from the higher to the lower level, through a corre sponding series of locks, ranged side by side with the ascending ones, there being thus a double range of locks, the ascending and the descending, both in operation at the same time. The masonry is of the most solid and excellent workmanship, and everything about it is well calculated for durability.

The village of Lockport, which is partly on the lower and partly on the higher level, contains at present about 5,000 inhabitants; though in 1821 there were only two houses in the place. There are now also seven churches, a court-house, many spacious stores, about 600 houses, and several large hotels; such is the rapid growth of the settlement along this track of the canal.

Beyond Lockport, at a distance of about seven miles, the canal enters, at a place called Pindleton, the river Tonnewanda, called here, as usual, the Tonnewanda "creek." This broad and beautiful stream, flowing through a densely wooded tract, was an agreeable relief after the narrow limits of the canal; and we continued to pass through it for a distance of 12 miles, till we again entered the canal on the borders of the great Niagara river above the Falls, and ran side by side with it, separated only by the narrowest neck of embankment, till we reached the village of Black Rock, at a distance of eight miles; when going through another portion of the canal, cut off from the river by a ridge of rock and stone, as a breakwater, for about three miles, we entered the port of Buffalo, on the Lake Erie, about twelve o'clock, having been twenty-one hours on the canal.

We remained here but a few hours, to make arrangements for my delivering a course of lectures to commence in the ensuing week; and having seen the gentlemen to whom I had letters of introduction, and completed these arrangements, we left Buffalo at half-past five by the rail-road car for Niagara, intending to pass four or five days at the Falls, and, after a tedious ride of 22 miles, we reached the Cataract Hotel about nine o'clock.

CHAP. XXVII.

First sight of the rapids above the falls-Visit to the great cataract above and below-Impressions created by the different viewsLines addressed to Niagara-Repeated excursions to every part of the falls-General description of the locality-Indian etymology-" The thunder of the waters"-Difference between the American and Canadian falls-Circuit of Goat Island— Bridges, and ferry-Breadth of the strait, and of the two cataracts -Quantity of water discharged every minute-Gradual retrocession of the falls-Facts of recent date in support of this-Daring leap over the cataract-Appearance of the scene in winter-Vast mound of ice-Ascent to its summit-Historical notices of the falls Register of travellers-Village of Manchester-City of the falls-Hotels.

THE hotel in which we slept was so near the rapids, just above the brink of the great Fall, on the American side, that the tremulation occasioned by the rolling waters kept our windows in a constant rattle; while the unceasing roar of the rushing torrent, flowing within a few yards of the balcony of our bed-room, kept us awake till a late hour, and when we awoke, at day-light, after a broken and feverish sleep, our first act was to hasten into the veranda, to survey the scene around us. Being on the higher level of the river, we could see from hence, looking downward to the north-west, the immense mass of rising mist, which told us where the foaming cataract descended, and between our own position and this rising cloud was a beautifully varied surface of

RAPIDS OF NIAGARA.

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islands and islets, bridges thrown across the turbulent rapids from rock to rock, thickly foliaged woods, and turbulent and rushing torrents, here and there broken by drifts of wreck, or impeded by forest trees that had got entangled in the rocks, and the whole mass boiling like a cauldron. The combination was full of beauty and of grandeur; but this was

scene.

We therefore devoted the whole of the day to a visit to the Falls, and after seeing them from all the most interesting points of view, on both sides the river, as well as from the lower level of the stream below-from the northern and western extremities of Goat Island, overhanging the cataracts, on the American side-from the table-rock and pavilion heights on the Canada side--and from the ferry across

the river just at the foot of the Falls, and between the two; we returned at night more gratified with the beauties and wonders of the spot, than we had ever been before with any work of nature or of art. Our feelings, as we stood on different points of the scene, lost in awe and admiration, were too deep for verbal utterance, and our walk was therefore more than usually silent; my wife, my son, and myself, scarcely interchanging any other words than ejaculations of delight, or expressions of awe, at the splendour and sublimity of the whole.

During one of these silent pauses, as we sat upon a rock, surrounded by an almost untrodden, grassy sward, and thickly overhung by the wild foliage of the woods, but within full sight of one of the grandest views of the watery mass, I traced with a pencil some lines to Niagara, which, as they may give the reader some idea of the feelings by which I was impressed, I have placed with the other documents assigned to the Appendix, where they will be found.*

We remained, on the whole, five days at Niagara, two of which we passed on the American side, and three on the British; and during all that period, we were almost constantly engaged, from sunrise to sunset, in examining every part of the Falls and their surrounding scenery, crossing the river from side to side in boats at least a dozen times; and being often enveloped in the thick spray occasioned by the descent of the waters, from the nearness of our approach to their falling columns, so that we had an opportunity of seeing all its beauties in every variety of *See Appendix, No. IV