Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/326

 and the remaining surfaces bruised and marked, as if they had been beat all over with a weighty hammer or a blunt axe. The ends of the logs were round, somewhat resembling a parabolic figure.

{294} The ascent of the northern bank, is performed by climbing the steep foot-slope by a rugged path that winds amongst large stones, and ultimately surmounting the cliff by a wooden stair;—a fatiguing task, but one which is amply repaid by the commanding situation of the high ground on the Canadian side. As the cascade runs obliquely across the river, and exposes the concavity to the northward, the spectator is here, as it were, placed a little beyond the focus of the grandest amphitheatre. It is also in his power to approach close to the extremity of the pitch, and overlook the smoking Horse-shoe Bend, and peer down on the awful but indescribable convulsions that agitate the foaming bay.

The falls of Niagara are much visited by strangers, as during our short stay there we met with several persons who were examining them. There is a large tavern on each side of the river, and in the album kept at one of these, I observed that upwards of a hundred folio pages had been written with names within five months.

Immediately before reaching Kingston, we descended a steep ridge or step in the country. Opposite to this place is Queenstown, on the Canadian side of the river. Both these towns are at the lower end of the portage of Niagara. The chasm through which the river runs from the falls to this place, renders it highly probable that the cataract once poured itself over the ridge just noticed, and that it has subsequently made its progress upward to its present place. It would be interesting to ascertain the relative levels of the ridge above Kingston, and the old