From the eminence entitled the Table rock, the spectator has a fine prospect of the terrific rapids above the falls, and of the surrounding shores, embellished with lofty woods. He there sees to advantage the adjacent Horseshoe fall, and the dread abyss, into which he may look perpendicularly from the edge of the rock, if his courage be equal to his curiosity. The immensity of the various objects which here present themselves to the view, infallibly overwhelms a stranger with astonishment, and several minutes must elapse before he can possibly collect himself sufficiently to form any just conception of the awful and magnificent scene before him, which requires that all its component parts should be separately examined, and which affords so truly surprising an exhibition, that persons who have resided in its vicinity for several years, and who have been constantly habituated to its sublimity, ingenuously acknowledge, _at their last visit_, that they were never able before to discover its peculiar grandeur. From a cliff nearly opposite to one extremity of the third fall, the falls are seen in a very interesting point of view: the scenery there, it is true, is less magnificent, but is infinitely more beautiful than from any other station. For several miles beneath the precipice the river is bounded, on either side, by steep and lofty cliffs, composed of earth and rocks, which in most parts are perpendicular. The descent to the bottom of the falls was formerly accomplished by two ladders, formed of long pine trees, with notches on their sides, on which the traveler rested his feet, and passed down amidst a variety of huge misshapen rocks and pendant trees, seeming to threaten him with instantaneous destruction. The breadth of the river in this part is about two furlongs; and toward the right, on the opposite side, the third fall appears in a very advantageous point of view. About one-half of the Horse-shoe fall is concealed by the projecting cliff, but its partial prospect is extremely fine. The bottom of the former of these falls is skirted with a beautiful white foam, which ascends from the rock in thick volumes, but does not rise into the air like a cloud of smoke, as is the case with that of the latter fall, although its spray is so considerable, as to descend like a shower of rain, near the second ladder, on the opposite side of the river. On its brink, and along the strand, to the great fall, are to be constantly seen shattered trees and bodies of animals, which have been carried away by the extreme violence of the current.