St. Anthony Falls

“ How much to admire! what energy! what enterprise! But how nature suffered from it all! The Falls of St. Anthony turned into the overflow of a canal lock! The great river converted into a sewer laden with manure and sawdust! The lovely landscape defaced by hideous mills, elevators, factories! How the poets should rage, and the plutocrats rejoice!
An hour had been spent in the drive round the city, an hour and a half more in the excursion by road to the rival greatness of Minneapolis, another hour was devoted to taking a leisurely view of the Falls of St. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Anthony is the most powerful waterfall in the United States wholly applied to manufacturing purposes. The entire current of the Mississippi comes down the rapids and over the falls, the latter having a descent of about fifty feet. It is protected by a wall built by the Government across the river, to prevent the wearing away of the sandstone formation, there having been serious inroads made, while the surface is covered with an apron of planks over which the water runs, with sluiceways alongside to shoot logs down. ”

“ Peters to the Falls of St. Anthony the river is contracted between high hills, and is one continual rapid or fall, the bottom being covered with rocks which in 311 low water are some feet above the surface, leaving narrow channels between them. The rapidity of the current is likewise much augmented by the numerous small, rocky islands which obstruct the navigation. The shores have many large and beautiful springs issuing forth, which form small cascades as they tumble over the cliffs into the Mississippi. The timber is generally maple. ”

“ A short rest was taken at Aitkin, and then we re-embarked in the pretty modern canoes which awaited us there. The descent of the river in these canoes was easy and pleasant. At all the principal towns the Captain delivered his lecture, 'Pioneers of the Mississippi,' which was listened to with great interest.
"Between Aitkin and Saint Paul numerous and dangerous rapids were met, all of which were shot in safety; and the Falls of Saint Anthony reached without accident. Below Saint Anthony Falls the scenery is very beautiful, high bluffs arising with more or less abruptness from the water's edge. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Avery relative to some pressing work, Miss Anthony wrote: "I would not for anything have you drudge on this during your husband's vacation. No, no, there is none too much of life and happiness for any of us, so plan to go and be and do whatever seemeth best unto the twain made so beautifully one."
[51] She spoke at Huron, Mitchell, Yankton, Sioux Falls, Madison, Brookings, DeSmet, Watertown, Parker, Pierre, St. Lawrence and Aberdeen, and presented a full set of the History of Woman Suffrage to libraries in each of these towns. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was educated at Nine Partners, a Friends' boarding-school, and began active life as a teacher, shortly becoming a cotton manufacturer, some years later a farm-owner, and then engaging in the insurance business, the family home being successively in Adams, Mass., Battenville. Centre Falls, and Rochester, N.Y. Mr. Anthony was a man of excellent business capacity, true moral courage, and sterling integrity; his wife, Lucy Read Anthony, a woman of sweet disposition and gentle manners, yet not lacking native energy and force of character. ”

“ What a pity such powers of intellect should lack the moral spine!"
Out of the Francis Jackson fund Mr. Phillips sent Miss Anthony $1,500 for her extensive campaign. She engaged speakers to come into New York in different months, and July 13 opened the series with Antoinette Blackwell at Niagara Falls. From here they made the round of the watering places, 176 Avon, Clifton, Trenton Falls, Sharon, Saratoga, Ballston Spa and Lake George, where persons of wealth and prominence were gathered from all parts of the Union. In some places they spoke in a grove to thousands of people ”

“ He is said to have set out in 1766, journeyed westward by way of the Straits of Mackinac and the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi, viewed the Falls of St Anthony, lived for some time among the Indians, and received from them a grant of 100 sq. ”

“ I pitched my tent and encamped above the shoot. The rapids mentioned in this day's march might properly be called a continuation of the falls of St. Anthony, for they are equally entitled to this appellation with the falls of the Delaware and Susquehanna. Killed one deer. Distance nine miles. [II-5]
91
Sept. 27th. Brought over the residue of my lading this morning. Two men arrived from Mr. Frazer, on St. Peters, for my dispatches. This business of closing and sealing appeared like a last adieu to the civilized world. Sent a large packet to the general, and a letter to Mrs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 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. ”

“ The air grows dim and a cold wind rises. The stars vanish. In the valley, mysteriously visible, Anthony sees a road. It is cumbered with dead and wounded men, lying in all attitudes, some as if asleep, head resting on arm, and some contorted hideously. ”

“ Like human life to endless sleep!"
TRENTON FALLS.
In the hills north of Utica, the West Canada Creek cuts its remarkable gorge at Trenton Falls. It is a vigorous stream, rising in the western slopes of the Adirondacks and flowing to the Mohawk. In getting down through the limestone rocks from the highlands to the plain adjacent to the river, it passes into the ravine, giving a magnificent display of 346 chasms, cascades and rapids, in a gorge of such amazing construction that it is regarded as a wonder second only to Niagara. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The roar of the water, the foaming curtain of the descending torrent and the spray that floats some distance down—all combine to make a striking scene; while the sight of the river rolling away in the shuddering depths below has a strong fascination for all. Above the Grand Falls there are picturesque rapids where by walking over the great rocks—and over giant tree trunks that have lodged in immovable positions in their descent of the river from the lumbering region higher up—a good view of river and hilly banks may be obtained. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”