The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-07-06

lne rOCk on Wnlcn $1,000, deprlVeu Hio VI iOeoi
lection, annihiaed all curiosity, and with the emo
tons of sublimitv till now unle and all unearth-
Ily, the involuntary exclamation escaped me- e'o@
|ot grandeur aChat scene
But the majesty ofthe sight and the interest of
the moment, how depict them The huge am
pliude of water, tumbling and loaming above, and
dashing on arched and pillard as tgides, until it
reaches the principle chute, and then, in one vast
IcoIumn, bounding, with madnng roar and rush,
Into the depths beneath presents spectacle so I'M
utterabIy appalling, that language falters; words
are no longer signs, and tdespair giving Y GU any
adequate idea of what | saw and felt Yet this is
not all. The eye and the mind necessarily take
in other objects, as parts of the grand panorama ;
forests cliffs and islands banks, foam, and spray
wood, rock, and precipice, dimmed with the rising
fog and mist, and obscurely gded by the sofning
tints of the rainbow: These all belong to the
picture; and the effect of the whole is immeasura-
| bly, heightened by the noise of the cataract now
reminding you of the reverberations of the heav-
ems in tempest, and then the eternal roar of the
ocean, when angered by the winds
| The concave bed of rock, from which the water
falls some two hundred feet into the almost bound
less reservoir beneath, in the section of a circle,
which at first sight from Table Rock presents
something like the geometrlca curve OF the rain
bow; and the wonders of the grand " crescent"
thus advantageously thrown upon the eye in COM
bination and the appropriate sensations and boom
of the waters render the sight more surprisingly
sublime than any thing had looked upon or con-
|ceived of. AS it regards my thoughts and feel
ings at the time, can help you to no conception
oftheir character. Overwhelming establishment
was the only bound between thought and thought
and wild, and vague, and boundless, were the as
socatons that hour Before me the funess
+ a.. Il IL
throned and consecrated, within a circumference
embraced by single glance of the eye! Here
saw, rolling and dashing the rate of tacenty-fre
hundred millions Of tons per day, nearly one half
of all the fresh water upon the surface of the
globe!
On the American side was vast deluge, nine
hundred and fifty feet in breadth, with fall of
one hundred and eighty or ninety, met fifty feet
above the level ofthe gulf, by huge projection of
the rock which seems to break the descent an
continuity of the food, only to increase its fierce
overwhelming bound. And turning to the Ceres
cent" | saw the mingled rush of foam and tide,
dashng with fearful strife and desperate emulation
-four hundred yards of the sheet rough and
sparry, and the remaining three hundred deep
sea-like mass oflivng green-rolIing and heaving
like sheet of emerald. Even Imagination failed
me, and cou Id think nothing but ocean let loose
from his bed and seeking a deeper gulf below
The fury of the water, at the termination of its
fall, combined with the columned strength of the
cataract, and the deafning thunder of the flood,
are at once inconceivabe and ndescrbabIe. No
imagination, however creative, can correspond
with the grandeur Of the reality.
| have already mentioned and it is important
that you keep it in view the ledge of the rock, the
verge of the cataract, rising like wall of equal
height, and extended i'll semicrcular form across
the whole bed of the river, distance of more
than two thousand feet, and the impetuous flood
conforming to this arrangement in making its plunge,
with mountain weight, into the great horseshoe
basin beneath, exhibits spectacle of the sublime,
in geographical scenery, without perhaps parallel
in nature. As leaned over the Table Rock and
cast my eye downward upon the billowy turbulence
of the angry depth, where the waters, tossing and
whlrng coiling and springing, with the energy
of an earthquake and a rapidity which almost
shocked my vision, found the scene sufficient to
appal 4 sterner spirit than mine; and | was glad
to turn away and relieve my mind by a sight Of
the surrounding scenery bays, islands, shores,
and forests, every where recedng in due perspec-
tive The rainbow of the " crescent" and Amer
lean side, which are only visible from the western
bank of the Niagara, and in the afternoon, seem
to diminish somewhat from the awunesS of the
scene, and to give it aspect of rich and mellow
grandeur, not mike the bow of promise, throwing
its assuring radence over the retiring waters of
The deluge.
The RAPIDS" which commence nearly a mile
above the cataract and, sparkling in the sum- spread
out like a sea of diamonds, seem admirably to
give notice 10 what awaits below and when ex-
amined from a position on Goats Island, become
extremely interesting, from the dash and foam of
The broken food, the noise which, distinct from t
hat of the great fall, would remind you of the MUIR
nurs of an Alpine forest, in the rising swell t
If the coming storm. In crossing the riv- t
er below the falls, you have one of the richest '
views of the whole cascade that can posi- Y
bly, be imagined, and the rising bank and messy t
'ock, the lofty trees and luxuriant shrubbery on a
either SIDE in fine keeping with the scene, and
Ire essential to the keeping of the unity and COM
,leteness of the picture. But what most interested
ne here was the tumultuous tossing and whirling {
IF the water, where its depth must be now more
han two hundred feet and its width at least seven Il
ludred yards. The whole mass seems to be heav- =
NC with Infatuated life. A thousand counter cur Il
ents and edies meet, break and mingle, in the I
general torrent and whirwind" of the waters e
Within the circumference of two or three hudred n
ards, near the AmercarPshore this singular ac- c
ion of the element gives the water an elevation tc