The Niagara book

Front matter

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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress

Part I

Page What to See. Frederic A buy, A.M 3

Dramatic Incidents. Orrin E. Dunlap 59

Historic Niagara. Hon. Peter A. Porter .... 90

The Geology of Niagara Falls, Prof. N. S. Shaler. 123

The Flora and Fauna of Niagara Falls. Hon.

David F. Day 158

Utilization of Niagara's Power. Coleman Sellers,

Part II. The First Authentic Mention of Niagara Falls

Mark Twain ,....215

Niagara, First and Last. William D. Howells . . 236

As It Rushes By. Edward S. Martin 270

Famous Visitors at Niagara 'Falls. Rev. Thomas

R. Slicer 278

Part III. Buffalo and the Pan American Exposition, . . 315

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

A NOVEL VIEW OF THE HORSESHOE . . . Frontispiece

Facing Page

ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE OF THE WINDS lO

THE HORSESHOE FROM THE MAID OF THE MIST . . 22

THE THREE SISTER ISLANDS 34

QUEENSTON AND LEWISTON. — END OF THE GORGE . 42

PROSPECT POINT 50

SEARCHLIGHT IN THE GORGE 59

SPELTERINA 70

BLONDIN 70

searchlight in the gorge 84

the american fall from goat island .... qo

devil's hole 104

a panorama of niagara iio

the maid of the mist ii9

bird's-eye view OF NIAGARA RIVER 122

MAP OF LAKE IROQUOIS I29

THE ICE PALACE 132

HYPOTHETIC HYDROGRAPHY AT A DATE BEFORE THE

MELTING OF THE GREAT GLACIER FROM THE ST.

LAWRENCE VALLEY 1 34

HYPOTHETIC HYDROGRAPHY AT A DATE AFTER THE

MELTING OF THE GREAT GLACIER FROM THE ST.

LAWRENCE VALLEY . . - 137

BIRD'S-EYE view of THE NIAGARA GORGE .... I44

LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS.

Facing Page

THE soldiers' MONUMENT I50

SECTION OF NIAGARA FALLS, SHOWING THE ARRANGE- MENT OF HARD AND SOFT STRATA, AND ILLUS- TRATING A THEORY OF THE PROCESS OF EROSION I52

SPRINGTIME AT NIAGARA I58

AMERICAN RAPIDS ABOVE GOAT ISLAND BRIDGE . . 168

THE GORGE ROAD I78

THE GORGE NEAR LEWISTON 178

POWER HOUSE — EXTERIOR 188

POWER HOUSE — INTERIOR 188

A bird's-eye view FROM THE TOWER ..... I96

THE AMERICAN FALL FROM BELOW . . . . - . . . 206

ROCK OF AGES AND CAVE OF THE WINDS .... 2l6

THE HORSESHOE FALL AT SUNSET 226

THE WHIRLPOOL RAPIDS 236

LUNA ISLAND IN WINTER 244

THE "maid of the MIST " 254

THE BREAKING OF THE ICE BRIDGE 267

THE ICE BRIDGE 267

THE CAVE OF THE WINDS IN WINTER 274

MOONLIGHT 284

THE WHIRLPOOL 294

THE ICE MOUNTAIN 3O4

PLAN OF THE CITY OF BUFFALO ........ 316

NIAGARA FALLS AND VICINITY 33 1

PLAN OF THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION .... 340

THE STADIUM 342

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

Part I

What to See. Frederic Almy, A.M.

Dramatic Incidents. Orrin E. Dunlap.

Historic Niagara. Hon. Peter A. Porter.

The Geology of Niagara Falls. Prof. N. S. Shaler. The Flora and Fauna of Niagara Falls.

Hon. David F. Day.

Utilization of Niagara's Power,

Coleman Sellers, E.D,, Sc.D., etc.

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

PART I.

WHAT TO SEE.

By Frederic Almy, A.M.

A CONSECUTIVE DESCRIPTION FOR VISITORS.

I. The Cave of the Winds.

II. The Maid of the Mist.

III. Queen Victoria Park ; the Horseshoe Fall ; the

Dufferin Islands.

IV. The American Rapids ; Prospect Park ; Goat

Island ; Luna Island ; the Three Sisters.

V. Lower Niagara : The Whirlpool Rapids ; the

Whirlpool ; the Gorge Road to Lewiston and Oueenston ; Brock's Monument ; Niagara on the Lake, and Youngstown.

VI. Seasons and Moods : The Ice Bridge ; Tramps,

Strolls, and Resting Places ; the Bicycler. VII. Programmes for One Day at Niagara. VIII. Statistics. '

TEE NIAGARA BOOK.

I. The Cave Of The Winds

The most greedy imagination need not remain long hungry at Niagara. One wellused day, with a sun bright enough to start the rainbows^ can satisfy every expectation; and yet, many who see the Falls for the first time are disappointed. There are various reasons for so general an experience, but no one of them implies any short-coming in the place. A rather stolid mind takes in such a sight slowly, and one look does not quicken it, while a more sensitive temperament is apt to come to Niagara with such composite anticipations that no single aspect of the place could satisfy them all.

If you are easily moved it may be that a tremor of excitement will take possession of your senses as you approach Niagara for the first time, and so subdue your judgment that you will have no power to criticise ; but, on the other hand, no matter how callous you may be, no matter how utter a Philistine, it is possible 4

WHAT TO SEE.

for you to be so introduced that you will be made an instantaneous convert to the majesty of the place if not to its beauty. If you are willing to take the climax of Niagara at the outset and so forestall every possibility of disappointment, you will do well, without the least preliminary glance of any kind, to enter the watery chaos of the Cave of the Winds.

Cross the stone bridge that leads to Goat Island, with the rapids of the American Fall slipping furiously under you as they fall from the sky line at the left ; with the brink itself a few rods below you on the right, so that you see the plunge, but not the fall; with the roar of the torrent in your ears and the musty smell of the roily water in your nostrils; and finalty, before you in the distance, rising over the tree tops of Goat Island, the pillar of cloud by day that guards the Horseshoe. If it is very early morning in midsummer, and the wind is favorable, a rainbow, zenith high, will overarch the scene, but this is hardly needed to quicken the pulses of your heart as you advance to meet the wonder of your thoughts from early childhood. Take now the middle path across the idyllic beauty 5

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

of the island. You^find it a cool bower, sweet with every wood fragrance, carpeted in the spring with masses of blue violets and white trillium, and overspread by branches of huge trees whose leaves sift out the sunlight until it falls in patches only on the road below. It is a place in which to " loaf and invite the soul," as Whitman says, but now is not the time. Five minutes brings you to the dressing house that marks the entrance to the Cave of the Winds. Here it will take a strong will not to look down over the hand rail on the bank ; but the epicure in sensations will refrain. Indeed, to look now is to spoil everything, and to accept for your first view of Niagara one of the least imposing. Instead, step quickly into the house, pay your dollar for the necessary escort of a guide, strip to the skin with no thought of retaining even your underclothes, and put on the homely and uncomfortable but eminently practical suit that is offered you. A blouse and trousers of a light gray flannel, a hooded coat and overalls of yellow oilskin, and slippers made out of a sheet of thick white felt folded around the foot and firmly tied in place with strips of whip-cord — arrayed in these you

WHAT TO 8EE.

are in full court costume, ready to be presented to Majesty.

To reach the cave you circle down the cliff by an uncomfortable, small, winding staircase, of a sort familiar to sight-seers abroad. From this you presently emerge, out of breath, upon a ledge of rock, with the dark green waters of the river below and a vertical wall of granite towering above.

A mere score of steps brings you around a curve and puts before your sight the enormous sheet of water, vast in itself, but at Niagara insignificant and inconspicuous, which curtains the Cave of the Winds. About one hundred and fifty feet in height, and as much in breadth, it descends between Goat Island and Luna Island. It has no special name, and the ordinary visitor to Niagara will hardly realize its separate existence. Our English cousins who do not go behind it may respect it more if they are told that it leaves the sky at the height of the top of the western towers of Canterbury or of Durham Cathedral, and that it has twice the width of the main fagade of either. If they have ever been behind they will need no details to ensure re- 7

TEE NIAGARA BOOK.

spect. We see it first in profile, a long, curving edge of green and white, not so much falling from the brink above as leaping, with a forward plunge, so that between its inner wall and the retreating surface of the cliff is left a strange gray cavern, now to be explored.

I have been through the cave more than a score of times, but no number of trips can ever dull or in any degree displace in my mind the impressions of the first visit. In quiet ignorance of what was to come, I approached the precipitous wooden staircase which descends behind the fall. Looking across I saw a patch of blue sky at the farther outlet of the cave, but elsewhere the air was dark with criss-crossed blasts of sleet, hurtling in all directions like frightened comets. A second later the battery of the fall was on my head and all the Powers of the Air were at my throat. Around my feet a rainbow formed a ring through whicH I seemed to drop into blackness. The staircase stopped and I was on a narrow ledge of rock, with no more path or rail, hugging a slippery wall of stone. The water clutched my feet furiously. Neither the burly guide nor the stranger who had accom-

WHAT TO SEE.

panied me was to be seen. I started to go forward, but as I turned a mass of water struck me breathless. I tried to find the stairs, but a worse dash of water from the other side outdid the first. Facing the wah again I waited, perhaps thirty seconds, wondering, when suddenly the guide appeared with the frightened Frenchman whom he had pursued and recaptured. It was a lonesome introduction to the place, but we moved on now together through the water, clinging desperately with our toes through the felt to whatever foothold we could discover, and glad to have the support of hands as well as feet. Dignity in such a place, and such a costume, is the last thing to be considered. Half blinded, quite deafened, gasping — the agitation of the nerves is too great at first for observation ; but soon the eye learns how to follow the curving inner surface of the falHng water, half translucent and of shifting colors, far up to where it leaves the line of the cliff above. It learns to overcome the twilight and gather outlines of black, terraced rocks, dripping with streams of sleet, that form the amphitheatre of the cave. You learn to step fearlessly into the churning 9

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

water, towards the Fall, knowing that the rebound of the cataract is so violent that even if you lost your footing you would only bie thrust roughly back against the terraces. It is soon over. A brief climb up the ledges brings you to dry rock and the bright sun again, but you have seen a cave of ^olus such as Virgil never dreamed of. Henceforth the lines in the opening pages of the ^neid :

will have new meaning.

A clever writer once said that the cave was like a small choky corridor with the deluge going on inside it, and he marvelled greatly that the end of his trip coincided with the point of departure instead of occurring in transitu. It is alarming but not dangerous, and accidents are almost unheard of. Women frequently go through the cave as well as men.

There is no surer way to take the conceit out of a complacent cockney who affects to look down on Niagara than to make him run this gauntlet. I think always of Emerson's lines on Monadnoc :

Photograph by Edmund R. Hardy.

ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE OF THE WINDS.

WHAT TO SEE.

Pants up hither the spruce clerk From South Cove and City Wharf, I take him up my rugged sides, Half repentant, scant of breath, —

I scowl on him with my cloud, With my north wind chill his blood ; I lame him clattering down the rocks ; And to live he is in fear.

Then, at last, I let him down Once more into his dapper town, To chatter, frightened, to his clan And forget me if he can.

The passage through the cave is an experience too grim and colorless for pure pleasure, but the return across the rocks in front of the fall — in a bright sun — is a luxury of delight. The heart that " leaps up when it beholds a rainbow in the sky " will here be in a dancing fever of excitement, for there are whole rainbows, half rainbows, and quarter rainbows, not in the sky, distant and inaccessible, but in your fingers, around your head, and between your feet, while the pot of gold at the rainbow's foot is a caldron of molten silver, foaming and rushing about your knees, and tugging at you with an invitation that is irresisji

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

tible. I have seen grave men frolic in the water, their trousers and sleeves swelled almost to bursting with the imprisoned air; now clinching their toes firmly in some crevice and leaning back with all their force against the cushion of water that rocked them like a cradle; now crouching low with arms akimbo while the interrupted stream sprang high above their heads in an arching curve, like a sea shell around a naiad; now thrusting themselves into invisibility against some rock over which the torrent broke in a noisy cascade — their heads safe in the airhole near the crest, from which they dimly watched the passing figures in their oilskins, until they chose to startle them by reappearing. To play so with Niagara brings an exhilaration that is indescribable. It " washes brain and heart clean " and gives a child's courage for the tasks of the world. The exaltation is heightened by the heavy roar of the cataract close above you, and the brilliant beauty of color all around you. You climb through one circular rainbow to the top of a black boulder and descend through another on the other side ; you cross slippery wooden bridges, exposed to such furi-

WHAT TO SEE.

ous castigation from the sleet that you bend involuntarily in homage to the fearful power of your recent playfellow. Most glorious of all, whenever for a moment the eye is not so buffeted by driving spray as to deprive you entirely of your vision, look upwards, always upwards — where the flashing peaks of the American Fall tower above the deluge like the snowy summits of a mountain chain.

In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God, Thought is not, in enjoyment it expires, — Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.

II. The Maid Of The Mist

Everywhere at Niagara the genius of the place has many moods. Often at the Cave of the Winds there is not a rainbow; sometimes when the spray beats down the river you can even enter the cave without a wetting. It may take twenty trips to see all its splendor, but fully to see it is worth them all. I know of 13

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

nothing in Nature to be compared with it. The valley of the Rhone Glacier at dusk, when the white frozen mass of ice falls silently at your feet from the- sky, suggests it dimly, as the moon in daylight suggests the sun. For many, though, the pleasures of the cave are too robust. All such should still attempt to see Niagara first from below, and the next best way is from one of the twin steamers called the Maid of the Mist.

The approach is through Prospect Park, and by taking the central path to the mclined railway you can again reach the water's edge without so much as one glimpse of the Fall. As you come out of the house at the foot of the railway there is a territory at the left, full of attractions, but your way lies to the right. From the steamer landing you see a broad river of a dark green color, as placid and unruffled as if it had never known a struggle or a fall. Men swim in it with safety. Before you is the disappointing profile of the upper half of the American Fall. The lower half is hid by rocks and spray. Slip on one of the rubber cloaks in the saloon, take a

rubber -blanket, and rush forward to the 14

WHAT TO SEE.

choice seats at the front. As the steamer moves sturdily forward, still through smooth green water, the air begins to fill with a soft spray, as fine and penetrating as a Scotch mist, and the water is thickly overlaid with foam. You coast along the one thousand and sixty feet of the American Fall, close to the rocks below and so very close to the Fall itself that it is almost terrifying. Nothing is distinctly seen, for the eyes blink in the beating rain. You can see better if you wear glasses; the wet dims them, but you can at least keep your eyes open more steadily. Nothing is distinctly heard. The deep note of Niagara sounds in your ears with a heavy throb that is almost painful. You are confronted by a rippling, flashing, shimmering wall of white, a precipice of falling foam, furrowed in deep creases by the uneven contour of the brink, and rebounding high in a leaping cloud of spray that always hides the base from every eye. Near the steamer are many boulders ; the largest the Rock of Ages that stands before the entrance to the Cave of the Winds. Then come the bare cliffs of Goat Island, another thousand feet or more ; and then — the Horse- 15

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

shoe. Its lofty, curving walls confront each other, one hundred and sixty feet in height, and in their contour fully three thousand feet, or more than half a mile. The plucky Maid pushes straight into this pit of falling waters; forward she goes, into its depths, until for an instant, for one short second, there is nothing to the right, to the left, or before, nothing anywhere in the whole world for you but the enclosing cataracts falling on all sides from the sky. It is just one second of crowded, glorious life, worth a year's pilgrimage. The little steamer has gone as far as the full force of her engines will carry her; she lurches heavily, tosses like a cork on the white surging foam, and wheels suddenly around. Then, gradually, you realize that the climax is to be repeated. Once more the Maid pushes steadily through the churning froth, straight for the vortex of the Horseshoe; once more the white cataracts surround you, and then the Maid gives up the hopeless struggle, wheels heavily again, and shoots like an arrow down the stream and away.

The views now are from the stern; first of

the rapidly receding Horseshoe, then of Goat i6

WHAT TO SEE.

Island, then of the American Fall as we coast again along its length, nearly as close as before, and finally, from the Canadian dock, a beautiful panorama of both Falls. From here the boat returns to the American landing, but the tourist's best plan is to go ashore, take the inclined railway up the Canadian bank, or climb the winding road, and then walk or ride along the crest of the cliff to Inspiration Point and to the former site of Table Rock,

III. Canada The Horseshoe The Dufferins

It is disappointing to the patriotic soul, but not to be disputed, that the finest views of Niagara are to be had on the Canadian side. Perhaps there is more variety of beauty in the American park than in the other; Goat Island, the Three Sisters, Prospect Park, the Rapids, and the River Road are all exceedingly beautiful ; but when you have seen it all there is no place to which you come back so eagerly for inspiration as to Table Rock on the Canadian shore.

2 17

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

Queen Victoria Park.

The Queen Victoria Park was established in 1888, or three years after the State of New York had purchased Goat Island and the land on the American side, and dedicated it to its people. Here and there are trifling indications of the different temper of the governments on either bank. Take for instance the governmental signboards with their warning notices, which in Canada are less considerate of the tender feelings of the dear public than with us. Mark the autocratic barbarity of the British declaration that persons throwing stones over the bank will be prosecuted according to law, as compared with the exquisite delicacy of the placards that meet you at every turn on Goat Island Dangerous Places "

Trees and Shrubs "

" Do Not Venture in " Do Not Harm the " Stones Throzvn Over the Bank May Fall upon People Below.''

The Queen Victoria Park is much more trig than its neighbor. It has flower beds and close clipped lawns, rustic arbors, and wigwams, busts of notables, and even fountains ! In the State Reservation, on the contrary, the

WHAT TO SEE.

more important portions are in a condition almost primeval.

It is well to remind the visitor that in distributing his time the hours given to the Canadian park should be in the afternoon. At Niagara, Canada is the land of the setting sun, and it is only in the afternoon that the superb bows can be seen which rise high in the sky, sometimes over-arching both Falls in a single curve. It is the other shore which is distinctly Rainbow Land. Give only the sun, and on the American shore the wise pilgrim can have his rainbow, be it morning or be it afternoon. In the morning at Prospect Park, if the day is bright, one rainbow is certain, two are usual, and to see three concentric bows, each reversing the colors of its neighbor, is not uncommon. At the brink of the Horseshoe it is the same, while in the afternoon I know of no more beautiful sight at Niagara than the view of Luna Island and the great American Fall, framed by an iridescent bow. It is a spectacle not to be missed.

Suppose, then, that it is the afternoon. You make your way along the Canadian shore towards Inspiration Point, and what we still call 19

THE NiAaARA BOOK.

Table Rock, though the last vestige of the rock itself fell over forty years ago. You find at once that here the railroad has entered Paradise. The tracks of an electric road accompany you all the way. It was built in 1892, and runs along the whole Niagara gorge from Queenston, seven miles below, to the placid beauty of the Dufferin Islands, where iron railroad bridges now run side by side with all the older ones of inoffensive wood. The world must move. Electric cars run from The Hague to the bathing houses of Scheveningen. They run even from Florence up to Fiesole, and how can Niagara be spared ! They are necessary and laudable, but as unattractive to the eye as the cheap books that have opened literature to the million.

Below Inspiration Point the view may possibly be disappointing, but from this point on it is difficult for one who knows the place to see how even a newcomer can fail to be most powerfully impressed, especially if the conviction of the height of Niagara has been first well driven home by a journey through the Cave or on the steamer. Still, a Bostonian looked first from here and promptly wished to

WHAT TO SEE.

improve on Nature by removing the barren wall of Goat Island, so that there should be one continuous fall. A more legitimate source of disappointment is due to the heavy spray. Over and over travellers brought with care to Table Rock for their first view, open their eyes to see only an invisible Niagara, both American Fall and the Horseshoe being veiled completely by a loud, thundering cloud of mist.

The Horseshoe Fall.

As you advance towards the Horseshoe, and see farther and farther into its white recesses, until, at Table Rock, you are admitted almost to the heart of its secrets, the sensation of awe in the presence of such majesty is irresistible. You stand at one limit of the vast curve. Your eye traverses the whole extent of the silent sheets of plunging water, and follows them downward to the milky sea beneath. From below rise such enormous clouds of shifting spray that at times all outlines are confused. The vagueness magnifies each distance, and through the blur the opposite crest seems infinitely far away, and the chasm bot-

THE NIAGARA BOOK.

tomless. The effect- is all of white and gray, and yet conspicuous before you is the great Green Water, the one place where the flood of Niagara does not break instantly into foam but clings together in a solid sheet that descends for many feet unbroken, exhibiting the exquisite color of the green deep sea. The water nearer is sometimes turbid and yellow. Everywhere its surface has a waxen, sheeny glaze that is characteristic of Niagara. At the convergence of the two opposite faces of the cataract the confusion of waters is indescribable. Above all mounts the white column of spray that seems to

"Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth."

The man or woman here who does not descend to the foot of the precipice commits a sin unpardonable. Fear may forbid the Cave of the Winds, or even the Maid of the Mist, but here you have firm Mother-earth to stand on. If the whim of the wind allows you dry rocks you can lie at your ease in the sun and drink in almost the view which the prow of the steamer presents for a second and then snatches from you. You are in the same white

Photographs by Orrin E. Dunlap. THE HORSESHOE FROM THE MAID OF THE MIST.

WHAT TO SEE.

pit of downward rushing walls. You have almost the same sense of having conquered the inaccessible, of having invaded sanctity. It is like the disembodied joys of spirits.

Mr. Howells speaks in his book of the repose of Niagara. Another paradox is its silence. The sheets of falling water are so unchanging to the eye that the motion seems no more actual than when the breeze runs through a field of grain. It moves without moving. In some such way the unchanging volume of sound soon leaves on the ear a strange sense of silence. Now and again, however, as some more compact mass of water makes its fall, a new note strikes the ear, and under all is the heavy beating of the air as if of sound too low for the range of human hearing. It has always seemed to me as if much of the voice of Niagara might be to us inaudible.*

It is strange that no great poem has yet been written for Niagara. Many have tried their hand, but there is nothing of established fame, nothing that is known for itself as well

* In " Scribner's Magazine" for February, 1881, there is an article on " The Music of Niagara," by Eugene M. Thayer. He writes the chords of its different harmonies, but finds them four octaves lower than the keyboards of our pianos. 23

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as for its subject. There is line after line, however, of Coleridge's Hymn to Mont Blanc which if once thought of at Niagara will be always thought of there. Verse after verse is curiously apposite. Those who have never made the translation from mountain to cataract will find in it a wealth of new associations for both poem and place.

The waters at thy base Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful Form, [Fallest] from forth thy silent sea of green, How silently

dread and silent [Fall !] I gazed upon thee Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought. Entranced in prayer

1 worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet like some sweet beguiling melody.

So sweet we know not we are listening to it.

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, —

Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy —

Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty vision passing — there.

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven.

Who gave you your invulnerable life. Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, 24

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Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ?

Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? God ! — let the torrents, like a shout of nations. Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God !

T/ie Beautiful Dufferin Islands.

The Titans of Niagara have been presented. They are grand, beautiful, but overpowering. The strain on the sensations is so exhausting that to stay long with them is oppressive, and after looking your fill you are glad to withdraw to the more human pleasures of the islands.