The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-09-29
The Rival of Niagara---The Great Cataract
of South America---750 feet High.

The following article, written for the London
Times giyes q detailed account of the great
cataract discovered on the Potora River, a
tributary of the Essequebo River, in British
Guiana, South America
ALTHOUGH I am anxious that Mr. Brown, as
discoverer of the Great Kaieteur Fall, and the
director To the successful expedition which we
were permitted to accompany, should have the
telling of his own story, yet can understand
that his friends will be anxious to hear at once
of his success. :.
The fall has clear descent, according to ba-
rometrical observations taken simultaneously
by Mr.. Brown at the bottom, and by Mr.. Mitch
ell, at the top, of 750 feet. Above, the Potaro
glides smoothly in a slight depression of the ia
Bile of conglomerate sandstone, and disappears
over the edge in body which we estimated
at eighty yards in width, and of depth uncer-
tain in the centre, but Swallowing rapidly
toward either bank. When Mr.. Brown dis
covered the fall in April, the rocky channel
was completely covered, and the stream must
have had width of at least one hundred yards.
At present it is diminishing in volume, and as
the Indians assured us, will continue to do so
till October, when only the central and deeper
portion, about one-third of the whole, will re-
main. The best time, therefore, for visit is
in spring, at the end of what appears to be the
rainy season or this elevated tract.
AS we saw the fall cannot imagine any
thing more beautiful. The central portion,
which is never dry, forms small horseshoe or
re-entering angle, and the water in this part
preserves its consistency for short distance
from the ledge But everywhere else, and here
also, at few feet from the top, all semblance
of water disappears; it breaks up, or blossoms
into fine foam or spray, which descends in the
well-known rocket-like forms of the Staubbach
and similar waterfalls, but multiplied thou
sand times, into a small dark pool, over
semi-circular curtain of precipice deeply hol-
lowed by the action of the spray. The cavern
behind the fall is the home of thousands of
swallows, which issue from it in the morning,
and may be seen returning in their multitudes
at night. The fall itself is one vast descending
column of a fine dry looking, snow white sub
stance, bearing q resemblance in color and con-
sistency to the snow Of an avalanche, but sur
passing all avalanches have seen in size and
in the beauty of the forms taken by the mate
rial of the fall. Rainbows of great splendor
were observed, one from the front of the fall in
the morning, one from the summit in the after
noon but this last reverted, forming colored
loop or ring, into which the whole mass seem
ed to precipitate itself and disappear, and dart
out underneath, black and fOaming, at the
gorge and outlet of the pool.
On carefully working the mean result of five
separate observations taken simultaneously at
the top and bottom of the fall, Mr.. Brown
found that they gave the total height of the
perpendicular fall and cataract as S71 feet. The
depth of the cataract was subsequently taken
at the edge of the pool on the western side, by an
aneroid barometer lit being impossible to car
ry large barometer to the foot of the fall, and
found to be 81 feet, making the height of the
perpendicular fall 796 feet. The width of the
river 200 yards above the fall was 134 yards
and the greatestd depth Is feet inches, feet less
than at high water.