The Falls of Niagara and Other Famous Cataracts |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
American Fall American side bank beautiful boat bottom brink Buffalo cable Canadian side canoe cataract channel chasm Chippewa Creek cross depth distance eddy Father feet deep feet high feet long feet wide fell two hundred fifty feet foam foot force formed Fort Niagara Fort Schlosser forty feet Genesee River Goat Island grand Grand Island half Horseshoe Fall hundred feet Hurons Indians Iroquois Judge Porter Lake Erie Lake Ontario land Lewiston limestone lying mass of rock miles Moss Islands Navy Island nearly Neuter Nation Niagara Falls Niagara River Opposite perpendicular plunge precipice present Railway Suspension Bridge rapids reached retrocession Robinson rods rope says scene Schlosser shale shore skiff spectators spray steamer stream surface Suspension Bridge Table Rock thence thousand tower tree twenty feet upper upward valley visited voyage waters fall Whirlpool width wind writer
Popular passages
Page xxi - Ontario and Erie, there is a vast and prodigious cadence of water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel.
Page 148 - Tis meet for them, To touch thy garment's hem, and lightly stir The snowy leaflets of thy vapor-wreath, For they may sport unharmed amid the cloud, Or listen at the echoing gate of heaven, Without reproof. But as for us, it seems Scarce lawful, with our broken tones, to speak Familiarly of thee. Methinks, to tint Thy glorious features with our pencil's point, Or woo thee to the tablet of a song, Were profanation. Thou dost make the soul A wondering witness of thy majesty, But as it presses with delirious...
Page 149 - O ! what are all the notes that ever rung From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side! Yea, what is all the riot man can make In his short life, to thy unceasing roar! And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him, Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far Above its loftiest mountains?
Page 149 - And what are we That hear the question of that voice sublime ? Oh, what are all the notes that ever rung From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side ? Yea, what is all the riot man can make In his short life to thy unceasing roar ? And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to HIM Who drowned a world and heaped the waters far Above its loftiest mountains? — a light wave That breaks and whispers of its Maker's might.
Page 45 - At the rate of excavation assigned to it by Sir Charles Lyell, namely, a foot a year, five thousand years or so will carry the Horseshoe Fall far higher than Goat Island. As the gorge recedes it will drain, as it has hitherto done, the banks right and left of it, thus leaving a nearly level terrace between Goat Island and the edge of the gorge.
Page 148 - Mantled around thy feet. And he doth give Thy voice of thunder power to speak of Him Eternally, — bidding the lip of man Keep silence, — and upon thy rocky altar pour Incense of awe-struck praise.
Page 148 - THE thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain, While I look upward to thee. It would seem As if God poured thee from His hollow hand, And hung His bow upon thine awful front; And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake, The sound of many waters ; and had bade Thy flood to chronicle the ages back, And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks.
Page 148 - What power hath ordered, that, when all thy weight Descends into the deep, the swollen waves Rise not, and roll to overwhelm the earth ? The Lord hath opened his omnipotent hand, Covered thy face with clouds, and given his voice To thy down-rushing waters ; he hath girt Thy terrible forehead with his radiant bow. I see thy never-resting waters run, And I bethink me how the tide of time Sweeps to eternity.
Page 148 - The tread of armies, thick'ning as they come, The boom of cannon and the beat of drum ; The brow of beauty and the form of grace, The passion and the prowess of our race : The song of Homer in its loftiest hour, The...
Page 76 - America; confirming and perpetuating all our rights and privileges, — our name, our rank, and our power among the nations of the earth, — as they existed and were recognized under the government of the JUDGES.