dreamed of
scene produced. It has to me something beyond its vastness;
there is a shadowy mystery hangs about it which neither the eye
nor even the imagination can penetrate; but I dare not dwell on
this, it is a dangerous subject, and any attempt to describe the
sensations produced must lead direct to nonsense.

Exactly at the Fall, it is the Fall and nothing else you have to
look upon; there are not, as at Trenton, mighty rocks and
towering forests, there is only the waterfall; but it is the fall
of an ocean, and were Pelion piled on Ossa on either side of it,
we could not look at them.

The noise is greatly less than I expected; one can hear with
perfect distinctness everything said in an ordinary tone, when
quite close to the cataract. The cause of this, I imagine to be,
that it does not fall immediately among rocks, like the far
noisier Potomac, but direct and unbroken, save by its own
rebound. The colour of the water, before this rebound hides it
in foam and mist, is of the brightest and most delicate green;
the violence of the impulse sends it far over the precipice
before it falls, and the effect of the ever varying light through
its transparency is, I think, the loveliest thing I ever looked
upon.

We descended to the edge of the gulf which received the torrent,
and thence looked at the horse-shoe fall in profile; it seems
like awful daring to stand close beside it, and raise one's eyes
to its immensity. I think the point the most utterly
inconceivable to those who have not seen it, is the centre of the
horse-shoe. The force of the torrent converges there, and as the
heavy mass pours in, twisted, wreathed, and curled together, it
gives an idea of irresistible power, such as no other object ever
conveyed to me.

The following anecdote, which I had from good authority, may give
some notion of this mighty power.

After the last American war, three of our ships stationed on Lake
Erie were declared unfit for service, and condemned. Some of
their officers obtained permission to send them over Niagara
Falls. The first was torn to shivers by the rapids, and went
over in fragments; the second filled with water before she
reached the fall; but the third, which was in better condition,
took the leap gallantly, and retained her form till it was hid in
the cloud of mist below. A reward of ten dollars was offered for
the largest fragment of wood that should be found from either
wreck, five for the second, a