Horseshoe Falls

“ THE ELECTRIC power companies at Niagara Falls were beginning to draw so much water from above the great Horseshoe Falls as to bring into speculation the question of how soon America’s greatest scenic asset would be a coal-pile with a thin trickle of water crawling down its vast cliffs. ”

“ The depth of water on the Horseshoe Fall is a subject of speculation with every visitor. It was correctly determined in 1827. In the autumn of that year, the ship Michigan, having been condemned as unseaworthy, was purchased by a few persons, and sent over the Falls. Her hull was eighteen feet deep. It filled going down the rapids, and went over the Horseshoe Fall with some water above the deck, indicating that there must have been at least twenty feet of water above the rock. This voyage of the Michigan was an event of the day. ”

“ They tell you in the mountains that it was named after a trapper who managed to clamber up its precipitous sides many years ago, perhaps in chase of a mountain goat, and sat himself down on the extreme edge with his feet dangling over the thousand foot drop. No doubt the situation afforded him the same satisfaction that is experienced by those praiseworthy citizens whose names one sees carved on the extreme end of a log overhanging the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara. Posterity has rather a rude name for such heroes. ”

“ In an address in Washington before the United States Geological Survey, Professor Gilbert gave the following interesting information regarding the recession of the ground under Niagara Falls: The estimate is that for the past forty-four years the falls have receded at the rate of twenty-four feet in a year. The Horseshoe Falls are at the head of the gorge and the American Falls at the eastern side, but the time was when both were together, before the little point called Goat Island was reached. The recession is more rapid at the center than on the sides. ”

“ The water going over the Falls on the Canadian side of Goat Island is about five times the volume of that which goes over the American Falls, or, counting the total as 220,000 cubic feet a second, the volume of the Horseshoe Falls would be about 180,000 cubic feet. If the amount withdrawn on the Canadian side for Canadian use were 5000 cubic feet a second, which it is not likely to be during the three years' life of these permits, the total to be withdrawn would not exceed ten per cent. ”

“ Hence, when the Falls were at Lewiston they were more than two hundred and fifty feet high. Now the greatest descent is one hundred and sixty-eight feet, the diminution being the result of retrocession in the line of the dip—from north-east to south-west—in the bed-rock. It is owing to this [Pg 13] dip that the surface of the water on the American side is ten feet higher than it is on the Canadian. The continuous column of water, however, is longest in the center of the Horseshoe, because of the fallen rock and débris lying at the foot of the other portions of the Fall. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With a log-cart and four horses, he drew from the outside of the outer island a stick of pine timber hewed twelve inches square and forty feet long. From the top of the middle island was drawn a still larger stick, hewed on one side and sixty feet long.
There are few places on the globe where a person would be less likely to go lumbering than in the rapids of Niagara, just above the brink of the Horseshoe Fall. All the people of the neighborhood were abroad, exploring recesses and cavities that had never before been exposed to mortal eyes. ”

“ Hearing so much from earliest childhood of the great Falls of Niagara, one forms a most exaggerated conception of their magnitude and grandeur. But the scene rapidly began to exercise a charm over us, and as we stood on the edge of the Horseshoe Fall, on the very brink of the precipice over which the vast flood hurls itself, we confessed7 the sublimity of the spectacle. ”

“ In the centre of the Horseshoe, which is really more the form of two sides of an obtuse-angled triangle, the water, being of great depth—at least thirty feet where it falls over the precipice—is of an azure green, which contrasts well with the yellow, white, and light emerald colours of the shallower and more broken portions nearer the sides. ”

“ By the close of this stage there were some important changes in the river, as when the narrows of the whirlpool rapids were excavated, and the three cataracts of the second episode appear to have been united into one great fall. With the increased volume of water at the maximum height of the falls, as at the apex of the modern horseshoe cataract, the recession was very rapid, so that the falls receded to above the railroad bridges in eight hundred years more. ”

“ They have the same general shape as Niagara, and are fifty feet higher. The entire falls are more than two miles in width, with a number of islands dividing the cataract. This may be divided into two sections, the Brazilian and Argentine [10] falls. The head falls are on the Brazilian side and occur on an acute horseshoe bend, somewhat similar to that at Niagara, which is caused by the unequal erosion. Below the falls are depths which a hundred fathom line has failed to sound, and the natives call them bottomless. ”

“ The view from it is magnificent; to the left the furious river, confined in a narrow space, rushes in rapids to the Whirlpool; and to the right the Horse-shoe Fall pours its torrent of waters into the dark and ever invisible abyss. When we reached the American side we had to declare to a custom-house officer that we were no smugglers; and then by an awful road, partly covered with stumps, and partly full of holes, over the one, and through the other, our half-tipsy driver jolted us, till we wished ourselves a thousand miles from Niagara Falls. ”

“ By all odds, too, the most tremendous view of the Falls is afforded by the point on the drive whence you look down upon the Horse-Shoe, and behold its three massive walls of sea rounding and sweeping into the gulf together, the color gone, and the smooth brink showing black and ridgy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the Great Horseshoe is decidedly the best view, near Table Rock: you can see the rapids approaching the verge as if gathering strength to take the giant leap. When the sun shines the rainbow appears like molten gold upon the spray; and when the day is gloomy it crumbles away like snow, or like the front of a great chalk cliff. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The time is fast approaching when the sublime glories of Shoshone Falls will be appreciated by tourists, and by that large class of summer vacationists who are always searching for sights and places that will drive away the ennui from which they chiefly suffer. The beat of ocean billow, the roar of waterfall, the stretch of landscape from lofty mountain peak, the lonely quietude of glen and wilderness, each have their votaries ”

“ Directly across the stream are Luna and Goat Islands, while sweeping away to the right in a grand curve, is the Horseshoe Fall. The American Fall is year by year assuming the horseshoe form, by the wearing away of the cliff in the center, the indentation in the front line of the Fall being quite prominently visible from Prospect Point, although less noticeable from a front view. ”

“ Here the lullaby for the weary is the ceaseless roar of the mighty Nevada Falls, which come thundering down the cliffs in a sheer leap of 700 feet, losing themselves in a deep rock-pool, fringed with tall pines, which loom ghostly and solemn through the ever-floating tremulous mists of fine spray. ”

“ 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 height of the Horseshoe Fall is 165 feet and the stupendous nature of the Fall is more impressive when the visitor stands at the water’s edge in the gorge and looks upward at the flood descending in such graceful lines. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 river is wide and quite smooth and one may wade into it near the shore, but in the deep water in the middle of the stream the river is madly rushing to the first chute of the falls, and a boat or canoe once caught in the midstream rush rarely escapes destruction. Even in recent years several white men, who did not gauge right the danger of the smoothly gliding stream, have lost their lives by being carried over the falls. ”

“ The movement with which it betrays its surprise and bewilderment—the sudden issueless maze of waters—is, I think, after the Horseshoe Fall, the very finest thing in its progress. It breaks into no small rage; the offending cliffs receive no drop of spray; for the flood moves in a body and wastes no vulgar side-spurts ”

“ 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. ”