evenings in the week Prospect Park is filled with a crowd of free-and-easy men and women, fetching their own tea and coffee and provisions and enjoying a rollicking dance in the Pavilion. And all this within fifty yards of the American fall! For their entertainment there is an illuminated spray-fountain, and their appreciation knows no bounds when various coloured lights are thrown upon the Falls. Then a crowd of fifty swoops down upon one of the hotels--men, women, and children--all in brown linen dusters; all hot, hungry, and careless. These people must not be deprived of their recreation. Heaven forbid! None have a greater right than they to the influence of Niagara. But this way of visiting the place is all wrong; they derive little benefit, and they do infinite harm. In this second sense the destruction of Niagara is making rapid strides in a far more dangerous direction. The natural attractions of the place are being undermined. On the American side the bank of the river above the Falls is covered for a quarter of a mile with structures of all kinds, from the extensive parlors and piazzas of the Cataract House to the little shanty where the Indian goods of Irish manufacture are sold. For the purpose of securing bathrooms and water-power, dams of all kinds have been built; these are wooden trenches filled with rough paving-stones. Some of the structures project over the Rapids, being supported by piles. The spaces between the various buildings are used to store lumber, and as dust heaps. One of them contains a great heap of saw-dust, another a pile of scrap-iron. The banks and fences bear invitations to purchase Parker's hair-balsam and ginger tonic. The proprietor of Prospect Park has made a laudable attempt to plant trees upon his land; these extend for a few yards above the Falls. In return, however, he has erected coloured arbours, and a station for his electric light, which are almost as unpleasant as the other buildings. Just below the Suspension Bridge the gas-works discharge their tar down the bank into the river; a few yards further on there are five or six large manufactories, whose tail-races empty themselves over the cliff. The spectator on Goat Island, on the Suspension Bridge, or on the Canadian side cannot help seeing this mass of incongruous and ugly structures extending along the whole course of the Rapids and to the brink of the Falls. Of course, under these circumstances the Rapids are degraded into a mill-race, and the Fall itself seems to be lacking a water-wheel.