Page:Niagara, a poem - Abraham Moore (1822).djvu/23

 down by the falling water, must necessarily release themselves at the bottom; and that half of them at least must force their way into the passage between the cataract and the rock. Out of this prison they have no other vent but through the vaulted opening, where the author encountered the irresistible storm, which all visitors experience, and the cause of which he is unable to explain upon any other principle.

After walking down the stream from the horse-shoe cataract on the Canadian side, about half a mile, you are opposite to the cataract on the American side, which is separated from the former by Goat Island. The reader will observe, that the river runs westward towards the falls, and then turns suddenly to the north; so that the line of the falls is almost diagonal across the elbow of the river; and consequently the visitor, after looking at the horse-shoe fall on the Canadian or western side, must go downwards on that side some way before he can be opposite to the cataract on the American side. He then descends from the cliffs near 200 feet to the water's edge, where a single ferryman rows him in a little wherry across the eddying torrent, and lands him just below the latter cataract.

This branch of the cataract breaks off nearly in an even line from the American side towards Goat Island, falls upon a shapeless pile of rocks, that have been precipitated from above, and rushes through their various openings into the lower river.