Between ferry and bridge
the river Niagara flows unruffled; but at the suspension bridge the
bed steepens and the river quickens its motion. Lower down the gorge
narrows, and the rapidity and turbulence increase. At the place
called the' Whirlpool Rapids' I estimated the width of the river at
300 feet, an estimate confirmed by the dwellers on the spot. When it
is remembered that the drainage of nearly half a continent is
compressed into this space, the impetuosity of the river's rush may be
imagined. Had it not been for Mr. Bierstaedt, the distinguished
photographer of Niagara, I should have quitted the place without
seeing these rapids; for this, and for his agreeable company to the
spot, I have to thank him. From the edge of the cliff above the
rapids, we descended, a little, I confess, to a climber's disgust, in
an 'elevator,' because the effects are best seen from the water level.

Two kinds of motion are here obviously active, a motion of translation
and a motion of undulation--the race of the river through its gorge,
and the great waves generated by its collision with, and rebound from,
the obstacles in its way. In the middle of the river the rush and
tossing are most violent; at all events, the impetuous force of the
individual waves is here most strikingly displayed. Vast pyramidal
heaps leap incessantly from the river, some of them with such energy
as to jerk their summits into the air, where they hang momentarily
suspended in crowds of liquid spherules. The sun shone for a few
minutes. At times the wind, coming up the river, searched and sifted
the spray, carrying away the lighter drops, and leaving the heavier
ones behind. Wafted in the proper direction, rainbows appeared and
disappeared fitfully in the lighter mist. In other directions the
common gleam of the sunshine from the waves and their shattered crests
was exquisitely beautiful. The complexity of the action was still
further illustrated by the fact, that in some cases, as if by the
exercise of a local explosive force, the drops were shot radially from
a particular centre, forming around it a kind of halo.

The first impression, and, indeed, the current explanation of these
rapids is, that the central bed of the river is cumbered with large
boulders, and that the jostling, tossing, and wild leaping of the
water there, are due to its impact against these obstacles. I doubt
this explanation. At all events, there is another sufficient reason