The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-10-27
pEN-p1cTuRE BY EDWIN ARNOLD.
Graphic Description of the Rapids Of Mag
ara and the Great Falls.
London Telegraph.

ara and the Great Falls.
London Telegraph.
Before the balcony in which this is writ
ten the great cataract of America is'thun-
dering, smoking. giittering with green and
white rollers and rapids. hurting the waters
OF a whole continent IN splendor and
speed over the sharp Lodges of the long
brown rock, by which Erie 1.-The Broad
steps proudly down to Ontario tho beau
tiful." Close at hand on our left-not, in
deed, further than some 600 or 700 yards
the smaller, but very imposing, American
fall speaks with the loudest voice of the
two, because It's coiling spirals of
twisted and furious flood crash in full
impulse of descent upon the talus of mass
i've powders heapedu up at it's foot. The re-
sounding impact of water on rock, the
clouds of water-smoke which rise high in air
while the river below is churned into a
whiIling cream of eddy, and surge, and
backwater. unite III a composite effect. at
once magnificent and bewildering. But, if
the profound diapason of the great fall
that surDamed the HorseshOe-sounding
superbly amid the loudest clamor and
tumult of its sister. a deeper and grander
note, and whenever, for a time, the gaze
rests with inexhaustible wonder upon that
fierce and tumultuary American Fall, this
mlghtler and still more marvellous Horse
shoe steals its way again with irresisti-
BILE fascination: Full in front lies that
Wholly lndescribable spectacle at this in
slant. It's solemn voice-an octave lower
than the excited. leapiEg, almost angry cry
of fervid life from the lesser cataract-re-
sounds through the golden summer morn
ing air like the distant roar from the streets
of fifty Londons all in full activity. Far
away. between the dark gray trees of Goat
ISLAND and the fir woods of the Canadian
shore. the Niagara river is seen winding
eagerly to its prodigious leap. You can
discern, even from this balcony, the line of
the first breakers, where the Niagara river
feels, across its whole breadth, the fateful
draw OF the cataracts, where its current
seems suddenly to leap forward.
spell, a dreadful and irresistible doom.
You can note far back along the
gilded surface of the upper stream how
these lines of dancing, tossing. eager,
pillows multiply their white ranks and
spread and close together their leaping
ridges into a wild chaos of racing waves as
the brink is approached. And then at the
brink there is a curious pause-the mo-
mentary peace of the irrevocable. Those
mad upper waters, reaching the great leap,
are suddenly all quiet, and CLASSY, and
rounded, and green as the border of a field
Of rye, while they turn the angle OF the
dreadful ledge and hurl themselves into
mystery underneath. There is nothing
nially still and lovely han Niagara
the Greater. At this her awful brink
thO "hOlO |" thO ltl
abyss CLEANS like a fixed and glorious
work wrought in polished aguamarine or
emerald. This exquisitely colored. cornice
of the enormous waterfall this brlm of
bright tranquility between fervOr of rush
and fury of plunge-is its principal feature,
and stamps it as far more beautiful than
terrible. Indeed the whole spectacle of the
famous cataracts is one of delight and of
deepest charm, not by any means of horror
or of awe: since nowhere are the measure
less forces of nature more tenderly revealed,
more softly and splendidly clad, more de-
murely constrained and docile between its
steep confines. Even the heart of the
abyss, IN the recess of the Horseshoe.
clash together in tremendous conflict,
Of which no eye can see or
ever will see, by reason of
the wells of milky spray and of the rolling
clouds of water-drift which forever hide it
even this central solemnity and shudder-
fraught miracle of the monstrous uproar
and glory is rendered exquisite, repOseful
and soothing by the lovely rainbows hang
ing over the turmoil and clamor. From
its crest of chrysOprase and silver, indeed.
to it's broad foot of milky foam and of
white stunned waves, too broken and too
daZed to begin at first to float away,
Niagara appears nOt terrible. but d%ivinely
and deliciously graceful, glad and lovely
"a specimen of the splendor of water at
its finest-a sight to dwell and linger in
the mind with ineffaceable. images of
to affect it either in act or seeing. OF to
haunt it in the future days of memory,
with any wild "Reminiscences of terror or of