The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and artAbbott, John Loraine
Science
The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and art
Abbott, John Loraine
Curiosities and wonders
“The most complete view of the Horseshoe fall is that from the bottom of
the cliff, at a point near the ferry landing. If, however, the water is
unusually high, the quiet pool which is ordinarily seen in the
foreground, becomes a fierce and angry rush of waters, foaming above and
around the jagged rocks. If the water is very low, the bed of this pool
is entirely dry. Last year [1852] there were but few days when the whole
spot was not overflowed. The current nearest the Canada shore runs
up-stream, as though seeking an outlet in the direction from which it
came. The middle distance is marked by a line of white foam, beyond
which the current runs downstream. The center of the Horse-shoe fall is
directly in front, defined on the right by the verge of Table Rock, and
on the left by the upper extremity of Goat island. Just below the tower
which seems to rise from the midst of the waters on the American side,
an immense mass of rock is dimly visible, which became detached from the
precipice in February, 1852.
“A very charming glimpse of that portion of the fall directly in front
of the tower, may be caught through a clump of trees which stand a
little above the ferry landing. The limitation of view hightens the
effect, when contrasted with the unlimited prospect of the fall
presented from almost every other point on the Canada side.
“It is no very difficult task for a stout pedestrian to make his way
along under the edge of the precipice from the ferry up to the foot of
the fall. The path winds among huge fragments of rock which have tumbled
from above, and is slippery with the falling spray. You stop to rest
upon a huge rock, where a couple of rough-coated men are fishing. They
tell you that it is named ‘Bass rock,’ and you recognize the propriety
of the appellation, as you observe the finny spoil that has repaid their
labor. The water rushes foaming and eddying around the fragments of
rock, sometimes rising in great swells to the spot on which you stand.
Fragments of timber, their ends rounded and worn like pebbles on a
wave-beaten shore, are scattered around: some groaning and tossing in
the water, others stranded high and dry upon the rocks, where they have
been flung by some swell higher than usual. You are so near the foot of
the fall that the descending sheet of water occupies the entire field of
vision: the immense rock which interposes between Bass rock and the
descending water has as yet received no distinctive name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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