Falls of St. Anthony

“ And their voices, whose rolling echoes fill the horizon, deepen and become so mighty that Anthony falls backward as if thunder-stricken. A shock from time to time causes him to reopen his eyes; and he perceives in the midst of the darkness a manner of monster before him.
It is a skull, crowned with roses, dominating the torso of a woman nacreously white. Below, a shroud starred with specks of gold forms something like a tail; and the whole body undulates, after the fashion of a gigantic worm erect on end. ”

“ Fig. 116.—Diagram illustrating the possibility of falls where the beds dip down-stream.
Falls may originate in still other ways. If for any reason a stream is forced out of its valley, it may in its flow find entrance to another valley, or to another part of its own valley, over a steep slope. If the structure of the slope favors, a fall may speedily develop. The Falls of St. Anthony are an example, the Mississippi having been turned out of its earlier course by deposits of glacial drift. ”

“ Carver for trade with the Sioux and possible operations in land. However, he left Mackinaw in September supplied with credits on traders for the goods serving for money with Indians, and taking the Fox-Wisconsin route, found himself at the Falls of St. Anthony on the 17th of November. Although he estimated the descent of the cataract at thirty feet, it impressed him only as the striking feature of a beautiful landscape. “On the whole,” says he, “when the Falls are included, ... a more pleasing and picturesque view, I believe, cannot be found throughout the universe.” ”

“ All have fled away; and Anthony beholds, in lieu of Tertullian, a woman seated upon a bench of stone.
She sobs; leaning her head against a column; her hair is loose; her body, weakened by grief, is clad in a long brown simar. Then they find themselves face to face and alone, far from the crowd; and a silence, an extraordinary stillness falls—as in the woods when the winds are lulled, and the leaves of the trees suddenly cease to whisper.
This woman is still very beautiful, although faded, and pale as a sepulcher. They look at one another ”

“ Anthony's Falls, consists wholly of formations of sandstones and limestones, horizontally deposited, whose relative positions and ages are chiefly inferable from the evidences of organic life, in the shape of petrifactions, which they embrace. The lowest of this series of rocks is a white sandstone, consisting of transparent, loosely cohering grains, special allusion to which is made by Carver, in his travels in 1766, and which may be received as testimony, were there no other, that this too much discredited author had actually visited this region. ”

“ The name of the river is Canada Creek West; but as that is hardly euphonious, the course of the water which forms the falls has been called after the town or parish. This course is nearly two miles in length, and along the space of these two miles it is impossible to say where the greatest beauty exists. To see Trenton aright one must be careful not to have too much water. A sufficiency is no doubt desirable, and it may be that at the close of summer, before any of the autumnal rains have fallen, there may occasionally be an insufficiency. ”

“ Anthony consisting of a series of rapids dashing over huge rocks encumbering the bed of the stream. Pike persevered, however, in his work of navigation, his little bark experiencing many a narrow escape in its passage between the frowning precipices, until the Falls themselves were reached, when he was compelled to leave his own boat and take to small canoes. ”

“ Anthony, which stretch across the river, fifteen hundred feet, and have a fall of eighty-two feet--a waterpower which, by art, has been made of inestimable value, business-wise, though somewhat to the damage of the Falls as a spectacle, or as a background against which to get your photograph taken. ”

“ It is evident from the descriptions of Father Hennepin and of Baron La Hontan, that the upper stratum of rock over which the water falls must have projected beyond the face of the rock below much farther than it now does. The large masses of fallen rock lying at the foot of the American and Horse-shoe Falls are evidence of this fact. Travelers still go behind the sheet on the Canadian side, and into and through the Cave of the Winds, on the American side. But they do not expect to keep dry in so doing, nor to sun themselves on the rocks below, like the "rattlesnakes" of former days. ”

“ Here, too, the American Falls are seen in all their grandeur. They shoot free from the upper edge of the cliff, owing to the velocity they have acquired in descending from the rapids above. As this vast mass of water strikes the rocks below, loud, thunder-like detonations are heard not unlike the reverberating tones of the breakers of the ocean. There is a mellowness in the sound that is soothing rather than a deafening roar as some seem to think. ”

“ Sometimes it is thrown up into a pinnacle of foam higher than a house, or leaps with incredible speed from the crest of one vast wave to another, along the shining curve between, like the spring of a wild beast. Its motion continually suggests muscular action. The power manifest in these rapids moves one with a different sense of awe and terror from that of the Falls. Here the inhuman life and strength are spontaneous, active, almost resolute; masculine vigour compared with the passive gigantic power, female, helpless and overwhelming, of the Falls. ”

“ As they turn to the sheer descent, the white and blue and slate colour, in the heart of the Canadian Falls at least, blend and deepen to a rich, wonderful, luminous green. On the edge of disaster the river seems to gather herself, to pause, to lift a head noble in ruin, and then, with a slow grandeur, to plunge into the eternal thunder and white chaos below. ”

“ Wing Dam of one of the Canadian Companies running out to the Edge of the Rapids. Then the American Falls, though still forming a cataract, will be but a ghost of their ancient magnificence; instead of the mighty sheet of emerald waters now spreading in silent majesty over the rock crest, a weakly, thin, white apron of waters carried forward by a slender impulse a tergo and the great cadence will have lost its glory. Electric searchlights in all the colors of the rainbow dancing up and over the falling waters and other factitious means of producing a spectacle will never compensate the loss. ”

“ Re-appearing, it continues its course through a narrower channel, pent in by rugged overhanging cliffs, and dashing with extraordinary velocity over a succession of lesser falls, more than half a mile in length, forms a picture of terrific grandeur and sublimity. The scenery after passing the grand falls is of the wildest and boldest character imaginable; and the rocky bed of the river is exceedingly dangerous for rafts and bateaux, which, however, are dexterously navigated through the broken waters and foaming rapids. ”

“ It has sometimes happened, that the bodies of persons who have had the misfortune to get into the rapids above the Falls, and to be drawn down the awful cataract, or who have been drowned between the two points, after the usual process of decomposition has lightened their specific gravity, and raised them to the surface, have been seen for days floating around this whirlpool, and making the customary and successive plunges, to which every thing, that comes within its reach, is doomed without the possibility of rescue. ”

“ For, with the exception of the tiny police posts at Scuit’s Drift and Ramon’s Drift, not a habitation stands on or near its banks, through all those tortuous reaches that wellnigh encircle the mountains of Richtersfeldt, whose solitary peaks and ravines I have already made shift to describe.
Higher than the Victoria Falls, and more than double the height of Niagara, the Great Falls of the Orange lack the spectacular beauty of either of its famous rivals. Impressive they are, but the impression they leave is of terror rather than of pleasure, of awe rather than of beauty. ”

“ By and by, when we feel a little tired, we can take a carriage for the rest of the way.”
May soon felt the dreamlike sensation come over her again, as they wandered slowly along the steep cliffs of shade, and came from time to time on some specially charming view of the white foaming sheet of the American Falls, so dazzlingly pure in its virgin beauty, as it vaults over the hollow cliff into the soft veil of mist that perpetually rises about its feet—always dispersing and ever rising anew. ”

“ Sometimes the white intricacies of dropping foam become opaque and creamy. And always there are the rainbows. If you come suddenly upon the Falls from above, a great double rainbow, very vivid, spanning the extent of spray from top to bottom, is the first thing you see. If you wander along the cliff opposite, a bow springs into being in the American Falls, accompanies you courteously on your walk, dwindles and dies as the mist ends, and awakens again as you reach the Canadian tumult. ”

“ Above the Falls the river is very wide; taking a sharp turn it makes three leaps, the last about 200 feet, where unequal erosion has given something of a horseshoe shape. Zigzag paths cut in the cliff lead down to several beautiful view-points. When the stream is low, it may be crossed above the Falls by canoe and wading, to a point called the Garganta del Diablo, the Throat of the Devil, close to the Brazilian Falls; the traveler with steady nerves leaning over the precipice, in the midst of howling waters and showers of spray, may there have a glorious view of the foaming abyss beneath. ”

“ The dam is still there, however, and over its brink the water flows in softest measures, to strike the rocky shelves below, where it boils and brawls in confused dismemberment until joined again in an unbroken stream. The banks rise rapidly, while the river draws deeper into its bed, until presently making a leap at Giant Falls it plunges into a great gorge whose walls have been eaten by the floods and ice of centuries. But it is by a succession of falls and cataracts that the stream reaches its greatest depression, which is known as the Grand Flume. ”

“ The American Falls do not inspire this feeling in the same way as the Canadian. It is because they are less in volume, and because the water does not fall so much into one place. By comparison their beauty is almost delicate and fragile. They are extraordinarily level, one long curtain of lacework and woven foam. Seen from opposite, when the sun is on them, they are blindingly white, and the clouds of spray show dark against them. With both Falls the colour of the water is the ever-altering wonder. ”

“ The ease with which running water bears along large quantities of sand, gravel, and pebbles, ceases to surprise when we consider that the specific gravity of rocks in water is much less than in air.
It is chiefly in primary and transition countries that the rivers exhibit those sudden descents, which pass under the general denomination of falls, and form either cataracts or rapids. They occur in secondary regions, but more rarely, and the descent is of a more gentle description. The falls are generally found in the passage of streams from the primitive to the other formations. ”

“ He who sees them instantly forgets humanity. They are not very high, but they are overpowering. They are divided by an island into two parts, the Canadian and the American.
Half a mile or so above the Falls, on either side, the water of the great stream begins to run more swiftly and in confusion. It descends with ever-growing speed. It begins chattering and leaping, breaking into a thousand ripples, throwing up joyful fingers of spray. ”

“ The rapids below the Falls are much grander than the Falls themselves; there was one down in a chasm between two riven rocks which it was painful to look long upon, and watch with what a deep plunge—what irresistible force—the waters dashed down and then returned to their own surface, as if struggling and out of breath. ”

“ They endure a little longer on horizontal beds, which must be cut back perhaps many miles up stream before the fall disappears, than on tilted beds, which must be cut down a few thousand feet at most to reduce them to base level. Falls on tilted beds are therefore of briefer duration than on horizontal beds, and are at any time proportionately rarer. On the headwater branches of a river where youthful features such as steep slope and sudden fall remain after the main river has a well-matured channel, we sometimes find many water-falls, as in the still young branches of the old Ohio. ”

“ It is only on rare occasions, during very severe winters, that such opportunities are afforded; but when they do occur they attract thousands of visitors from many sections, who come in crowds to witness a scene that has no equal among all the wonders of the world. On such occasions the Falls themselves seem to be a mass of liquid ice, while the shores, the trees and the cliffs are clothed in sheets of white, and made ornate with columns that rival alabaster in their transparent beauty. ”

“ The first fall in the cañon of the Merced is the Vernal, "a simple perpendicular sheet 475 feet high, the rock behind it being a perfectly square-cut mass of granite. Ascending to the summit of the Vernal Fall by a series of ladders, and passing a succession of rapids and cascades of great beauty, we come to the last great fall of the Merced—the Nevada, which has a descent of 639 feet, and near its summit has a peculiar twist caused by the mass of water falling on a projecting ledge which throws it off to one side, adding greatly to the picturesque effect. ”