discard the whole mass of scientific data relating to the subject. Niagara River forms one of the best, if not the best, means of studying the lapse of time since the Ice Age. Finding, as students do here, the best material in existence for this study, leads to exhaustive scientific analysis of every clue presented by the Cataract and the deep Gorge it has cut for itself through the solid lime rock and Niagara shale forming its bed.