6. The direction and extent of slopes of land give rise to a classification of rivers called river systems, which can be studied at length in works on physical geography. 1. SOMETIMES large rivers fall suddenly over perpendicular rocks, forming cataracts, or falls. When a brook or small stream presents a similar phenomenon, it is usually called a cascade. 2. In mountain regions there are cascades hundreds of feet in height-so high that, from the resistance of the air, the water reaches the bottom as a fine spray. In southern Asia are several cascades more than eight hundred feet high: the Fall of Staubach, in Switzerland, described in Byron's "Manfred," has a perpendicular descent of eight hundred feet; and the Falls of the Rhine, though not so lofty as many others, are highly celebrated for their beauty. 3. Among American waterfalls, the most noted are those of the Montmorency, near Quebec, which descend two hundred and forty feet in an unbroken sheet; the Great and the Little Falls of the Potomac, in Maryland; the Falls of the Missouri; the Rapids of the St. Lawrence, five hundred miles from its source; and, lastly, the grandest of all, and the mightiest in its mass of waters, the world-renowned Falls of Niagara. From a thousand descriptions of this great natural curiosity, our space limits us to a brief selection. 4. "There is a power and beauty, we may say a divinity, in rushing waters, felt by all who acknowledge any sympathy with nature. The mountain stream, leaping from rock to rock, and winding, foaming, and glancing through its devious and stony channels, arrests the eye of the most careless or business-bound traveler, sings to the heart, and haunts the memory of the man of taste and imagination, and holds, as by some indefinable spell, the affections of those who inhabit its borders. A waterfall of even a few feet in height will enliven the dullest scenery, and lend a charm to the loveliest; while a high and headlong cataract has always been ranked among the sublimest objects to be found in the compass of the globe. 5. "It is no matter of surprise, therefore, that lovers of nature perform journeys of homage to that sovereign of cataracts, that monarch of all pouring floods, the Falls of Niagara. It is no matter of surprise that, although situated in what might have been called a few years ago, but can not be now, the wilds of North America, five hundred miles from the Atlantic coast, travelers from all civilized parts of the world have encountered all the difficulties and fatigues of the path to behold this prince of waterfalls amid its ancient solitudes, and that, more recently, the broad highways to its dominions have been thronged. By universal consent, it has long ago been proclaimed one of the wonders of the world. It is alone in its kind. Though a waterfall, it is not to be compared with other waterfalls. In its majesty, its supremacy, and its influence on the soul of man, its brotherhood is with the living ocean and the eternal hills."-GREENWOOD. 6. From the vicinity of the famed Table Rock on the Canada side, the whole scene is presented in its highest degree of grandeur and beauty. On the right, and within a few feet, is the edge of the grand crescent, called the British, or Horseshoe Fall, which is more than one third of a mile broad, and one hundred and fifty-three feet in height. Opposite is Goat Island, which divides the falls; and lower down, to the left, is the American Fall, six hundred feet in breadth, and one hundred and sixty-four feet in height. From a writer who first viewed the falls from the vicinity of Table Rock, we take the following description: I could see 7. "A mingled rushing and thundering filled my ears. nothing, except when the wind made a chasm in the spray, and then tremendous cataracts seemed to encompass me on every side; while below, a raging and foamy gulf of undiscoverable extent lashed the rocks with its hissing waves, and swallowed, under a horrible obscurity, the smoking floods that were precipitated into its bosom. 8. "At first the sky was obscured by clouds, but, after a few minutes, the sun burst forth, and the breeze subsiding at the same time, permitted the spray to ascend perpendicularly. A host of pyramidal clouds rose majes tically, one after another, from the abyss at the bottom of the fall; and each, when it had ascended a little above the edge of the cataract, displayed a beautiful rainbow, which in a few moments was gradually transferred into the bosom of the clouds that immediately succeeded. 9. "The spray of the Great Fall had extended itself through a wide space directly over me, and, receiving the full influence of the sun, exhibited a luminous and magnificent rainbow, which continued to overarch and irradiate the spot on which I stood, while I enthusiastically contemplated the indescribable scene. 10. "The body of water which composes the middle part of the Great Fall is so immense that it descends nearly two thirds of the space without being ruffled or broken; and the solemn calmness with which it rolls over the edge of the precipice is finely contrasted with the perturbed appearance it assumes after having reached the gulf below. But the water toward each side of the fall is shattered the moment it drops over the rock, and loses, as it descends, in a great measure, the character of a fluid, being divided into pyramidal-shaped fragments, the bases of which are turned upward. 11. "The surface of the gulf below the cataract presents a very singular aspect, seeming, as it were, filled with an immense quantity of hoar-frost, which is agitated by small and rapid undulations. The particles of water are dazzlingly white, and do not apparently unite together, as might be supposed, but seem to continue for a time in a state of distinct comminution, and to repel each other with a thrilling and shivering motion, which can not easily be described."-HowISON. 12. By descending a circular staircase, seventy or eighty feet in perpendicular height, a person may pass, by a narrow and slippery path, behind the Great Fall on the Canada side; but here he is frightfully stunned by the roar of the cataract; clouds of spray sometimes envelop, and almost suffocate him, and it is only a person of the strongest nerves that can proceed to the bottom of the fall; and there, it is said, only one emotion is experienced by every adventurer-that of uncontrollable terror. 13. Most descriptions of the falls are those of persons who have viewed them only in fine weather, when the contrast is most marked between their stern and awful grandeur, and the beauty of the surrounding landscape. But it seems that their grandeur is enhanced, if possible, by being viewed during a thunder-storm. 14. "Presently," remarks the writer from whom we first quoted, "a thunder-storm rose up from the west, and passed directly over us; and soon another came, still heavier than the preceding. And now I was more impressed than ever with the peculiar motion of the fall, not, however, because it experienced a change, but because it did not. The lightning gleamed, the thunder pealed, the rain fell in torrents; the storms were grand; but the fall, if I may give its expression a language, did not heed them at all! the rapids poured on with the same quiet solemnity, with the same equable intentness, undisturbed by the lightning and rain, and listening not to the loud thunder." LESSON XXIII.-A VISION'S SPELL-NIAGARA. 1. I STOOD within a vision's spell; I saw, I heard. The liquid thunder Ever, ever fell Into the invisible abyss that opened under. 2. I stood upon a speck of ground; I was like a captive bound; A universe of sound Troubled the heavens with ever-quivering motion. Boiling up forever, Steam-clouds shot up with thunder-bursts appalling. 4. A tone that since the birth of man Was never for a moment broken, Hath spoken still to man- With a restless roar o'erboiling- Cheering the cataracts to their mighty toiling. 6. And in that vision, as it passed, Was gathered terror, beauty, power; And still, when all has fled, too fast, And I at last Dream of the dreamy past, My heart is full when lingering on that hour.-Anon. |