Sketches of Upper Canada, Domestic, Local, and Characteristic: To which are Added, Practical Details for the Information of Emigrants of Every Class ; and Some Recollections of the United States of AmericaOliver & Boyd, 1821 - 339 pages |
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Sketches of Upper Canada ...: To Which Are Added, Practical Details for the ... John Howison No preview available - 2018 |
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Page 93 - ... shrubbery and trees, which entirely conceal from the eye the scene that awaits him who traverses it. When near the termination of this road, a few steps carried me beyond all these obstructions, and a magnificent amphitheatre of cataracts burst upon my view with appalling suddenness and majesty. However, in a moment the scene was concealed from my eyes by a dense cloud of spray, which involved me so completely, that I did not dare to extricate myself.
Page 96 - ... be, as the profusion of spray renders the air near the cataract a very indifferent conductor of sound. " The road to the bottom of the Fall presents many more difficulties than that which leads to the Table Rock. After leaving the Table Rock, the traveller must proceed down the river nearly half a mile, where he will come to a small chasm in the bank, in which there is a spiral staircase enclosed in a wooden building. By descending...
Page 160 - Again, supposing that each square yard of this moving body comprehended three pigeons, the square yards in the whole space, multiplied by three, would give two thousand two hundred and thirty millions, two hundred and seventytwo thousand pigeons ! — an almost inconceivable multitude, and yet probably far below the actual amount.
Page 94 - A host of pyramidal clouds rose majestically, 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 cloud that immediately succeeded. 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...
Page 96 - Fall presents many more difficulties than that which leads to the Table Rock. After leaving the Table Rock, the traveller must proceed down the river nearly half a mile, where he will come to a small chasm in the bank, in which there is a spiral staircase enclosed in a wooden building. By descending this stair, which is seventy or eighty feet, perpendicular height, he will find himself under the precipice on the top of which he formerly walked. A high but sloping bank extends from its base to the...
Page 93 - I could see 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. 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....
Page 95 - 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 pyram'idal-shaped fragments, the bases of which are turned upwards. 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...
Page 287 - The road I took led me to the edge of the cliffs that confine the Genessee river. This stream roared ninety feet beneath me ; and a half arch stretched far above my head, as it were " suspended in mid air ;" while on the opposite cliffs, heaps of planks, shattered beams, and massy supporters, lay in horrible confusion, being the remains of that part of the structure which had fallen. Nothing can exceed the exquisite, the elegant, proportions, and the aerial magnificence, of that half of the bridge...
Page 98 - ... Here darkness began to encircle me ; on one side, the black cliff stretched itself into a gigantic arch far above my head, and on the other, the dense and hissing torrent formed an impenetrable sheet of foam, with which I was drenched in a moment. The rocks were so slippery, that I could hardly keep my feet, or hold securely by them ; while the horrid din made me think the precipices above were tumbling down in colossal fragments upon my head.
Page 98 - ... by the surpassing grandeur of the scene before me. I was now within the area of a semicircle of cataracts, more than three thousand feet in extent, and floated on the surface of a gulf, raging, fathomless, and interminable. Majestic...